Read time 3 minutes. A good practice destroys itself and the everything that motivates us to do it along with it.
Charlotte Joko Beck once wrote:
“Practice, if you get right down to it, is very self-centered… But when you do it, something else happens. It begins to eat up the illusions that are making you do it. A really good practice destroys itself.”
Her words capture one of Zen’s central paradoxes: practice begins with ego and ends with ego undone.
Stuck in the middle with ego
Most of us begin practice for selfish reasons. We want peace, clarity, maybe even enlightenment. These are not wrong, but they are self-centered. And here the paradox appears: the ego longs for peace, but identification with ego is precisely what prevents it. Worse still, the ego then takes it upon itself to solve this problem.
Zen has long warned against frontal assaults on the ego. They don’t work—the calls are coming from inside the house. The ego knows what’s at stake and will defend itself at every turn. This is why Zen practice is designed the way it is: indirect, paradoxical, always eroding illusions from the side rather than charging head-on.
Practice eats illusion
As Beck says, practice “begins to eat up the illusions that are making you do it.” The illusion of ego itself. The illusion that the ego can deliver us to freedom. Little by little, through attention and awareness, practice strips away its own motives.
This is why practice cannot be understood as a war of conquest. Instead, the ego is coaxed along, allowed to participate until its grasp weakens. Identification loosens, and the very reasons we began dissolve. Good practice destroys itself—and with it, the illusions of self that fueled it.
The problem with seeking enlightenment
To strive for lasting peace implies a deep intuition that such a thing exists. How else would we pursue it, given that few of us have ever seen an enlightened person? And yet we strive, sometimes even upending entire lives in the attempt.
Here another paradox reveals itself. At first, Zen may look like a pursuit of enlightenment. But in practice, enlightenment is not a goal to achieve. It is not an accomplishment. It is a realization that dawns when striving itself falls away—when correct understanding and practice mature together.
The meaning of Zen: Practice without practice
Why must a good practice destroy itself? Because every teaching, every method, every effort is of the manifest world. All are provisional, limited. They exist only to carry us to the point where they fall away.
Practice that tries, that contends, that aims at achievement is already a barrier. This is why Zen insists on not-knowing, non-contention, not-doing. At first, we practice these as if they are techniques. But gradually, we see that there is no trying, no doing—only the action of this moment, complete in itself.
In time, practice dissolves into presence. What began as striving ends as simplicity. A practice of not-doing is no practice at all. And that is precisely the point.
Explore more:
We delve into all different types of techniques and meditations on this website. Of course, all of the teachings and methods are deeply rooted in tradition. This overview of the concept of Zazen, or traditional Japaneses meditation, is a great place to get yourself grounded in the teachings.
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Let your inner transformation begin today.
If it hasn’t already.
🌀 From the GZM Archives – Polished, Preserved, Still Relevant.
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