The Three Essentials of Zen

I’ve been thinking about faith. About what it is to me and how it relates to my practice. This reflection then led me to think about doubt, faith’s counterpart. And quite naturally, determination followed. Kapleau Roshi called these the Three Pillars of Zen, and his teacher, Yasutani Roshi, referred to them as the Three Essentials: Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Determination.

As I explored these essentials it occurred to me that each one contains itself, plus the other two. So instead of just three, we have three containing three, each of which contains three, and so on, into infinity. It’s like the image of a candle multiplied endlessly between two mirrors. That’s why, in order to practice, we only need a little bit of faith, just enough doubt, a flicker of determination. We need just enough to turn toward ourselves, toward a path, toward a different way of meeting our minds, which is the same as meeting the world. We just need one percent, Yasutani Roshi once said—enough to get us started. And if we stay with it, that bit of light will spark another bit of light that gets reflected in a skillful action, a word, a moment of letting go, and this flicker sparks another and another.

First, there is faith.

Edith Wharton said, “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” So we can have faith in our ability to awaken, or we can take actions that reflect that faith, even in a moment when we don’t feel it. If we waited to practice until we felt strong and clear and trusting, we might not practice at all. Sometimes we turn toward a faith we do not yet feel, and we base our actions, not on our feelings, but on our aspiration. “But that doesn’t feel sincere,” people sometimes say. Our sincerity is in our intent, not in our ever-changing states of mind.

Think of a period of zazen, especially during sesshin. In one moment you hate the person sitting next to you, their smell, their haircut, the way they’re breathing, the fact that they’re moving or not moving—you hate everything about them. The next moment—because you’ve been sitting—you’re in love with them. In fact, you’re in love with everyone and everything and you’ve decided you’ll move into the monastery, become a monk, and live happily ever after.

So what do we trust, if not our fickle minds?

It may sound simplistic, but sometimes it does come down to just doing the thing we have to do. We could call it discipline; we could call it faith. Still, when we say, “Trust yourself,” what does that mean? What are we trusting? This is such an important question for a practitioner. If I’m deluded, confused, not awake; if I don’t see clearly, then how do I trust what I see before me? How do I know that what I’m seeing is what is really there?

In the Old Testament, faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I would say that in Buddhism, faith is the “substance of things recognized, and the evidence of things not yet seen.” So here, having faith means knowing deep down that what you seek, you already are. That no matter how off course you think you’ve gone, you’re never actually lost. That’s why we can say that we’re perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Because wholeness is the truth of who we are. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. We just have to look at ourselves and at the world to see that there’s lots of work to be done. Like Suzuki Roshi said, “You’re perfect and complete, and you could use a bit of work.” Having faith is having faith in both truths. I’m perfect and complete, but I don’t act this way. I forget. I get afraid. Yet I trust my capacity to see and act out of my perfection, my wholeness. I trust my capacity to do that more and more.

The Buddha said that those who have faith in the Tathagata, who have faith in the Dharma, and have faith in the Sangha, have faith in the foremost. “And,” he said, “for those with faith in the foremost, the result will be foremost.”

First, we have faith in the Buddha—in his awakening and the awakening of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas who’ve come before us, as well as those who’ll come after us.

We also have faith in our teachers, in their vows to help us awaken. This means having faith, not just in their guidance, but also in their faith in us. In our own buddha nature.

Many times I’ve doubted myself and my ability to do this practice, to see clearly, to let go of my deeply entrenched habits, and my teachers would show me that they had utter faith in me. Then I would think, Well, if they think I can do it, and I trust them, then I must be able to do it. Their faith fueled my own.

Second, we have faith in the Dharma, in the teachings that point to harmony, to the end of craving and delusion. It is faith in the truth of things, in their suchness. So, having faith in the Dharma is having deep trust in things as they are, and in their capacity to help us awaken. How many stories have we heard of practitioners realizing themselves at the sound of raindrops, or on hearing a line from a sutra, seeing blossoms falling, or feeling the pain of a foot caught in a slamming door? Rain falls all the time, blossoms fall all the time. But when we’re ready to see and hear, we can experience the truth that the universe is ceaselessly expounding.

