Two kinds of practice

 I tend to put what people today call "practice" into two categories.  There is practice for getting us to the gnosis of pure Mind, or the same, seeing our true nature (kensho), and there is practice after gnosis for the perfection of pure Mind.  It is my impression, that 99% of the so-called practitioners today are working of the first practice with very little success in the way of gnosis or kensho.  Practice, we might say, has become something close to going around in circles. 

If our practice were on the right track, that is right practice, more people would be experiencing authentic kensho in which pure Mind reveals itself all at once.  I dare say that this is not happening.  Part of the reason might be because some practitioners believe practice is kensho which is almost equivalent to saying, if you're prospecting for gold you've found it, so you are rich.  This is Soto Zen's logic.

Dogen's version of Soto Zen, the way I read it, understands that with each moment of practice there is also a moment of enlightenment.  Practice and enlightenment are inseparable; they are coordinate.  This seems like wishful thinking to me.  Wouldn't it be nice if in one minute of doing zazen (tso-chan) there was one moment of enlightenment?  Wow!  Sorry, but the first category of practice is more like looking for our glasses when they are perched on our nose or, in the words of Zen Master Hyakuja, "It's like riding an ox, trying to find it."  Even though pure Mind is omnipresent—we have never seen it before.  That's the problem.  If I ask you to bring me a cup, well, you already know what a cup looks like.  But you've never seen pure Mind.  Now, if I ask you to bring me the pure Mind, is that going to work?  Likely not.  Finesse is required because you've never seen the pure Mind.

In my own example, between the years of 1965 to 1969 I grew more and more cognizant of the fact that not only does Zen teach kensho, but I am required to experience something that I am not seeing or experiencing right now that is profound.  Sitting  in zazen is not the answer anymore than chanting the Heart Sutra day in and day out or making my robes.  Practice, rightly understood, is going from the gross to the subtle.  Hopefully, one day sitting on the ox, in search of an ox that you haven't found yet, you think to yourself, what am I riding?  This is practice which leads to the second kind of practice. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Ian]

Thank you for another valuable post Zennist.However I do believe that laying the blame at Dogen for what much of Soto has degenerated into is unfair and-more importantly-leads your readers away from a valuable source of spiritual teachings-and I am neither a Soto-ist(?) or a Dogen fanboy.Here are a few quotes I believe are his(admittedly from memory):"Turn the light inwards on what is not born and does not die" "How does one think of not thinking?Be BEFORE thinking" "To study The Way is to study The Self,To study The Self is to forget oneself,To forget oneself is to drop off body and mind,To drop off body and mind is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things" "In shikantaza it is not just the body that sits but the mind that sits".I believe a fairer appraisal of the merits and limitations of Dogen can be found at a site called anaditeaching in an article called Shikantaza-being without soul.Anadi was formerly Aziz Kristof and he may have a teaching that-after 2500 years for the evolution of understanding-may surpass even that of The Buddha!?!!.(Please don't ban me like electric black :) )