Progression and Levelling Up in Zen Practice

[Willyeast]

All,

Is there a defined path to progression in Zen to track progress in the form of levels or something similar?

Is length of time of each meditation session the best way to progress? How can we improve our progress?

[Onkai]

I'm a priest in training and have a lot to learn, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. I like to help, but I have a lot to learn.

In Soto Zen, we drop our goals when we practice. To sit in zazen, to do Shikantaza, is the expression of enlightenment, whether it is your first time, or whether you've been practicing for years. Sitting is timeless whether it is for five minutes or forty-five minutes. The pause in all of our strivings is much of the value of Shikantaza. Of course, when we get up from Zazen, goals guide our life and are useful and necessary.

Gassho, Onkai

[Kokuu]

Hi Willy

I 100% agree with Onkai here. Many Buddhist traditions and schools have set out stages of progress and/or stepwise path to enlightenment. Zen deliberately moved away from this. Our shikantaza (just sitting) practice drops away all ideas of gaining and meets everything just at it is in this very moment which contains all moments.

Dogen, the founder of our Japanese Soto school, said that there is no separation between practice and enlightenment:

"When for even a moment you express the Buddha’s mudra [dhyana mudra with hands in the lap] in the three activities [thought, speech and action] by sitting up straight in harmonization, the whole world of events and experiences becomes the Buddha’s mudra and the whole of space is realized."

This is the same for someone sitting for the first time and the abbot of Eiheiji monastery.

However, although we drop away all goals, it is also true that we may notice that our ability to be aware of what is happening increases, or we become less reactive, or less self-focussed. Is this progress? In some ways yes, but our practice remains the same - to meet this moment just where it is knowing that it is full and complete just as it is, with nothing more to gain and nothing to take away.

It is part of our human nature to want to make progress, and to achieve, and hit targets and goals. Shikantaza totally undercuts all of this and instead asks 'what is this very moment right here and now, with no comparison of success or failure, past or future?'. This approach can be hard to come to terms with because we do spend so much of our life chasing after results (and in a workplace this is no bad thing and bosses tend not to be so happy if you drop attachments to targets and deadlines!) but it is what makes it so powerful as an antidote to our regular 'gaining mind'.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Bion]

All,

Is there a defined path to progression in Zen to track progress in the form of levels or something similar?

Is length of time of each meditation session the best way to progress? How can we improve our progress?

Hello! Allow me a tiny comment here, to add to what's already been said.
I think your big question here is basically "how can I make progress?" The answer to that I'd say heavily depends upon your definition of progress. What do you hope or aim to see happen? What do you think should happen as one practices diligently? What ideas are you coming into practice with and do they match with true practice as we engage in it? What does true practice mean? Answering those questions for oneself requires time, practice and study. I think one becomes more experienced with time, sharpens their sight and their understanding. The great point about our Zen practice is that doing it already IS progress.
On a more practical side, my mind goes to the example of a surgeon. One has a clear set of rules and steps needed to do a surgery, whether one is a brand new surgeon or has been practicing for 40 years. One does not start operating being clueless, yet a seasoned surgeon has a baggage of experience, and although every single surgery is unique and in a way a first, somehow their eyes see differently, their ears hear differently, their hands move in ways conditioned by their past successes and failures. One does not operate with the goal of getting to that stage, but rather gets to that stage because they operate, so the goal of every operation is the operation itself. Somehow I think of our practice similarly from a certain perspective. Simply practicing right now, for the sake of practice itself is all that's needed.

Sorry if I'm not entirely helpful. Please understand these are just my thoughts and I'm just novice, learning and practicing, so probably my words are better taken with some salt. Also, apologies everyone for this wall of text! I ran a bit long

Gassho
sat and lah

[Matt Johnson]

https://www.buddhistelibrary.org/en/thumbnails.php?album=148

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/treeleaf/treeleaf-community-topics-about-zen-practice/archive-of-older-threads/5772-the-five-ranks-of-tozan?t=10815

https://terebess.hu/zen/dogen/dogenandthefiveranks.pdf

_/\_

sat/ah

Matt

[mdonnoe]

Hello Willyeast,

I'd also like to jump in to this thread, and echo the kind and wise advice of Onkai, Kokuu and Bion.

Some Buddhist traditions (such as what one might experience in the Shambhala path, or in some Westernized Theravada sanghas, such as Spirit Rock) place more emphasis on "levels" and progression along their designated path, towards a "goal" or place in practice or within their sanghas. Also - with the Vajrayana (e.g., Tibetan) traditions in particular, and in the Abhidharma literature, there's discussion of and teachings on what are called "Bhumi," or stages / levels of attainment in practice. I'm not quite sure which you refer to in your question, or which you may have heard about already, if any.

From a purely practical / concrete point of view, you're receiving rather poetic answers here, because that's often how Zen is discussed / transmitted - in other words, how does one describe the inconceivable - that is, how can one show you their heart / mind, the experience of awakening, other than through poetry? Master Dogen's "Zazenshin" (the "acupuncture needle of zazen") does a wonderful job of this - but again, it's all poetry.

What Onkai, Kokuu and Bion have shared here is beautiful, and their words are wiser than my own. I'll offer my two cents: If you want to practice the Zen path, don't worry about levels. None are "hidden" from you, and there is no esoteric path here. Just sit zazen, and that in itself is the path and practice.

I'm merely a student, so please take what I've shared with a grain of salt, a sprinkle of common sense, and a whole heaping helping of good advice from more senior practitioners.

Gassho,

Michael
Sat/Lah

[Jundo]

The Ten Oxherding Pictures - Buddhist eLibrary

https://www.buddhistelibrary.org/en/thumbnails.php?album=148

No Matt. That is not our way here. Listen to what the priests are saying in the thread.

The Oxherding comes in Shikantaza without stages and goals, and yet we come to know life many such ways.

I might say the "Five Positions" or "Ranks" are more insights that may come on the relationships of phenomena and the absolute, but which comes along in Just Sitting without goals. It is not a stage or progression.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Jundo]

One of my personally favorite talks, even I need to listen to be reminded sometimes ...

SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: WHAT's NEXT!?!

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/teacher-talks-tips/teacher-talks-tips-aa/talks-tips-and-topics-by-jundo/4564-sit-a-long-with-jundo-what-s-next#post4564

Gassho, J
stlah

[Hoseki]

All,

Is there a defined path to progression in Zen to track progress in the form of levels or something similar?

Is length of time of each meditation session the best way to progress? How can we improve our progress?

Hey Willy,

There is a lot of cultural messaging about growth and becoming but when I looked closely often it of turned out to be someone trying to sell me something or to get me to train myself so a company won't have to invest as much if they hire me. For a long time I was caught up in these kinds of ideas and I think some of those ideas lead me here. So I don't have any regrets. But overtime I've come to more or less be OK with who I am and those ideas no longer have much sway. Rightly or wrongly, I attribute this to our practice. You might have a similar experience. I think Zen helps to loosens the hold our ideas have on us. As hard as we hold onto ideas ideas hold on to us just as hard. When you loosen they loosen. So I don't worry about progress I just try to steer this skin bag to wholesome and gentle actions. I leave progress to take care of itself. I'm not sure if any of this is helpful but it's been my experience.


(apologies for the length)

Gassho,

Hoseki
Sattoday/lah

[Kaisho]

I've had similar thoughts and occasionally need a reminder too about progress and had notions of gain or fame but one of the things I've noticed and the reason why I have stuck with Soto zen is that their is nothing to gain and no progress to be made in practice. Just being right here and right now is enough. That doesn't mean we can't watch dharma talks or read books to gain knowledge from our teachers and learned scholars, but even then sitting is enough to fill a life time.

Gassho,
Kaisho (Chelsea)
Satlah

[Willyeast]

Thank-you all, I think I will listen to the talk. I have most of my life thought in terms of levelling. LIke someone said in the comments, a lot of our lives revolve around the material side of levelling up. This does have utility as we have tasks and goals to achieve them so it would be a new idea for me to reconsider these new concepts.

[Jundo]

Thank-you all, I think I will listen to the talk. I have most of my life thought in terms of levelling. LIke someone said in the comments, a lot of our lives revolve around the material side of levelling up. This does have utility as we have tasks and goals to achieve them so it would be a new idea for me to reconsider these new concepts.

It is not an "either/or" situation. It is more like living and experiencing life both ways at once, as one. This is what I always say about that ...

The ability to be at rest completely, to realize the preciousness and wholeness of life in this moment is a skill we have lost in this busy world. We chase after achievements, are overwhelmed with jobs that feel undone, and feel that there are endless places to go and people to see. The world can seem a broken and hopeless place. Thus, it is vital that we learn to sit each day with no other place in need of going, no feeling of brokenness nor judgment of lack, nothing more in need of achieving in that time but sitting itself. We sit with the sense that there is nothing to fix or place in need of getting, because this “not needing” is a wisdom that we so rarely taste. How tragic if we instead turn our Zazen or other meditation into just one more battle for achievement, a race to get some peaceful place, attain some craved prize or spiritual reward. Or, on the other hand, how equally tragic if we use Zazen just as a break from life, a little escape, never tasting the wholeness and completeness of life. By doing so, Zazen becomes just one more symptom of the rat race, and the prize is out of reach. True peace comes not by chasing, but by resting now in peace and equanimity.

In fact, when we truly taste to the marrow the real meaning of “nothing to achieve”, we have finally attained a great spiritual achievement! As strange as it sounds, resting in stillness without need to run is, in fact, truly getting somewhere!

Then, rising from the cushion, we may experience the world in a new way. The wisdom of sitting is portable. We bring the stillness of the cushion into the motion and calamity of life. Getting on with our busy day of places to go and goals to fulfill, a part of us is now beyond going and goals (nonetheless, we go and try to do what needs to be done). Working hard in the office or doing housework at home, we equally experience that there is no job yet undone (nonetheless, we roll up our sleeves and get to work). Seeing this world with all its problems and suffering, we experience that there is nothing to fix (yet we get busy to fix what we can and make this world better). Heading to the hospital to get our body healthy, part of us also knows that something about this world never needs fixing. It is as if we now encounter the world two different ways that are truly united as one: working for goals on the one hand, yet on the other, all goals dropped away; busy and pressed for time, yet tasting something beyond all measure of time; cleaning a dirty house or dusty temple, yet knowing a Buddha’s Eye of equanimity free of judgment; doing what one can to solve problems, yet ultimately what problem? In doing so, whether as monk or someone’s mommy or daddy, one develops the sense that everything in one’s day is equally sacred, not lacking, thoroughly complete. Nonetheless, one does what needs doing.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Rich]

I don’t really view my life in terms of leveling up but if you knew me in my 20s and met me now you might say oh he’s not so reactionary, maybe more relaxed and calmer. The truth is in terms of my living conditions I’ve made a huge leveling up in the past 6 months. One step at a time.

sat/lah

[Ryumon]

Only one level. No XP.

(Bodhidharma said that.)

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat Lah

[Jundo]

Only one level. No XP.

(Bodhidharma said that.)

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat Lah

What is XP??

Gassho, J
stlah