Third, we have faith in the Sangha, in the company of noble friends from whom we derive strength and guidance and inspiration to continue walking the path. That same person you hated during the last period of zazen, in this next period inspires you. You see them sitting in perfect stillness and you think, I want to do that. If they can do it, maybe I can too.

So we have faith in these Three Treasures, and this faith goes through four stages. First there is clear faith. Seeing the wonderful qualities of the Buddha, seeing them in your teacher or in someone you admire, your mind becomes clear and joyful. Then there’s longing faith. This is wanting to have those qualities yourself so you can be of benefit in this world. With confident faith you know you are able to attain the Way. And the more you practice, the more you know this and the harder it is to willfully go back to sleep. Finally, there is irreversible faith, where you can’t go back anymore. No matter how long the path, no matter how difficult—it doesn’t matter, because it’s your path and you simply have to walk it.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said, “Faith is the precious wheel that rolls day and night along the path of liberation.” But faith is not certainty. It’s the willingness to keep our eyes open. To stay awake and alert to what is true and real. One of the Desert Fathers told his monks, “You have to be all eye.” In other words, you have to be willing to see and hear and feel, and not know. It’s only through not knowing that we can really see things in their suchness.

As I was reflecting on these Three Essentials I came across Rilke’s “Spanish Trilogy.” And in the first poem there’s a line that says, “From me and all of this the whole universe: to make one thing.” But it’s not that we’re making one thing, really. The one thing—the necessary thing, the sacred thing—is always there. But we have to work to see it in everything. When we don’t see it, it becomes possible—for some even reasonable—to separate a parent from their child and put that child in a cage, as it’s happened at the border. It becomes possible to speak of political agendas and tough policies and keep at bay the knowledge that these agendas are affecting human beings.

The only way to willfully create harm is through the illusion of separation. The only way to unconsciously create harm is through the illusion of separation. That is why our practice is about getting close. It’s about getting close to strangers and friends. To everything we think we know and everything we don’t know. To what we love to see and what we would rather not look at, not think about, not meet. And this is difficult, of course. That is why Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Determination are so important.

This is Rilke again, in Letters to a Young Poet: “You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in in the palm of its hand and will not let you fall.”

Life holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. I would say, you hold yourself in your own hand, and if you know this, you cannot fall. Because what place, what thing, what other is there apart from you to fall toward? From all the various things you will ever meet, which one of them is not you?

Knowing this closeness, this unity, this wholeness is faith. Recognizing but not yet seeing this closeness arouses doubt, the second of the Three Essentials.

I’ve always seen doubt as the spring that gets the wheel rolling. It’s what sets us off on the path, so I’ve often wondered why it’s not the first of the Three Essentials. But maybe the reason is that we’re starting with the truth of original perfection, with the trust that we already have and are what we’re seeking, and Great Doubt is the first glimmer of this truth. It’s that moment in which we look at our lives, we look at ourselves or we look at the world, and we think, There has to be another way. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find it.

I said earlier that my teachers showed great faith in me, even when I doubted myself. But they were also very good at creating doubt when doubt was needed.

When I was chief disciple, Daido Roshi kept me on the same koan for the entire three months of training. I kept giving him answers and he kept saying, “No, no, no.” At first I thought, But I’m sure I’ve seen it. Then I started doubting myself: Maybe I haven’t seen it. Maybe I don’t have a clue. Maybe I haven’t had a clue; I haven’t really been practicing all these years. Or, I have been practicing, but it’s done nothing for me—an extremely depressing thought. I was very depressed by the end of that period, as well as desperate. And just before sesshin, when I had to start working on the koan I would present in my first talk, Roshi passed me on the koan I’d been stuck on. He passed me with an answer I had already given and had repeated in desperation at least a couple of times.

