Sudden vs Gradual Enlightenment – True Zen Awakening

Have you had a spiritual awakening, but you're as confused as ever?

Maybe you had a genuine enlightenment experience, you turned awareness around, you saw your true nature, and you realized that you are not different from the Buddha, the Awakened One. You realized that you are already free from all delusion and fundamentally complete.

But, for whatever reason, you feel like you lost it. You don’t feel enlightened at all, or you’re facing doubts about it. Your mind-habits are still the same—you get annoyed, angry, you feel unworthy, whatever.

In Zen circles, there has been an ongoing discussion about this for over a thousand years. And it’s still ongoing—when you look at Zen masters, you’ll see that they either emphasize one concept or the other. The debate they’re having is about sudden versus gradual enlightenment. Is enlightenment attained suddenly, where everything becomes completely clear with just one big realization? Or do we have to cultivate enlightened awareness gradually?

The debate about sudden versus gradual enlightenment originated around 1,300 years ago in China. The story about it is very famous—probably the most well-known Zen story there is. Every Zen practitioner should have heard it at least once.

The 5th patriarch of Zen, which means he is the 5th successor of the founder of Zen, Bodhidharma, asked his disciples to compose a poem expressing their understanding of enlightenment. He was looking for a worthy successor and thought he’d be able to tell by the depth of the poem who was right for this job.

It’s not clear how many monks came up with a poem, but there is one particular monk, the head monk of the Sangha, who came up with a poem. He was a senior monk, respected by the Sangha; probably many didn’t come up with a poem because they thought he was the natural choice for the succession.

The head monk, whose name was Shenxiu, wrote following poem:

The body is the bodhi tree,

The mind is like a clear mirror.

At all times we must strive to polish it,

And must not let the dust collect.

This poem can be understood as emphasizing the gradual process of cultivating enlightened awareness. He talks about keeping the mind like a clear mirror, polishing it at all times so that the dust—our habitual and delusional thinking—doesn’t collect.

When the 5th patriarch saw the poem, he praised it and told his monks they should practice according to it. But he was still open to other submissions, so he didn’t decide immediately.

Then, the story took a radical turn.

A few months before the contest took place, a new guy came to live in the monastery. He was a regular layman, illiterate and very poor. He had to sell firewood to make a living and support his mother. One time, when he went to the village to sell firewood, he heard a monk wandering through the forest, reciting Sutras. At that moment, hearing only one line of the Diamond Sutra, he attained enlightenment. After that, he went to the monastery of the 5th patriarch. He wanted to become a monk, but since he was an outsider, they only allowed him to work in the kitchen. He wasn’t even allowed to practice with the other monks.

So, when he heard the poem while working in the kitchen, he knew that it wasn’t right. At that moment, he came up with his own poem.

Originally Bodhi has no tree, 

The bright mirror has no stand. 

Originally there is not a single thing: 

Where can dust alight?

This poem, in contrast to the first one, emphasizes realizing enlightenment suddenly—all at once, in an instant—leaving no room for further discussion.

Immediately, when the 5th patriarch saw the poem, he was convinced that the illiterate, poor guy from the kitchen would be his successor.

But the 5th patriarch was a wise Zen master, so he knew that Huineng—the name of the poor guy, a nobody—would become his successor, and that the temple community would harm him because of envy and jealousy. So, he made Huineng his successor in secrecy, told him to flee the temple, and to wait until everyone calmed down before making himself public to teach Zen.

Although this story clearly highlights the sudden enlightenment approach, influencing Zen traditions up to this day, the idea of gradual enlightenment didn’t die out. Some Zen masters kept defending the gradual approach, saying that most practitioners need preparation. They need to cultivate their minds in order to prepare for enlightenment.

So, how does this play out in our own lives? I think for most of us, things aren’t black or white. From my observation, most people are somewhere in between. Maybe they have a genuine enlightenment experience, but their mind habits are still so strong that they might obscure it. They might need to keep practicing in order to stabilize their enlightenment. Others may practice diligently, and without a big bang experience, they might suddenly realize that they’ve cultivated enlightened awareness.

A Zen master also said that there may be people who had a big enlightenment experience but still behave like idiots, and there are people who are not enlightened but behave like Buddhas.

I think, as humans, we are mostly drawn to a one-solution idea. We’d like to have one big enlightenment experience, and then everything is perfectly clear forever—we are never deluded again, and we are perfect Buddhas. However, I think for most of us, this is not how it will go. There are people who seem to have had it that way, but we also don’t know what has been going on in their previous lives.

There is one approach, however, that I want to share with you. A Korean Zen master whose name was Chinul is an important figure in the sudden versus gradual debate.

Chinul taught sudden enlightenment, gradual cultivation.

Although he admired the 6th patriarch's sudden approach, he thought of it as an ideal. He said that Huineng's sudden enlightenment was rare and that most people need gradual effort to integrate such an insight. Chinul said that enlightenment is sudden, meaning a direct realization of one’s own true nature. However, he also said that gradual cultivation after this awakening is necessary to stabilize and deepen this insight. He said most practitioners need ongoing meditation practice in order to remove mind habits and embody full enlightenment.

Chinul said that even if we realize our True Nature and see that we are not different from the Buddha, we still have to deal with the mind-habit energies within us, which are rarely eliminated all at once. He compared it to a newborn baby, which is fully equipped with everything, but still weak, and it will take many years before it becomes a mature adult.

What I learned from this approach is that although we may have had a genuine enlightenment experience, it’s likely that there are parts within us that make us blind to what this experience has shown us.

We may still react in unskillful ways in certain situations. But with ongoing practice, as we dissolve and integrate these parts, we become transparent to what we have realized, and enlightenment can fully penetrate our entire being.

However, nothing that I just said really has anything to do with Zen.

Zen is described as a special transmission outside the scriptures, pointing directly to one's mind, letting one see into their true nature, and attain Buddhahood.

Sudden and gradual enlightenment are just ideas or concepts.

If we are not careful, we might spend our whole lives worrying about sudden versus gradual enlightenment. We may think about our enlightenment experience, analyze it, doubt it, or do the opposite and attach to it, only thinking about it as proof that we are enlightened. Or we worry about gradual cultivation, attaching to our effort in meditation, trying to force our way to enlightenment, trying to eliminate all our mind habits, and trying to heal ourselves from everything. “If I heal all my wounds, I will be like a perfect and clear mirror.”

By making up these concepts in our mind, we create sudden, we create gradual, we create past, we create future. We create an idea that limits us from actually seeing our True Nature.

Zen is pointing directly to one’s mind.

Who is thinking about sudden or gradual?

Who are you?

Let go of sudden enlightenment. Let go of gradual enlightenment.

What is this?

Don’t attach to your thinking.

Keep a mind that is before thinking.

Our before-thinking mind is already free from concepts, ideas, and dualities. It’s our original, pure state of awareness, prior to everything. Our before-thinking mind is already One with the universe.

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn said that meditation is to keep a before-thinking mind, no matter what we do: sitting, standing, lying. We return to this before-thinking mind by asking ourselves, "Who am I?" or "What is this?" and we practice it from moment to moment.

Actually, every time you ask yourself this question, you attain sudden enlightenment – whether you are conscious of it or not. And when you do it moment to moment, you gradually cultivate an enlightened mind.

So, sudden enlightenment and gradual enlightenment are not different.

But more importantly, who are you?

Let go of your enlightenment experience. Let go of thinking about cultivating enlightenment.

…

Alright. Hope this was helpful.

I wish you all the best, your friend of the way. Bye.