The questions/answers on enlightenment I saw don't sit right with me though - it sounds a lot like it's saying enlightenment is the goal of practice. To me turning it into a "goal" to be attained is exactly the problem that Zen is seeking to help us recognise.
Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen
- I'm with her
And so is the book In it that theme is discussed alot. that we are all inherrently 'Buddhas' and that enlightenment is the revieling of that nature, not something we attain. In it Kensho is used interchangably for enlightenment which usually translates as "Seeing our Nature".
It is important to realise that the questions/answers were specifically for a student who had already outlined their goal of practice. In the book he discusses the 5 types of Zen and explains that none are more important another, but that they are simply 'appropriate' for the individual practicing them.
1) Bompu - ordinary Zen - free from any philosophic or religious content, is for anybody and everybody. It is a Zen practiced purely in the belief that it can improve both physical and mental health.
2) Gedo - Outside way - it is teachings that are non buddhist in nature but founded in external sources
3) Shojo - A focus on oneself, known as the small vehicle, this is to take oneseld to enlightenment.
4) Daijo - The Big vehicle, this is very much the Religious 'Buddhist' Zen.
5) Saijojo - This is a Lofty practice known as the 'highest vehicle'.
There are of course a few flavours of Zen, and some sects consider this a hierachy, I believe the author is from the Renzai tradition mainly with some influence from the Soto sect where the belief is that practices are simply appropriate for the indiviudal and that Bompu and Saijojo are no more lofty than each other.
In the Q&As some people are on the Bompu path some are on the Daijo path so you get a wide variety of answers. Hence why i think the book is so useful.
If it isnt your bag i completely understand Marmite n all that.