“But, but…. I said that months ago!” I said. “Oh, did you?” he answered innocently—then he rang me out of the dokusan room. I was furious, until I saw what he was doing. “Don’t think you know,” he was telling me in the midst of this important rite of passage. Don’t get cocky, because there’s worlds you haven’t seen.” It was exactly the right medicine for me at the time. I didn’t like it—I hated it, in fact—but even then, I could appreciate that it was what I needed.

Roshi was not afraid of my discomfort, of my not knowing. He wasn’t afraid to leave me in a state of tension and let me figure it out. This tension is doubt. It becomes Great Doubt when the question we’re asking is a fundamental question. Like the poet Margaret Gibson asking herself, “What if there is nothing?”

When Gibson was a child, she found herself standing on her porch one night looking up at the stars, and all of a sudden the question popped into her mind: What if there is nothing? And she was stunned, she said; her mind stopped. It was completely still and silent. But she couldn’t stay there long because she was afraid. Great Doubt can indeed be terrifying. What if there is nothing? What if I’m not who I think I am?

Then she thought, That’s ridiculous, because who’s the one asking this? There must be something. In this way, she reassured herself. Using words, she reestablished presence—her presence—but also presence in general.

But that liminal moment, that space in which she briefly did not know, is the space in which spiritual practice is born. Who am I? What am I? What is this life for? What is its purpose? Why am I here?

If faith is the “substance of things recognized and the evidence of things not yet seen,” doubt resides in the not yet. We sense there’s something there, but we don’t know what it is. So we doubt, but without forgetting that this doubt rests on a profound trust.

When Lyndon Johnson was president, Bill Moyers was his press secretary and at one point, Johnson asked Moyers to lead the prayer before a meal. Moyers started, and after a moment Johnson said, “Bill, speak up! We can’t hear you.” Moyers turned to Johnson and said, “Excuse me, Mr. President, but I wasn’t addressing you.”

There is a line in the Faith Mind Poem that says, “To return to the root is to find the meaning.” The root of what? The meaning of what? What is the root of the breath? Knowing its root, we know its meaning—which is to say, we know it for itself. We know not a description, but its nature. We know its purpose. But in order to do this, we have to experience the breath directly. We can’t be distant from it. Again, we have to get close.

Every morning at the monastery we chant the “Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani” and the dedication says, “The absolute light luminous throughout the whole universe, unfathomable excellence pervading everywhere. Whenever this devoted invocation is sent forth, it is perceived and subtly answered.” Who perceives it? Who answers it? What is that luminous light? What is its source, its root? What is its meaning?

In order to find out, we have to be willing to hold the tension of not knowing. It’s the only way to see what we have not yet seen. It’s a tension because we have to be willing to truly not know, and at the same time we have to want to know—badly. We have to really want to understand ourselves and our world. This is what spiritual practice demands of us—that we learn to hold that doubt. But we can’t do that if every time things get uncomfortable we distract ourselves or zone out. We need all our energy to hold that tension until it breaks and reveals something we could not see before. Of course, we all have moments when we think, I don’t want to deal with this, whether the “this” is ourselves or the world. With practice, our tolerance for what we can bear and our willingness to see what we don’t like to see in ourselves gradually increase. As we work toward allowing that to happen, we get larger. Or rather, we see that we’ve always been that large. We just couldn’t see it before. Why? Because of our knowing.

There’s a story about an ascetic called Dighanakha whose nephew became a disciple of the Buddha. Dighanakha wanted to know what this teacher—who at the time was largely unknown—had to teach. So he went to the Buddha and said, “What is your teaching? What are your doctrines? Because for my own part, I don’t like teachings and doctrines. I don’t subscribe to any of them.”

In response, the Buddha said to him, “Do you subscribe to your doctrine of no doctrines? Do you believe in your teaching of not-believing?”

“Whether I believe or not believe is not important,” said the cornered Dighanakha.

“Good,” said the Buddha, “because once you’re caught in doctrines, you lose all your freedom.” Then he said, “My goal is not to explain the universe, but to help guide others to have a direct experience of reality. Words cannot describe reality. Only direct experience allows us to see the true face of reality.”

