Q. What does ‘stop discriminating’ mean?
A. Discriminating means to make labels or imaginary lines such as car, pen, or house and bad, good, useful or harmful and to believe that they are real. We remember such previously drawn lines and produce new ones based on them, which are no other than words. And we live our lives according to these lines. That is to live in the world of memory or in the realm of form.
Many people mistake ‘stop discriminating’ or non-discrimination as stopping thinking. How could we maintain our life without thinking or discriminating? How could we feel happy without discrimination? Why should we continue to live if we became motionless like stone?
‘Stop discriminating’ in Zen meditation doesn’t mean to stop thinking but means to stop being deluded by the lines by realising that everything is empty. Once you have realised the truth, whatever lines and however many lines you may draw, it doesn’t matter because you know that they are just illusions when you know that they are all empty.
©Boo Ahm
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