Zen theory

My reading has continued, and the particular progress the teacher expects is seven levels.
1) The stage before zen begins
2) The first year or so where you become more aware of your patterns
3) The next stage where you start to break your patterns
4) The stage where you get your first flash of enlightenment
5) Where it takes over 80-90% of your being
6) Rare 100% state of Buddhahood
But after stage one each stage takes a number of years of sitting, which is a combination of my active awareness but during periods of formalised meditative times. It’s only a variation of practice, and if the sitting practice was stopped and awareness was taken up wherever and whenever possible then the same progress may well be squeezed into a much smaller period.
But one thing both agree on is that there is only one aim. Breaking through the old way of seeing into the truth beyond and then staying there. There seems no doubt this is genuine, and since I’ve seen there is a distinct blank canvas permanently present regardless of whatever else is going on that is all there is to find.