To Gain or Not to Gain

I am a student of Zen who not infrequently transgresses the boundaries of Zen orthodoxy. For instance, I sometimes think that I am getting somewhere, either in the practice or in the understanding of the practice. That is a clear violation of the rule that one ought not harbor “gaining ideas.” The desire to get something out of my practice is a crime for which I am happy to assume guilt. Do I want to make progress? I do. Do I want to improve my understanding of the process? I do. And why shouldn’t I? The more I learn about what is happening when I sit on the zafu, the better I will be able to explain zazen to others. It helps, of course, that zazen is fascinating in itself.

The notion that students of Zen can practice without motivation of any kind is a non-starter. Whether one is willing to admit it or not, most of us expect to feel better as a result of sitting for a while, as well we should. If Zen is Buddhism, then we are promised relief from suffering. As Katherine Thanas famously said of the commitment to daily sitting, “Try it. It will change your life.” Realization of complete, unsurpassable awakening may be the ultimate, but it is the gradual acquisition of mental acuity and tranquility that keeps us coming back to the zendo. Those who sit for months and years without noting any benefit will quit unless someone shows them how to make their zazen get results.

But results are just what we are told not to expect. Zen is “useless,” “good for nothing,” and so on. Dōgen Zenji himself tells us that “zazen is not shōzen,” meaning that the phrase “sitting in dhyāna” is not to be taken to indicate a kind of training that leads to a goal. Let me confess straightaway that I do not believe him. That kind of advice, whether it comes from Dōgen or a contemporary master, is intended to help us to reduce our expectations, to cease projecting ourselves into imagined futures, and to focus on the sitting itself. In other words, it is an expedient device. As such, it useful for certain people under certain circumstances and should not be thought of as dogma.

The more interesting part of this inquiry is our answer to a question that is bound to arise once we allow ourselves to enjoy the fruits of  Zen practice without guilt, namely, “If zazen is not useless—if it is really the sort of activity that has a method and a learning curve—then what is it and how is it related to the central Buddhist practice of establishing mindfulness?” I will attempt to answer this question from several viewpoints in future posts.