If you feel like you’re getting something out of Zen, this is ordinary stuff.
It’s bondage, not freedom. There’s nothing to get. You’re just acquiring one more chain, one more item that keeps you bound, keeps you dissatisfied and looking around for the next goody. It’s what you’ve always suffered; it’s nothing new. It’s just like all the other chains you’re wearing, though it’s of a different style, heft, material, and color.
Like all the rest, you’ll grow tired of it by and by. There’s nothing to figure out regarding enlightenment. It’s not an explanation of Reality, so what’s to figure out?
Besides, that’s what delusion is —figuring things out, putting everything into concepts. Zen —that is, meditation—is simply coming back to just this—being present, noticing that we babble to ourselves, that we tell stories to ourselves, that we try to explain everything.
Zen will never say anything to you. If it does, it’s only because you’re making it up. If you tell yourself, “Oh, that was a good meditation. I really got into something deep there,” it’s nonsense. Pure delusion. And if you think,“Oh, my meditation was off, my mind was really disturbed,” it’s more delusion. Or, if you try to justify your meditation practice by saying, “My day goes so much better when it begins with meditation,” it’s all delusion.
I never once heard my teacher talk like this. This is just our spinning minds jabbering to themselves. Linji said, “This is called a guest looking at a guest.” In other words, we attend, not to what we experience directly, but to what we make of it. Thus we ignore what in Zen we call the host —the actual experience of this moment.
We ignore that there’s no separation between Reality and ourselves.

– Steve Hagan. Buddhism is not what you think.