In The Three Pillars of Zen, Philip Kapleau sets out, well, the three essentials of Zen or Chan practice. They are: great doubt, great determination, and great faith.

I remember my Zen teacher saying that one doesn’t actually need all three legs of the stool; one–for him it was great doubt–was enough.

I think we can “pan out” and, from a philosophical point of view, regard these three essentials as pointers to three basic, specific spiritual temperaments.

I. Great Doubt: The Philosopher’s Way

For one with a spiritual temperament of the philosopher (think of Shankara or Ramana), the first way or path is animated by questioning or wonderment. “Doubt” may be hard to grasp here, but keen openness to wonderment is not.

One may wonder, deeply, what “all this” is, what or who I am, what’s “behind” it all, and this wonderment can lead to the realization of who or what one truly is.

This, then, is the path of Self-knowledge. Its driving force is love of the Truth.

II. Great Determination: The Warrior’s Way

In Linji Chan and in Rinzai Zen, we find the device called “the huatou.” Engaged with “Who?” or “What?” or “Wu,” one, perhaps little by little, comes to find that one is pressed onward by an indomitable, formidable will. With immense intensity, one pours all of one’s energy into getting to the very bottom of “Who?” or “What?” or “Wu.”

This, then, is the path of the warrior, that of one who has taken heart and ferocity and has poured it into this Great Matter. One, indeed, will not stop until the Great Matter has been resolved.

What is loved here? Total Freedom: one is “breaking through” all limitations to reveal the innate Total Freedom of sunyata, or boundlessness.

III. Great Faith: The Poet’s Way

When one turns away from the world and thus ceases to “love the world,” and turns only toward God, then one has felt, in one’s heart, the essence of bhakti.

The bhakta loves God only. And when that love becomes all-consuming, then there is no lover as well as no beloved. There is only the One-All.

Implication

And so, while the typology above is rather crude insofar as each sadhaka no doubt is driven, to some degree or other, by Self-knowledge, freedom, and love of God and while it’s also true that each way ultimate merges such that knowledge = freedom = love, it may nonetheless be helpful at the outset to ask yourself: “Which of these three spiritual temperaments is predominant in me?” Knowing this, you can be clearer about the specific nature of the path you’re on. Does it primarily involve doing Self-inquiry? Gathering all your concentration into one? Or praying, with heart-openness, to God?