A. Seeing yourself as real while seeing others as illusions is a phenomenon that practitioners can but not must go through. Even if you see all things as well as the people around you as empty and illusionary, you are still far from enlightenment if you cannot see yourself as empty. That’s why ancient masters would say that if there is even a single thing as tiny as a grain of dust left that is not empty, it is as far away from enlightenment as the sky is from the earth.
You should realise that not only the people around you but you yourself are also a projection, an illusion. Then, there cannot be any difference between or amongst all things, including yourself, because everything is merely an illusion. This means that everything is one in essence although each thing looks and sounds different.
Master Daejoo said to a sutra master, “What sutra do you teach?” The sutra master answered, “I teach the Diamond Sutra.” Then, Daejoo said, “Saying that there is something the Buddha preached is finding fault with the Buddha, but saying that the sutra was not preached by the Buddha is speaking ill of the sutra. Tell me beyond these two challenges.” The sutra master couldn’t say anything.
Student: “What are the suitable words beyond the two challenges?”
Master: “When the Buddha is, his words are, but when he is not, his words are not.”
When students flock to me from all parts, I sort them out according to three kinds of capability. If a middling to low one comes, I snatch away the phenomena but leave him the Dharma. If one with a middling to high ability comes, I snatch away both the phenomena and the Dharma. If one with an exceptionally high ability comes, I snatch neither the phenomena nor the Dharma nor the man. And if there should come one whose understanding is beyond the norm, I act from the wholeness without bothering about capability.
Commentary:
This paragraph shows how Master Rinzai teaches students, changing his expedients according to the capacity of each student. ‘I snatch away the phenomena but leave him the Dharma’ for a middling to low one means denying the existence of all phenomena, all forms that are all things which the student sees and hears by saying that they are not real but illusionary. ‘I snatch away both the phenomena and the Dharma’ for one with a middling to high ability means denying not only the existence of everything that reaches the student’s eyes and ears but also the Dharma, the true-Self by saying that there is no such thing as the Buddha, the Dharma, or the true-Self. ‘I snatch neither the phenomena nor the Dharma nor the man’ for one with an exceptionally high ability means saying that everything, including man, is part of the true-Self instead of denying its existence. ‘If there should come one whose understanding is beyond the norm, I act from the wholeness without bothering about capability’ means that if an enlightened man comes to him, he acts as oneness with him without bothering about his capability because he has transcended all forms and all expedients are meaningless to him.
A. Being haunted by your past is not different from being haunted by the nightmare you had the previous night. Both mean that you are being deluded by illusions since you cannot bring them to the present moment even if you are offered a huge reward for it. This attests to the fact that your past is not real but imaginary and cannot inflict on you unless you are deluded by it.
One day the Second Patriarch, before his enlightenment, said to the first Patriarch Bodhidharma, his master, “My mind is still not comfortable. Please, make it comfortable.” Bodhidharma said, “Bring me your mind and I will make it comfortable.” The Second Patriarch answered, “I cannot find it even though I’ve looked for it diligently.” The First Patriarch responded, “I’ve made your mind comfortable now.” This means, “If you cannot find it to bring, you don’t need to be concerned about it because it is not real but just illusionary.” At these words, the Second Patriarch attained enlightenment, which means that he realised that not only his troubled mind but also what troubled his mind was just an illusion.
I’d like to advise you to redirect and focus your attention on a koan whenever you are troubled by your trauma.
When a monastic asked Master Hong-hwa, “What should I do when birth and death flood from all directions?”, the master answered, “You should hit the middle.”
But if you take the moving as the true-Self, all the grasses and trees can move and so they should be referred to as the true-Self. Therefore, what moves is wind; what does not move is earth; and neither what moves nor what does not move has its own nature. If you try to grasp it in the moving, it is in the motionless. And if you try to grasp it in the motionless, it will be in the moving. It is just the same as a fish making waves in a pool. So, venerable ones, the moving and the motionless are two types of circumstance. But the man of the Way who does not depend on anything makes use of both the moving and the motionless.
Commentary:
We should not think that the true-Self is not in any specific realm such as what moves or what doesn’t move. Regardless of whether something is moving or still, there is nothing that is not the true-Self and nowhere without the true-Self. The reason why we don’t recognise the true-Self, although we are not only surrounded by it but are also the true-Self itself and cannot escape from it even for a moment, is that we are deluded by illusions.
Movement and stillness are also illusions. Movement is to stillness as right is to left. The conception of movement is impossible without that of stillness and the other way around. This is why it is said that movement contains stillness and stillness contains movement. Trying to see the true-Self while chasing illusions such as movement, stillness, purity, holiness and so on is as fruitless as trying in vain to catch a nimble fish in a pool with bare hands.
‘The man of the Way who does not depend on anything’ implies an enlightened man who is aware that there is nothing to depend on because everything is empty. Such a person can make use of both the moving and unmoving as he pleases instead of being deluded by them since he knows that they are illusions.
A. Do you happen to remember your birth? Can you deny the fact that you were born because you don’t remember it? You should know that the true-Self remembers everything regardless of whether you remember it or not, just as your mother remembers the situation in which you were in her womb and that of your birth although you don’t remember them.
The true-Self remembers all and acts according to its memory, which is referred to as karma.
When a monastic asked Master Tooja, “What is the true-Self?”, the master descended from the high seat. When another monastic asked the master, “How far is it from a saint to a sentient being?”, he also descended from the high seat.
Student: “Why did the master just descend from the high seat without answering whenever he was asked a question?”
Master: “Don’t mistake his compassion for misbehaviour.”
Student: “What is the distance between a saint and a sentient being?”
Master: “Answering makes it far.”
Student: “Does not answering make it closer?”
Master: “It makes it further.”
Commentary:
The difference between answering and not answering is the distance between a saint and a sentient being.
Followers of the Way, when I say that there is no Dharma outside, the students do not understand and deduce it is necessary to search within themselves. Then they sit facing a wall, tongue pressed to the upper palate, and remain motionless. That is what they take for the patriarchal gate of the Buddha-Dharma. What a great error! If you take the state of immovable purity for the true-Self, you acknowledge ignorance as your master. An ancient master said, “You should be fearful of getting lost in the depths of the dark cave.”
Commentary:
Rinzai’s comment ‘there is no Dharma outside’ means that there is neither inside nor outside in essence because it is just an illusion, that there is nowhere without Dharma and that we should not be deluded by words. However, there seems to have been many practitioners who, deceived by Rinzai’s words ‘there is no Dharma outside’, tried to reach the silent and immovable state without having any thoughts inside themselves. That is why they practised in the way mentioned above. Ancient masters would compare such a state without any thinking to a dark cave, which Rinzai is cautioning his students not to fall into.
A. When we say that birth is the result of karma, what is karma? Karma is cause and effect, which are the products of discrimination, that is, illusions, the result of dividing Oneness into many with labels which are imaginary lines. There cannot be karma when there is no discrimination. It also follows that there is no birth when there is no discrimination.
The Buddha said that there is no past, no present, and no future and that everything comes into being due to our discrimination. This means that, in essence, there is no birth from the beginning and that your birth is just an illusion resulting from your discrimination.
Once you stop discriminating, when you can see things as they are, or when you are not deluded by illusions, you can see that there is no birth and no death and that your death will not happen because you have never been born. This is why ceasing to discriminate is referred to as escaping from birth and death.
Zen Fools 