The next step is to isolate yourself from the realms of sight and sound and light and shadow. It is relatively easy to put down sights and sounds of the external environment. If you cannot separate yourself from honking horns and blaring radios, then your mind is extremely scattered. But you must also isolate yourself from internal disturbances ─ those of the mind and body. No matter what you see, hear, feel or imagine, do not cling to it. This is difficult to do. If you can isolate yourself from these phenomena, then your practice will be smooth and your progress steady.

There is a story of an old lady who supported a monk for twenty years, allowing him to meditate in a hut near her home. One day, she instructed her eighteen-year-old daughter to take food to the monk, hug him, and then ask him what he felt. The daughter did as she was told. When she hugged the monk and asked him how he felt, he said, "Like a dry stick leaning against a cold cliff."

The daughter reported everything to the old woman. Furious, the woman grabbed a broom and went to the monk's hut. "Here I've supported you for twenty years, thinking you were a real practitioner! Get out!" she yelled as she chased him away with her broom. After he was out of sight, she burned down the hut.

The woman was angry because the monk had only attained the first stage of isolation. He had isolated himself from people and the external environment, but he was attached to his isolation. He had not succeeded in transcending the disturbances within his own mind.