To illustrate his point, the Buddha then offered the famous analogies of the finger pointing at the moon, and a person who uses a raft to cross to the other shore but does not carry the raft on their back. The finger just points; it is not the moon itself (though, from another perspective, it is in fact the moon). The raft is for crossing over, not for carrying on our backs. Yet this is exactly what we do, isn’t it? We carry around our beliefs and our biases. All our opinions about what the world is or should be—what we and others should be. Although this raft is heavy, and it’s uncomfortable, it is also comforting. It gives us a sense of presence, of solidity.

Still, the raft is not the reason we began to practice. So the question remains, Why am I doing this? What is it for?

A rabbi would always tell his students, “Pray well and sincerely, placing the prayers on your hearts.” And his students would ask him, “Why on our hearts and not in our hearts?” He said, “Place them on your heart so that when your hearts break, the prayers can fall in.”

This is what happens on the path—our hearts break over and over. A heart that’s awake or that wants to be awake, shatters and then comes together again. Because the heart is such a resilient organ, it can actually hold all those movements, those fluctuations of the body and the mind—all the times we don’t want to deal, the times we’re overwhelmed or fall short, those times when we say we want to do something and then we don’t. Our hearts can hold all of of our faith and all of our doubt. And because they’re our hearts and because they’re beating, they won’t let us stay frozen in our doubt. They’ll remind us that holding Great Faith and Great Doubt in a dynamic balance is Great Determination—the firm resolution to not give up until we can be utterly free.

Here’s an invocation for Great Determination. I based it loosely on Rilke’s third poem in his “Spanish Trilogy.”

May I, in the midst of chaos, in the jumble and noise of my mind or the jumble and noise of the world, remember sky and mountain slopes.

May I, in the midst of hammering confusion which clamors for my voice, my opinion, my actions, remember space and silence and the ground under my feet.
May my courage be steadfast, like a rock that does not crumble.
May this great work of waking up seem possible to me, and not just possible, but claimable as my right, my very nature, which means that even in my darkest hour, in my grimmest moment, I am still sky and slope and light.
May I never forget this, and if I do, may my noble friends on the path remind me.
May my steadfast vow remind me.

Rilke’s poem reminded me of the “Lorica of Saint Patrick,” a Gaelic prayer I stumbled upon a few years ago . A lorica or  “breastplate” is a Christian prayer of protection, and it’s similar to a dharani in Buddhism. The “Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani,” is a dharani to avert disasters, and it’s thought that it’s the sounds themselves that create the protection, not the meaning of the chant.

The story says that Saint Patrick sang the lorica for protection when he was riding into Ireland to bring Christianity to the Celts. The king, Laoghaire, did not want this to happen, so he sent a group of his men to ambush the Christian monks. Somehow, Saint Patrick got wind of the plan and began singing the lorica as soon as he entered the forest where the king’s men were hiding.

One version of the story then says that the song produced a mist of concealment and hid Saint Patrick and his monks from view. Another version says that the song actually cast a spell on the king’s men, so that what they saw before them was a herd of deer with a fawn among them. (That’s why the lorica is also called “the Deer’s Cry.”) In both versions, Saint Patrick was saved.

A short section at the beginning of the song reads, “I arise today through the strength of heaven, light of the sun, splendor of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of the wind, depth of the sea, stability of the earth, firmness of the rock.” The early Buddhist sutras speak of human beings as composed of five elements—fire, water, air, earth, and space—and this lorica asks for these elements for protection, saying in effect, “Let me be strong and clear and firm and fiery. Let me draw upon every good quality that I see in the world around me, because I will need it for the work ahead.” It makes me think of all the times I’ve drawn upon ki or chi—the life force in everything—when my own energy has been flagging. I draw from the energy of the mountain and the summer breeze and the greening trees and the still, still rocks. I draw it from the rain. And why wouldn’t I be able to draw from the energy of the world if I am the world itself? Why wouldn’t I be able to gain strength from you and you from me?

Later the lorica turns toward light and invokes its protection: “Light with me, light before me, light behind me, light in me, light beneath me, light above me.”

