Detaching From Results
Detaching From Results
Take the Backward Step and Turn the Light Inward
Two weeks ago, I offered a reflection about Hope as a way of writing about A.A.’s Step Eight. Its inspiration was the question, What gets in the way of starting the amends-making process? which is all the step invites the person in recovery to do, by the way.
Please begin by listing the people you harmed and find the willingness to make amends with them.
That is it, though for various reasons—Hope among them—it is easier said than done.
Subsequent steps in the amends-making process are the focus of A.A.’s Step Nine, which reads:
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
The “direct amends” can appear in several ways, including writing a letter, scheduling a face-to-face conversation, or committing to a “living amend.” All of them can meet with obstruction. Consider the following questions:
Will the person accept my apology? Will the relationship be restored to its former state? Will I be kicked out of the room before even beginning, and all my effort preparing suddenly cast into the wind? Will I be able to read my letter without breaking down in tears or becoming resentful after the fact?
You can feel Hope lurking behind each of these questions. Also present are expectations, preferences, and judgments—especially those with a moral dimension, sometimes expressed in terms of desert, fairness, or justice. Really, anything that triggers the “I want what I want and when I want it” way of thinking that is familiar, though not exclusive, to recovery spaces.
As I listed possible blocks from my own story, I noticed that they had been the focus of my writing for several months. Something of such significance usually merits a name to capture the connected yet distinct elements. The name that immediately came to mind is “Detaching From Results,” hence the title of this post.
My inability to let life unfold in its own way gets in the way, and not only in amends-making. My Guiding Teacher and I continually return to this topic during Dōkusan, a private meeting with a Dharma Teacher to discuss your practice. How surprised I was—and at the same time not at all—to discover its presence in my writing, in addition to my time on the cushion, chanting, contemplative walks, and study.
If you prefer another name, alternatives include: “Living Life On Life’s Terms,” “Putting Gratitude In My Attitude,” or “Being With And Responding To What Is.” These sound positive when set alongside “Detaching From Results,” which sounds negative. What do “positive” and “negative” mean in this context? Your guess is as good as mine; they are placeholders for precise descriptions that are not yet at hand. So is the word “good,” by the way. Still, the divide is meaningful. The “positive names” are what I aspire to; the “negative name” ties itself to some of what obstructs the fulfillment of that aspiration.
For this post, I want to focus on the “thing behind the things,” as Jim P., my first sponsor, would say. Dōgen Zenji would encourage “tak[ing] the backward step and turn[ing] the light inward,” an expression from the Fukanzazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen) that has tremendous significance here and in Zen practice generally.
If expectations and preferences, judgments, and hopes—collectively, that which frustrates “detaching from results”—are obstacles in the recovery process, then why is letting them go so tricky? More importantly, how do we practice with that, whatever it is?
Dōgen’s instruction to “take the backward step and turn the light inward” echoes a couplet from Shitou Xiqian’s poem Sōan-ka (Song of the Grass-Roofed Hermitage). The couplet reads:
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast inconceivable source cannot be faced or turned away from.
What is this “light” that both Dōgen and Shitou encourage us to reorient so that it shines not without but within? One response is our sight—the capacity that is actualized through our ocular faculties and the capacity of awareness generally, which arises together with our bodily or physical form, feelings, perceptions, and mental formations.
So much of the time, our sight is directed outward, and for good reason. Without its orientation outside of us, navigating the world we are a part of would be challenging. We need to see what is in front of us, around us, what is ahead, and where we are going.
Yet it is not so much where we are looking that causes friction and, therefore, difficulty “detaching from results.” It is what we are doing when fixed in that direction. Sometimes, I call it “carving and categorizing”; other times, I refer to it as “dividing and dualizing.” We take a whole and interconnected world and, through concepts, ideas, and language generally, separate this and that, this from that, that from this, and that and this.
So that we are all clear, we are not, in fact, carving and dualizing the world; it remains as whole and interconnected as it was before our minds began this double-edged activity. As Shoushan tells the monk, “It cannot be defiled.” But we believe—though I am not sure why and why with such ease—that what we project onto the world is the way that the world is.
Recognition of this point invites us to read the second line of the couplet differently:
The vast inconceivable source cannot be faced or turned away from.
After receiving some instruction, we usually ask, OK … now what? And if we are eager or anxious, we offer possibilities: Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I do this and this, but not that? This activity of identifying and offering some possibility sets any other possibility—or class or range of them—to one side, either implicitly or explicitly. That is, we continue categorizing and dividing.
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
OK. Then … should I sit down (and therefore not stand)? Should I close my eyes (and thus not simply dim my gaze)? Should I put my hands in this position (and therefore not some other position)? Should I cross my legs this way (and thus not some other way)? An endless array of options instantly appear right before your eyes. But then we read
The vast inconceivable source cannot be faced or turned away from.
which cuts through all of them, including Shitou’s instruction from the previous line, and encourages relating differently to the entire activity. The reorientation is helped through the sharp statement because it offers assurance and an invitation. “You cannot fail in your effort,” it says, “because you cannot face or turn away from the whole of what is. So please breathe easy and settle down right here.” It is as effective as Mañjuśrī’s sword, an instrument of awakening that cuts things into one.
The last stanza of the poem reads:
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely open your hands and walk, innocent. Thousands of words, myriad interpretations, are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, please do not separate from this skin bag here and now.
Suppose that we heed Shitou’s instruction. Settling down right here, we relax and resolve not to separate from the body-mind—this “skin bag”—at which our light shines. What will we find?
Here, we should return to Dōgen’s Fukanzazengi. Most of this short essay concerns the mental posture appropriate for zazen (seated meditation). The essay opens with a string of questions that express the heart of Dōgen’s practice-life, what lit the flame of bodhicitta (the mind in search of awakening) in him and kept it alive for many years.
