Common steps and sub-activities
Sutra reading
Some of the best sutras have no meaning. That is their purpose. You read them and let them confuse you, the more confused the better.
The Sutra of Hui-Neng – Grand Master of Zen [translated by Thomas Cleary]
‘If you just keep reciting and consider that an accomplishment, how is that different from a yak admiring its tail?’
Fa-ta said ‘Does that mean I shouldn’t bother to recite the sutra as long as I can understand the meaning?’
‘If you recite it and also act on it mentally, then you are reading the sutra; if you recite it but don’t practise it mentally, then you are being read by the sutra’.