Stages of Practice

A Dharma Talk by
Josho Pat Phelan

Over the years of practicing zazen with a group, I’ve noticed that sometimes when people begin practicing, they may sit every day for six months or a year or longer, or they may come to the zendo for everything; and then stop. There may be practical reasons for this such as changes in their schedule or job, their health, or their parents need care, or a child is born, and so on. Other times people may feel that their practice is getting stale or static, or that they have been ignoring other aspects of their lives or parts of themselves, or they may experience negative states such as anger, fear, oppression or resistence when they practice which they find unpleasant or discouraging.

Zen practice and zazen isn’t for everyone. There are many Buddhist traditions and, of course, non-Buddhist practices because different people find support in different ways. But I think it is valuable, and I recommend talking with a teacher about the difficulty you may be having in practice, partly because I think we should be able to practice with everything, even feelings of resistance and aversion to practice. But, again, I don’t mean that everyone who begins practicing Zen or who practices seriously for several years should never stop or shouldn’t try something else; I mean that whatever we experience should be put under the lense of, “how can I practice with this?” Or, “what can I learn from this?”

One question I think we all have in practice, in one way or another is, “am I trying hard enough? Am I doing enough? And, how do I know?” There is a story about the Chinese Zen Master Linchi, or Rinzai, who became the founder of Rinzai Zen and was known for his fierce teaching style. One day while Linchi was a monk in training, he was sitting at the rear of the meditation hall sleeping soundly during zazen while the head monk was sitting sternly at the front of the hall. The Abbot, Huangpo, entered the meditation hall and with his staff, lightly tapped the meditation platform where Linchi sat, and Linchi opened his eyes and looked up, and then shut them and went back to sleep.

Huangpo tapped the platform again and walked off. He then went to the front of the hall where the head monk was meditating intently, and struck him, saying, “What do you think you are doing with all your deluded thoughts? That man at the rear of the hall is the one who is really meditating.” Perhaps the head monk, in his effort to practice, was bringing something extra — an idea about the goal of his efforts, or an idea about himself as a practitioner, or as the head monk who was leading others. Our deep conditioning to work toward a result or an achievement is a kind of deluded effort in practice.

In the book How to Cook Your Life, Uchiyama Roshi said that “Dogen Zenji did not intend that we get rid of all delusions, fantasies, or thoughts that come into our heads during zazen... Trying to get rid of thoughts is just another form of fantasy...” He said, “The most important thing ... when practicing zazen is to completely let go of everything.” This includes letting go of grasping at letting go.

The story about Linchi, as with all Zen stories, is contextual. These stories are about particular people who have particular strengths and weaknesses. The interaction or response that’s given brings that particular individual into balance, or completes the lack in that person’s understanding. In Zen, there is no one teaching or one truth that you can apply to every situation. When someone asked Suzuki Roshi for a Zen teaching that would always be true, he said, “not always so.” In this story, it looks like Huangpo is letting the head monk know that he can relax a little, that he doesn’t need to take himself so seriously, or work so hard to get rid of delusion, or get enlightened. Taking ourselves too seriously means taking our selves as separate.

Sometimes intense effort can be a way of controlling ourselves, or controlling our mind. Later when Linchi was teaching, he cautioned against making artificial effort in practice, saying that one should “simply be an ordinary person with nothing to do.” This story is especially interesting to me since Linchi, or Rinzai, is known for his vigorous teaching style with shouting and hitting.

A common teaching in Zen is, “Ordinary Mind is the way.” Sometimes people mistake this to be just doing what comes naturally by acting on whatever impulses arise. For example, when you want chocolate, eat chocolate; when you want a beer, drink a beer; when you feel angry, speak your mind, expressing whatever you feel. But acting on or acting out our impulses is not the “ordinary mind” of Zen; neither is allowing the mind to wander away with whatever thoughts arise.

