Spiritual cultivation is a process that may go through three stages: seeing the mountain just as a mountain; seeing the mountain not as a mountain; and seeing the mountain just as a mountain again. The first stage represents the state of mind of average people. The second stage is when practitioners are working hard and so absorbed in their practice that they look but do not see, listen but do not hear. The third stage is when they have settled the self, or even let go of it or dissolved it. Only in the last stage does the self no longer exist.