There's Nothing to Attain

Practice isn’t about achieving anything, not even enlightenment

One of the most common misconceptions about Buddhist meditation is that it is a practice designed to seek and attain enlightenment. However, seeking anything, even a higher awareness, is another form of craving and attachment. The Buddha taught that both were sources of our dissatisfaction or suffering.

There is nothing to be attained in meditation practice.

1. There is no such thing as an empty mind

Emptying one’s mind isn’t possible. Our mind’s sole purpose is to help us survive; it accomplishes this by generating upwards of 50,000 thoughts daily. They arise in meditation; unless we engage with them (like a dog chasing a car), they will ultimately fall away. Labeling thoughts helps them dissipate. This is the nature of our sitting practice.

2. There is no enlightenment reward

Waking up is a daily moment-by-moment practice. There is no Santa moment when we’re rewarded with the shiny bauble of enlightenment from another dimension or a higher being. When we consider it carefully, seeking enlightenment is yet another form of attachment or clinging — wanting things to be different than they are. Our sitting meditation practice is a reward in itself.

3. Monks and teachers aren’t special

Hierarchies exist only in our minds. They’re constructs created by humans. In practice, there is no goal, striving, or attainment. There is only *being the present moment. To practice is to be enough. Monastics and lay teachers differ from practitioners in that they dedicate their lives to the path of practice and, in so doing, cultivate the wisdom they share with students. Buddhism holds teachers and monastics to a higher level of ethical conduct, but they are no different from you and me.

🙏🏼🩶

*The late Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck specifies in her book, Everyday Zen, that when we ‘are the present moment’ —and not occupying or seeking it, striving ceases.