Sōtō Zen is the tradition of just sitting. Its practice is shikantaza: sitting in open, wakeful awareness, seeking nothing and adding nothing, trusting that the awakening every seeker looks for is already the ground underfoot. This short, clear guide was written for someone starting with nothing. In a handful of unhurried chapters, it lays out the whole shape of Sōtō Zen: its long history from the Buddha to Dōgen and on to the modern West, its core teachings, the real forms of daily practice, the key texts, the people who carried it, and what it asks of anyone who takes it up today. It comes from a physician and lay practitioner who found the cushion through loss and kept sitting. All proceeds support the Greenville Zen Center.