A. It is true that medicine is one with poison, that hell is one with the Pure land, and that Mara is one with the Buddha. In fact, everything is neutral; neither medicine nor poison, neither hell nor the Pure land, and neither Mara nor the Buddha. Whether something is a remedy, or poison depends on how we see it.
The key point is that what we can see Oneness, the true-Self through, is medicine and what allures us to see many, that is, things, is poison.
When seeing, or hearing a thing, no matter what it is, it is a remedy if we see Oneness, the true-Self through it. It is poison if it prevents us from seeing the true-Self.
So, we should try to see and hear things without attaching any words, or any definition to them such as a bird, a flower, an aeroplane and so on, because attaching names is dividing Oneness into many. This is why even the Sutras become Mara’s talk when we are deluded by the words therein, and even the sound of a dog’s barking is an effective medicine if we hear it as it is without attaching any names to it.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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