A. Medicine implies emptiness and illness illusions. Emptiness and illusions are not separate but one. When we are deluded by the names of things in seeing and hearing them, they are referred to as illusions, which the master compared to illness since they cause people the incurable illness of ageing to death. However, if you can see or hear things just as they are without being fooled by their names, you attain enlightenment, eternal life. Then, all things you see and hear are medicine that can relieve you of the illness and suffering of ageing to death. Everything is illness and medicine at the same time. Whether it is illness or medicine depends on your perspective.
Student: “Is this cake illness or medicine?”
Master: “It is illness when there is any distance between you and it but medicine when there is no distance between you and it.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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