The real way circulates everywhere; how could it require practice or enlightenment? The essential teaching is fully available; how could effort be necessary? Furthermore, the entire mirror is free of dust; why take steps to polish it? Nothing is separate from this very place; why journey away?
The way surrounds and supports us. It is directly underneath our feet; we are already walking it. So, why must we practice? And since we must practice, how? The practice of zazen does not happen in just any way. It has its own dimensions, which offer a generous space for exploration and discovery.
Responses to both questions are found in the essay’s second paragraph:
And yet, if you miss the mark even by a strand of hair, you are as distant as heaven from earth. If the slightest discrimination occurs, you will be lost in confusion. You could be proud of your understanding and have abundant realization, or acquire outstanding wisdom and attain the way by clarifying the mind. Still, if you are wandering about in your head, you may miss the vital path of letting your body leap.
Here, too, our attention is directed towards discriminatory activity, that particular form of “wandering about in [our] head[s].”
Dōgen offers more than admonishment, however. Throughout the remainder of the essay, he identifies several “wandering ways” that we should notice, both during zazen and out in the wilderness of everyday life. Specifically:
Thinking good or bad
Thinking right or wrong
Thinking about who is wise and who is stupid
Thinking about what is sharp and what is dull
Conscious endeavor and analytic introspection
Trying to become a buddha
Instead of engaging in these forms of “learning meditation,” we should “sit steadfastly and think not-thinking.” How does the latter manifest? As “beyond thinking. This is the essential art of zazen.”
Time for the pivot.
It was necessary to wrestle our way this far into the weeds so that I could elaborate on an earlier comment. At the beginning of this post, I briefly explained its title. Then, feeling that the title might turn off some readers, I offered a few alternatives. I used the words “positive” and “negative,” though I could have used “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong,” “advantageous” and “disadvantageous.”
Each time I sit down to write, these lenses dominate the activity. I evaluate the words that appear, accepting some and rejecting others based on how I expect others will receive them. Did I write the “right” thing? Did I phrase it in a “good” way? I notice my preference to be understood and a quiet hope that what I write each week will benefit current readers and attract new ones. Is my message “positive” enough? Am I coming across as a “negative” person?
It is not all that different from making an amend: I want to share with you as best as I can what is alive for me, I want to take responsibility for my actions and the harm that I caused. Yet I cannot be sure that anything I do will have that desired effect. The choice before me is sitting with anxiety and uncertainty or detaching from results, and the latter is just plain difficult at times.
It is too easy to say that all of this happens from a place of fear. A fear that I will be rejected, similar to some of the words I write. A fear that I will be misunderstood, that I failed to “get it right” or perform a “good enough” job. And a fear that all of this time and energy was wasted. Could I have spent my energy and time somewhere else, invested in an activity that would, with greater probability, produce results in greater agreement with what I prefer, hope, and judge to be advantageous to me?
It is not, however, about fear. It is about separation. To be as precise as possible, it is about a feeling of separation. Those three words, “a feeling of,” have a tremendous effect. When it settles in the heart that it is only a feeling, the distance between heaven and earth is no longer insurmountable. Indeed, it vanishes right in front of your eyes.
That we engage in a lot of carving and dualizing mental activity is clear by now; I need not belabor the point. This activity co-arises with the separation between ourselves and the whole, interconnected world. Alan Watts describes this feeling of separation in the following way:
On the one hand there is myself, and on the other the rest of the universe. I am not rooted in the earth like a tree. I rattle around independently. I seem to be the center of everything, and yet cut off and alone. I can feel what is going on inside my own body, but I can only guess what is going on in others. My conscious mind must have its roots and origins in the most unfathomable depths of being, yet it feels as if it lived all by itself in this tight little skull.
Because we feel this way, we feel afraid. Will I be OK? Will I be all right, accepted, or loved? Because we are afraid, we search for comfort, protection, and security. With experience and intuition ready to hand, we divide the world in myriad ways, importantly in ways intended to procure some benefit and reduce potential harm, including distinguishing the wise from stupid and sharp from dull. We even undertake grand spiritual training regimens, born from the noble aspiration to become a buddha. Indeed, we tell ourselves that this will provide what we desire. This is happening incessantly, and sometimes we can glimpse it, too.
At this point, we may feel, as Watts does, that
Something must therefore be said about the healed vision of life which comes with full awareness, for it involves a deep transformation of our view of the world. As well as words can describe it, this transformation consists in knowing and feeling that the world is an organic unity.
What can be said?
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. / The vast inconceivable source cannot be faced or turned away from.
Sit steadfastly and think not-thinking. How do you think not-thinking? Beyond thinking. This is the essential art of zazen.
What is it to think not-thinking, to go beyond thinking? It is to let arise and pass away the mind’s discriminatory activity. Slowly, ever so slowly, we begin to see that activity for what it is. We do not need to stop it, quiet it, cut it off, or shut it down. In time, we understand its illusory quality and that it does not affect or reflect how the world is or our relationship—our ever-intimate connection—to the world.
It is like walking through a fine mist. Slowly, ever so slowly, your clothes become wet, damp, and then soaked. You cannot rush it; it happens in its own time. But it does happen.
The practice of zazen, sitting quietly and doing nothing, Dōgen writes
is simply the dharma gate of enjoyment and ease. It is the practice-realization of complete enlightenment. Realize the fundamental point free from the binding of nets and baskets. Once you experience it, you are like a dragon swimming in the water or a tiger reposing in the mountains. Know that the true dharma emerges of itself, clearing away hindrances and distractions.
The only requirement is not to separate from where you are right now.
For some additional reading, please consider these offerings:
The quotations from Dogen Zenji are from “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye,” edited by Kazukai Tanahashi.