In Zen, ordinary mind means Original Mind before discursive, dualistic consciousness arises with its conditioned habits and thinking. Original Mind is bare consciousness before the functions of discursive mind are engaged. Kokyo Henkel described Original Mind as “the unadorned, non-grasping mind ... with nothing extra added.” I think we practice in order to come home, to return to Original Mind. We do this by getting to know our deeply conditioned impulses thoroughly by sitting still with them. When we are still enough to meet them as they arise, we will no longer follow them blindly or be pushed around by them.

In Master Dogen’s teaching, there are no stages of practice nor is there much description of the meditation experience. Other than posture, the instructions are more about what not to do. Dogen described zazen as “the activity of non-doing.” Silent Illumination was the Chinese predecessor of shikantaza, or zazen as we practice it. The Chan Master Sheng-yen described silent illumination as “a simple method.” He said,

...so simple, in fact, that this simplicity becomes its difficulty. Ultimately, it is the method of no-method, in which the practitioner leaves behind all seeking, all attachment, all expectations, and just lives Chan (or Zen) directly. To practice silent illumination, just drop all busywork and discriminating thoughts and be serenely aware, accepting all things fully, just as they are.

Mind is naturally silent and still, and at the same time, fully aware. No effort is needed to polish it or make it shine for it to be this way.

Master Sheng-yen also talked about meditation more discursively, describing three stages of Chan, or Chinese Zen meditation. Maybe because there is so little description of the meditation experience in Soto Zen, I enjoy reading things like this. He described the first stage of meditation as the mind following the environment, the second stage as the environment moving in accordance with mind, and the third stage as the environment being extinguished together with mind and mind disappearing together with the environment.

In the first stage of the mind following the environment, the environment means the external world — anything outside ourselves. Master Sheng-yen said that this

...is the condition we find ourselves in most of the time. When our minds are turned by phenomena, it is the mind that follows the environment. In identifying with these phenomena, we are turned, or influenced, by them. If the phenomenon is sufficiently compelling, we can become so immersed in it that we lose our identity during that time.

He gave the examples of becoming immersed in looking at a beautiful landscape... or listening to music. He said, “In practice you can use it to your advantage. Lose yourself in your method, whether it be counting breaths or walking meditation.... Allow your mind to identify completely with the environment created by your method.” I want to emphasize that these are his instructions.

In Soto Zen, although you may identify completely with the object of your meditation, in the sense that there is no separation between you and the content of your meditation, at the same time there is awareness or presence, you shouldn’t be lost. For example, when we practice awareness of the breath and feel one with our breathing, we also should be aware or know that we are breathing, and this awareness keeps us from becoming so absorbed in the breath that we lose ourselves completely. Or maybe you lose yourself in terms of your usual orientation, but you don’t lose conscious awareness or go into a trance. Another example is that your personal identity or the boundary between inside and outside may become thinner or transparent, and you may experience yourself as an aspect of a greater whole, but again there is awareness. I think a common fear in zazen is if we let go completely, we will lose our selves and not be able to come back. But I find no matter how much I let go during zazen, when the bell rings, I always come back. I never forget to uncross my legs and stand up.

The second of Master Shen-yen’s three stages is the environment moving in accordance with mind. He talked about this as using your imagination or attitude to change your perception toward the environment, particularly something you are having a strong reaction to. Rather than trying to change things outside yourself, you change your attitude toward them. He said,

All the same, letting go is the best way to deal with disturbances, especially ones that come up suddenly. [For example,] If you are shocked by the sudden sound of a loud, ringing buzzer, there is no time to prepare for your sudden annoyance at being disturbed. But the buzzer rings for just a moment or two. So, too, your annoyance should last for a moment or two. If you hold on to that annoyance after the buzzer has stopped ringing, then you have been turned by the environment.”

He said, “let it go.”

