Author: Zen Fools

Master Suldoo said, “A guest came to see me from far away and gave me a bead with a one-inch diameter, which has four words in the centre of it. There is no one who can read them.”

Student: “What words are there in the bead?”

Master: “Everything is an illusion.”

Student: “So easy. Why can’t people read such easy words?”

Master: “What did you hear me read?”

Student: “Everything is an illusion.”

Master: “You misheard. I didn’t read it that way.”

Student: “What did you read?”

Master: “I read, ‘You should listen carefully’.”

Commentary:

What is the difference between ‘Everything is an illusion’ and ‘You should listen carefully’?

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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When it comes to my teaching these days, it is truly creative and destructive through miraculous transformations. Whatever phenomena I may enter, nothing happens to me. Phenomena never change me. If students come to seek, I go out and look at them. They do not recognise me, so I reveal myself by putting on different kinds of robes. Students try to understand them through their knowledge and get caught up in my words.

Commentary:

‘It is truly creative and destructive through miraculous transformations’ means that he is so proficient at using expedients that he can reveal Emptiness and form without much effort. ‘Whatever phenomena I may enter, nothing happens to me. Phenomena never change me’ implies that whatever phenomena he may encounter, he is above being deluded or influenced by them since he knows that all phenomena are just illusionary.

‘If students come to seek, I go out and look at them’ means that Rinzai sees clearly how ripe their practice is and sees through the questions they ask when they come to him for teaching. ‘They do not recognise me, so I reveal myself by putting on different kinds of robes’ means that the students don’t recognise the true-Self, so he reveals the true-Self through various words and actions, which are referred to as expedients. His students, however, got caught in his words because they strived to understand them according to his words and actions. We should remember that masters say what cannot be done when speaking and do what cannot be said when doing.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

A. There is a saying that we can attain enlightenment if we can grasp only a single word, that is, if we hear a single word as it is, whatever word it may be. In that respect, it can be safely said that you can attain enlightenment if only you can hear either of the two words, correct and incorrect as it is.

What is correct and what is incorrect? What is correct to you can be what is incorrect to others and vice versa. What is correct today can be what is incorrect tomorrow and the other way around. Correct is to incorrect as right is to left. One cannot exist without the other because both of them exist depending on each other. This is why ancient masters would say that correct contains incorrect and vice versa and that realising that there is no difference whatsoever between correct and incorrect is enlightenment.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

Master Suldoo said, “A guest came to see me from far away and gave me a bead with a one-inch diameter, which has four words in the centre of it. There is no one who can read them.”

Student: “What words are there in the bead?”

Master: “Why don’t you read them in person?”

Student: “Show me the bead first of all so that I may read them.”

Master: “Come again tomorrow and I will show it to you.”

Commentary:

The worst error we make is to struggle to gain what doesn’t exist, ignoring what is before our eyes.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

Mayoku’s teaching was as bitter as Obaku’s; nobody dared to approach it. Sekikyo’s teaching was to search for the man on the point of an arrow. All who came were afraid of it.

Commentary:

‘Mayoku’s teaching was as bitter as Obaku’s; nobody dared to approach it’ means that his teaching was so subtle and deep like his master Obaku’s that no one could approach it through intellectual understanding. There is a story that shows how subtle his teaching was. Once a monastic asked Mayoku during a Dharma talk, “I know Buddhist doctrines roughly, but what is it that is transmitted beyond the doctrinal teaching?” Mayoku descended from the high seat, moved his cane around himself, stood on tiptoe and said, “Do you know?” The monastic couldn’t answer, and Mayoku hit him with his cane. Although Mayoku gave him a perfect answer, the monastic couldn’t digest it. So, ancient masters would say that the best food is of no use to him who cannot digest it.

Obaku, who was Rinzai’s master, also gave Rinzai thirty blows without any words whenever he was asked what the Dharma is whilst Rinzai visited him on three separate occasions. This has become a well-known anecdote that symbolises the teaching beyond words in the Zen community. This is why Rinzai said that Mayoku’s teaching was as bitter as Obaku’s.

‘Sekikyo’s teaching was to search for the man on the point of an arrow. All who came were afraid of it’ originated from the fact that he would draw an empty bow saying, “Take a look at the arrow” whenever students came to him for his teaching. Such an unusual way of teaching, people thought, was too difficult to approach easily.

Student: “Why did Sekikyo draw an empty bow saying, ‘Take a look at the arrow’?”

Master: “In order to show the arrow.”

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

A. The fact is that you are possessed with the illusion that you know it. If you were sure that everything in your life is created by you, you should know that not only your feeling exhausted but also the question ‘What am I doing wrong?’ is of your own creating. That is, if you really knew that you create everything in your life, you would not be challenged by the problem you have now since that is also part of the drama.