It’s good to remember that no shadows are formed without light. So those dark corners in us—those aspects of our personality we’d rather not acknowledge, we’d rather not deal with—their root is still light, which means we can’t just cut them out. We can’t just cut off our shadows. They go wherever we go. “May my courage be steadfast, like a rock that does not crumble. May this great work of waking up seem possible to me, and not just possible, but claimable as my right, my very nature, which means that even in my darkest hour, in my grimmest moment, I am still sky and slope and light.”

What makes this work seem possible? Why is it that sometimes we look at the path ahead and it looks inhumanly steep, it looks impossible—and other times we think, I can do this; I will do this. We do it, moment by moment. We let go of one thought, we are with one breath, over and over again. Sometimes the going is smooth, sometimes it isn’t, and still we do it. “I can’t do this,” is just another thought.

Maybe we think that to have Great Determination means we have to be heroic. We envision ourselves sitting in zazen hour after hour, long into the night as the Buddha did, until we experience the dropping away of body and mind; until we experience great, unsurpassed enlightenment. We think Great Determination looks like something, but it doesn’t. Just as practicing the breath, or a koan, or awareness, doesn’t look like something. That is simply our idea of practice, and once we dispense with it, we can get down to the business of actually practicing.

Great Determination is great because it turns toward rather than away from. It doesn’t shy away from what is difficult. It is great because it is steady and confident. It knows what it is capable of. Because of Great Determination we know—without even knowing how we know—that the path is not only walkable, but that we will do it. That we are doing it. It is similar to confident faith.

Many years ago, during a family camping retreat, I was struggling to light a fire. It was raining hard and all the wood, the kindling, the tinder was completely drenched. But I kept thinking, Every time I fail, the wood is a little bit dryer, so let me just keep trying. I kept trying and failing, and trying and failing, and then I thought, Maybe I just can’t do this. Maybe I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. But I’m stubborn. I didn’t want to give up. And after a while, something happened. I remember very clearly feeling the shift in my body. I looked at the fire and I knew I was going to light it. I thought, Just stay with this—you’re going to do it. And I did. Eventually I got a nice, roaring fire.

This kind of shift is so common in practice—especially after periods of protracted frustration. If we can just stay with it, something shifts. Usually the shift is very small, not dramatic at all. But we’re no longer yearning for what will be because we trust the Dharma in a new way. We trust our practice and our ability to practice in a new way. And when we need to, we get help. We invoke our ancestors through the practice of liturgy, we study with a teacher, we turn to the sangha for support and inspiration. That’s why we practice together, because in those moments of Great Doubt, we can be certain that others have felt what we’re feeling.

What is that moment of turning, and what leads to it if not Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Determination?

There is a sutra in the Pali canon called the Dhatu-vibhanga Sutta in which the Buddha is traveling through the countryside. He stops at a house and asks the owner if he can spend the night in his shed. The owner says, “No problem, except there is already a wanderer staying there.” This wanderer, as it turns out, had heard about the Buddha and his teachings and Great Faith arose in him. He’d never met the Buddha in person, but he decided to leave home and find the great teacher so he could become ordained under him.

That night, when the two travelers meet, the wanderer, not knowing who the visitor is, invites him to share the shed with him, and then he spends most of the night in meditation. The Buddha, struck by the man’s determination, decides to find out more. “Out of dedication to whom have you gone forth?” the Buddha says. “Who is your teacher? Of whose Dharma do you approve?”

And Pukkusati the wanderer says, “Out of dedication to the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, I have left home. He is my teacher. It is his Dharma that I approve.” In response, the Buddha decides to teach him anonymously.

I think of what a wonderful moment that is for Pukkusati. Not knowing that the one teaching him is the Buddha, he doesn’t get nervous, he doesn’t feel intimidated, he has no preconceived notions. He’s just listening to this other wanderer speak.

Eventually Pukkusati does figure out that it’s the Buddha who’s talking to him and he asks if he can become ordained. And among the teachings the Buddha offers him is that a person of the Way has four skilled determinations:

1. To be diligent about discernment or right view
2. To guard truthfulness,
3. To be devoted to renunciation
4. To train in equanimity

Right View, as the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, entails understanding the Four Noble Truths. It means recognizing the truth of suffering and the possibility of its cessation. But in this particular case, when the Buddha refers to discernment, he’s saying a person of the Way must know about the five elements that make up a human being. Paired with the five senses and the sixth sense (consciousness), we get perception of self and world.

He says, “Just like when you rub two sticks together you can make fire, when one of your senses makes contact with something pleasurable, the feeling of pleasure arises. But when you separate the sticks, the fire is stilled, pleasure is stilled, and all that remains is equanimity—a mind that is bright, luminous, and pliant—like gold that is heated so it becomes soft and malleable and you can make anything you want out of it.”

First, he’s instructing us to understand correctly through right view: I’m made of fire and water, air, and earth, sky and clouds, and trees and mountains slopes. I’m also made of the senses and consciousness, with which I can feel three kinds of feelings: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. When I come into contact with something, one of these three feelings arises. When I stop the contact, the feeling dies down, just as a fire cannot continue when you stop rubbing the sticks together. So the question becomes, What kinds of fires do I want to create and maintain? Which fires will I stoke and fan? Which will I let die out?

Answering these questions requires discernment and truthfulness. It also requires renunciation of that which will not lead to equanimity. Renunciation of that which will not lead to clarity and to stillness of body and mind.

Certain Native American tribes travel with a live ember, so they always have that source of life, of warmth, of light. I think of zazen—and certainly of samadhi, single-pointedness of mind—as that careful protection of my mind. Through determination and the careful renunciation of anything that obscures my clarity, I protect that live ember.

In addition to these four determinations there are seven qualities that the sutras say are needed to cultivate loving-kindness. And the reason I bring them up is to stress that determination is not cold or calculating. It is not dry, and it is not abstract. Zen has a reputation for sternness, and I, for one, would like to change that. I’ve said elsewhere that I consider zazen the ultimate practice of self-love and self-care. But it doesn’t hurt to make the loving-kindness aspect of Zen more explicit.

So, these seven qualities are:

1. Knowing all sentient beings to have been one’s mother 
2. Reflecting on their kindness
3. Repaying that kindness
4. Having a gentle approach towards self and others
5. Having a compassionate, sympathetic attitude
6. Going beyond your own limitations
7. Having an ever-present, constant, pure attitude

Khandro Rinpoche says that for many of us it’s difficult to believe that all beings have at one time been our mother. Is this true for those beings we don’t like, or the ones we never think about? Do we look at a caterpillar or a slug and think, Were you my mother?

Yet even science is showing that we share at least ninety-nine percent of our DNA and are fiftieth cousins to one another. If we look back far enough, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to think that every being we encounter was, at one time, our mother. And because of this, we regard all beings with respect and gratitude. Understanding our interdependence, our interbeing, we then reflect on the many kindnesses we have received. Reflecting in such a way, we determine to repay that kindness in small and large ways. We determine to be gentle and compassionate, and to be non-judgmental. We also determine to go beyond our own current limits, because we know that there is no other way to grow. Finally, we determine to have an ever-present, constant, pure attitude. I see this as consistency and integrity. And if I could humbly add one more quality, I would say it’s to cultivate courage.

Saint Teresa of Avila once said, “It is of great importance, when we begin to practice contemplation, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.” No matter what they are, they are our thoughts, they are our minds, which means they are us. And we cannot deal with them as long as we refuse to acknowledge them.

The last two lines of Rilke’s third poem in the “Spanish Trilogy” are: “In turn, he lingers and moves on like the day itself, and cloud shadows pass through him, as though all of space were thinking slow thoughts for him.” That’s such a beautiful image—all of space thinking slow thoughts for each of us.

So, let me leave you with a question: What kinds of thoughts would you think if you let all of space think slowly for you? What kinds of thoughts would space itself think?

*Photo by Aaron Burden