Q: Are there certain practices for different stages of development? I feel I have to meditate more than read. If I read a book about Zen I start at once to think that I ought to be meditating instead. Is sitting more important than reading for a beginning Zen student?
A: Sitting meditation is better than reading _ even for experienced students. But if reading reminds you to pay attention and practice, then reading is like taking a gentle medicine. You can, however, take too much medicine and make yourself sick: The medicine can create its own disease.
If you read a lot to inspire practice you are going in the wrong direction. A picture of a sandwich does not satisfy hunger; it may, in fact, increase your hunger. Nevertheless, reading can also be itself a form of practice if you sit quietly and read a short section that helps you to return to the essential purpose of spiritual practice or if it provides inspiration. Even if you do not understand the reading, as long as you remain open to it, you may some time in the future _ pchooh! _ have a realization of it. So reading like that may be helpful, but reading and studying intellectually should not be a substitute for practicing just as reading about compassion is not the same as acting compassionately.
Indeed, if there wasn't some value in reading, then Zen masters ancient and modern would not write. Despite the well-known Zen saying, "A special transmission outside the scriptures not depending on words and speech," many Zen masters gave talks and wrote or permitted their students to write down their words.
Zen schools don't make distinctions between practices for beginners and advanced students because that would be making distinctions like high and low, better and worse. What is important for students is to stay with a practice with consistent energy. In "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha" a story is told about a Korean monk nicknamed "Rock-head" who felt that sitting in meditation or studying Buddhist texts was way beyond him. He didn't know what to do, so he went to the master and asked, "What is Buddha? How should I practice?" The master answered, "Mind is Buddha." But this not-so-bright monk thought the master had said, "Buddha is grass shoes [straw sandals worn by monks]." As he bowed to the master on leaving him, the monk thought that he had been given a very difficult koan on which to meditate. Several months later when Rock-head was gathering firewood on the mountain above the temple, he tripped and fell and rolled down the mountain path. As he rolled his sandals came off and flew up and _ pchooh! _ hit his head. At that moment Rock-head had an awakening. When he picked himself up he saw that one of his sandals was broken. At once he ran to the Zen master to say, "Now I understand!" "What do you understand?" asked the master. The monk hit the master on the head with his sandal exclaiming, "It's all broken!"
This is an example of very low-class practice. The monk couldn't sit, couldn't chant, couldn't understand the scriptures. He couldn't even hear the teacher correctly. But when he got hit on the head and saw his broken sandal _ pchooh! _ he realizes that it is not just the sandal that is broken, but that small self is broken through!
The teaching here shows that any kind of practice is OK. The point is to ask ourselves with what kind of attitude are we doing it. For some people, one big question, "What am I? What is this?" is a good thing. For someone else repeating the short resonant phrase of a mantra is a good practice. The real question to consider is why are we doing this. What is our intention? A traditional Zen directive says, "You must make a firm decision to attain enlightenment and help others."
That's the "why": I want to understand myself and connect with this world. So whatever practice helps you to perceive your true self and to perceive that your true self is not separate from the world is a high-class practice for you.
Zen Master Wu Kwang, also known as Richard Shrobe, is guiding teacher of The Three Treasures Zen Center in Oneonta.
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