Master Sheng-yen’s third stage of meditation is when “the environment is extinguished together with mind, and mind disappears together with the environment.” This is the same as the teaching that the subject and the object of discriminating consciousness always arise together and pass away together. When he said “mind disappears,” he doesn’t mean that you pass out or lose consciousness or turn into a zombie; and when he says, “environment is extinguished,” he doesn’t mean that the external world disappears or goes somewhere else. In non-duality, the perceiver and that which is perceived are not experienced as separate. So, neither the mind nor the world go anywhere, but the distinction or separation between them falls away. This is simply consciousness without thought, or consciousness without an object.

Although Master Sheng-yen taught different meditation methods as well as describing various stages, I think the practice ends up looking like zazen. He said,

You need a clear understanding of the concepts of Buddhism, but they cannot substitute for the real experience. You must actualize the ideas through practice.... Chan talks about sudden enlightenment, which implies that there are really no stages…. A teacher cannot say, ‘At the first step you should do this, at the second step, you should do that, and at the third step, eventually and gradually you become enlightened.’ Although we talk about stages of practice, these stages only give us the general direction.”

No matter what our understanding is, to really practice, sooner or later, we have to give it up or our understanding will become a roadblock. Master Dogen referred to this as going beyond Buddha, not being attached even to realization. Master Sheng-yen said,

In talking about stages, we are only describing the sense of self in different circumstances, to give you an understanding of the self as you experience it in practice. We speak of stages ... but when you actually let go of the self, there are no stages that can be talked about.

The whole point of practice is to drop attachment to self. At that moment, that is enlightenment; there is no stage.

Notice that he doesn’t say, to get rid of the self, or to become a No-Self. We all have a karmic self, informed by our parents, culture, language, temperament, genes, etc. Rather, this practice is not to identify with this constructed, conditioned, karmic self as the truest thing we are.

Other Buddhist traditions also describe stages in practice, but Zen tends to view these descriptions as conceptualizations that we run the risk not only of attaching to, but having a description tends to set in motion our expectations. Expectations of what we anticipate happening keep the experience itself at bay, the way reaching out for an inner tube in the water pushes it away. Not only is the anticipation a conceptualization that maintains duality, it also gets our judgement involved which tends to prompt us to reject our actual experience. I think sometimes people read and think so much about meditation experience and they imagine it so well, that they forget they haven’t actually experienced it, sometimes becoming bored with the idea of practicing before actually settling into it.

How do we distinguish necessary effort from the artificial effort Linchi referred to? Artificial effort has to do with discursive consciousness in which we compare our practice to a standard and try to conform to it, e.g. trying to sit in full lotus or being too serious about the forms as a way for our practice to feel or appear authentic. The risk we run in doing this is that it is easy to follow the form while missing the inner experience. Of course, it’s OK to follow the form — you are encouraged to follow the form of practice, but do it from the inside out by dropping the idea of the form.

In Zen, not only does practice have no stages, but there is also no fixed teaching. When asked, “What is Buddha?” the 8th century Chinese Master Ma-tsu first taught “this very mind is Buddha”; and after his disciples adjusted to it, he taught, “Not mind, Not Buddha.” Dogen taught that just sitting is itself realization, that it is not necessary to recite sutras or do ceremonies. But he also developed forms for many of the mundane activities of monastic life such as bathing, using the toilet and brushing your teeth.

We just about have to use language and concepts to teach, but the words only point us in a direction. Actual practice is encountered alone and, although hearing suggestions about how to do it can be helpful, we encounter it through our own experience. Most of us go about our practice by experimenting, doing too little and then trying harder; maybe doing too much and then pulling back, getting to know when we need to be strict with ourselves and when it works better to be gentle; and hopefully in the process, we find out how to nurture and support our practice.

So, practice tends to be a kind of fine tuning to find just the right amount of effort, to find what supports continuity or constancy of practice, letting our intention guide us. But there are no markers or grades to let us know we are doing enough. And no matter what effort we make, in the end, the whole point of practice is to drop attachment to self.