You are not aware of the fact that you are being deluded by illusions. Your question is not different from saying, “I know that I am on dry land, but please help me, I am drowning now.” This means that even though you say you know that you are on dry land, you are actually feeling exhausted by floundering in the water. The best way to escape the situation is to realise that you are really on dry land.

Try to realise what you are and what your reality is. If everything, including you, is drama just as you said, it should be under the control of the creator. If it is beyond your control, it is not a drama to you. How can an image of a drama on a screen be exhausted?

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

There was once a time when a man was allowed more than one wife, and a middle-aged bachelor, who could be called neither young nor old, and whose hair was just beginning to turn grey, fell in love with two women at the same time and married both of them. One was young and lively and wanted her husband to look youthful; the other was somewhat more advanced in age and was concerned that her husband should look about the same age as she did. So, the young wife seized every opportunity to pull out all her dear husband’s grey hairs, while the older one zealously plucked out every black hair she could find. For a while the man was highly flattered by their attention and devotion until, one morning, he discovered that, thanks to his two wives, he did not have a single hair left on his head.

Student: “All three of them are losers. Is there anyone who is not a loser?”

Master: “Yes, there is.”

Student: “Who is it?”

Master: “There is one who is not lamenting whilst all of them are.”

Commentary:

Anyone who doesn’t know the one who is not lamenting belongs to one of the three.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

Tanka Osho was so good at playing with the bead, sometimes hiding it and sometimes revealing it that all students who came to him were scolded by him.

Commentary:

‘Tanka Osho was so good at playing with the bead, sometimes hiding it and sometimes revealing it that all students who came to him were scolded by him’ means that he was so good at hiding and revealing the bead, the true-Self that all students who came to him would be scolded for failing to recognise the true-Self he showed to them. There is an example that shows well how good he was at playing with the bead.

Once he lodged in a temple overnight. He was provided with a cold room. It was so cold during the night that he couldn’t stand the cold. He tried to get some firewood only to fail, so he chopped up a wooden Buddha statue and burnt it to heat his room. All the monastics of the temple, including the head monk, were so surprised that they lost their tongues. Then, the head monk shouted with anger, “What are you doing?” He answered, “I’m looking for beads.” The head monk responded, “How foolish you are expecting to get beads by burning a wooden Buddha statue!” Tanka Osho asked back, “What is the use of keeping a wooden Buddha statue without beads?” This, as one of best known koans, is a good lesson that we should not be deluded by illusions of the Buddha.

Student: “Why did Tanka Osho say that he was looking for beads while aware that they were not there?”

Master: “In order to show the real bead.”

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

A. Let us suppose there was once a wise and charitable arithmetic teacher who has since passed away. He, when alive, always advised people to realise the arithmetic rules and did his best to teach them to as many people as he could. In the course of encouraging them to learn the rules he would speak of the benefits that they could enjoy and how their lives would be changed when they had mastered the rules.

Now how can we enjoy the benefits he said we could enjoy; by praying to him or by mastering the rules? However earnest and sincere our prayer may be, it has nothing to do with the benefits that the late teacher mentioned.

It is not because we have worshipped and prayed to previous great scientists but because we have mastered the laws of nature or the laws of science they discovered and utilise them to improve our lives that we can enjoy the benefits scientific advance has brought.

In the same way, the Buddha, while alive, always advised people to see things as they are so that they might escape from their suffering and did his best to teach how to see things as they are to as many people as he could. In doing this he would speak of the benefits they could enjoy and how their lives would change when they had mastered the way of seeing things as they are. He always encouraged them to make the best effort to realise the way.  However, he never told them to blindly believe, worship or pray to him.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography

Longshan met Dongshan and Shenshan when they were travelling together. Seeing a vegetable leaf floating down a valley stream, Dongshan said, “There must be a Zen practitioner deep in this mountain.” They followed the stream up the mountain and met a hermit.

The hermit Longshan said, “There is no path in this mountain. How did you two Zen practitioners get here?” Dongshan said, “Let’s put aside the matter of no path. Reverend, from where did you enter?”

Longshan said, “I did not come following clouds or water.”

Dongshan said, “How long have you lived in this mountain?”

Longshan said, “I am not concerned about the passing of spring or autumn.”

Dongshan said, “Which started to be here earlier, you or the mountain?”

Longshan said, “I don’t know.”

Dongshan said, “How come you don’t know?”

Longshan said, “I did not come here for humans or devas.”

Dongshan asked further, “Why have you been living on this mountain?”

Longshan said, “I saw two clay oxen fighting with each other until they fell into the ocean. Ever since then, all fluctuations have ceased.”

Student: “How is everything when the clay oxen don’t fall into the ocean?”

Master: “You are anxious and nervous about which ox will win.”

Student: “How is everything when all fluctuations have ceased after the clay oxen fall into the ocean?”

Master: “The ox that you lost a long time ago walks out of the ocean.”

Commentary:

Don’t forsake the ox you are looking for by being absorbed in seeing the clay oxen fighting.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography