Master Young-ga said, “Mind is the foundation, and a thing is a mote. These are like traces of dust on a mirror. Only after all these traces disappear does the light appear. When there is no mind and not a thing, the true-Self reveals itself.”
Student: “Master Young-ga said that mind is the foundation, which means that mind is the true-Self. Why does the true-Self appear only after mind disappears?”
Master: “If you cling to words, even the Buddha is a mote. If you are not fooled by words, even Mara is the true-Self.”
Commentary:
The Buddha is an illusion, and a mote is the Buddha.
As I see it, there is nothing complicated. Just be your ordinary selves in an ordinary life, wear your robes and eat your food, and having nothing further to seek, peacefully pass your time. From everywhere you have come here; all of you eagerly seek the Buddha, the Dharma, and deliverance; you seek escape from the Three Worlds. You foolish people, if you want to get out of the Three Worlds, where then can you go?
Commentary:
As mentioned so far, there is nothing else but the Buddha, the Dharma. Whatever you may see and hear, whether you may like it or not, whether it looks right or wrong, and whatever you may do, they are all the functions of the Buddha. When you are deluded by their names and forms, they seem to be countless different things. Enlightenment is not to find something special that is somewhere unknown, so far away that it is difficult to reach and find, but to realise the fact that we are the Buddha itself. That is why Rinzai said, “There is nothing complicated. Just be your ordinary selves in an ordinary life, wear your robes and eat your food, and having nothing further to seek, peacefully pass your time”. No matter how many waves there may be in the sea, all of them are just part of the sea. “If you want to get out of the Three Worlds, where then can you go?” means that although people struggle to leave the Three Worlds that is the ocean of suffering for some other world, the Pure Land, the Three Worlds that we are anxious to escape is no other than the Pure Land we want to reach. In fact, there is no place other than it.
A. Saying that we have to escape or do away with karma never means that there are two kinds; bad karma to be eliminated and good karma to be preserved. Struggling to keep good karma from flying away and to fight off bad karma is just being deluded by illusions because both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are just imaginary labels and because we cannot create the concept of good karma without simultaneously setting up that of bad karma against good karma.
This is why ancient masters would say that the best karma is not as good as no karma. In fact, karma is another name of illusion. Being ruled by karma is another expression of being deluded by illusions.
When Namjun was travelling on foot with Quijong and Samsan, they happened to see a tiger in the mountains. Later, Namjun said to Quijong, “What was the tiger like?” Quijong said, “It was like a cat.” Quijong in turn asked Samsan the same question. Samsan answered, “It was like a dog.” Then, Quijong asked Namjun the same question. Namjun said, “It was a tiger to me.”
Student: “Although the three of them had seen the same thing, each of them made a different comment about it as if they had seen different things. Who was right and who was wrong?”
Master: “None of them were wrong, but you are wrong.”
Commentary:
Changing the name of a thing doesn’t change the essence of it.
Do not be deceived. There is no Dharma outside; neither can it be obtained from the inside. Rather than listening to my words, better to calm down and seek nothing further. Do not cling to what has already happened, nor leave what has not yet happened to happen. This is better than ten year’s pilgrimage.
Commentary:
‘Do not be deceived’ means that we should see and hear what reaches our eyes and ears as it is without being deluded by its illusion. Dharma, the true-Self implies the state without any names, imaginary lines. That situation cannot admit of even Dharma to talk about, not to speak of outside and inside. Neither can there be anyone to deliver a dharma talk nor anyone to listen to it. This is why Master Rinzai said, “Rather than listening to my words, better to calm down and seek nothing further”. ‘Do not cling to what has already happened, nor leave what has not yet happened to happen’ means that we should not be deluded by the illusions of the past nor should we be deluded by the illusions of the future. This, irrespective of whether we are Zen practitioners or not, implies a lot to modern people who miss the happiness before their eyes due to being preoccupied with the past that is gone and the future that has not yet come.
A. You may feel happy during your practice because you can escape from the challenges causing you agonies by directing your attention to practice away from your sufferings, but it is not the essence of Zen meditation. This is not different from drinking, or gambling in that you can enjoy temporary happiness while indulging in them by forgetting your suffering.
Struggling to achieve something we don’t know; what it is like and where it is, is said to be being deluded by illusions. The core of Zen meditation is to realise who is seeking what. I’d like to advise you to try to realise what the essence of your being is by seeing everything just as it is. When you have realised it, what you are seeking will be seen clearly before you.
The Diamond Sutra says, “If you know that forms are not forms, you will see the Buddha.” Regarding this, Master Boban commented, “If you know that forms are not forms, you will not see the Buddha.”
Student: “Why did Master Boban contradict the Buddha’s words?”
Master: “Because you still know that forms are forms.”
Commentary:
The best food can be poison to those who cannot digest it well.
I tell you this: There is no Buddha, no Dharma, nothing to cultivate and nothing to realise. What are you looking outside for, blind fools? You are putting a head on top of your head. What are you lacking? Followers of the Way, the one functioning right before your eyes, he is not different from the Buddhas and patriarchs. But you do not believe it, and so turn to the outside to seek.
Commentary:
The Buddha, which is to Buddhism as God is to Christianity, is the symbol of perfection and eternity. The core of Buddhist teaching is that there is nothing but the Buddha and that we are the Buddha itself. The purpose of Buddhism is to realise that we are the Buddha itself and not to gain eternal life from the Buddha in a hidden place somewhere far away that is difficult to find. That’s why Rinzai said, “What are you looking outside for?” ‘You are putting a head on top of your head. What are you lacking?’ means that although we are perfection itself as the Buddha, we are wandering in vain to find the Buddha by following the image of the Buddha, an illusion. In other words, following the image of the Buddha, an illusion is putting a head on top of your head, which is to be deluded by the illusion of the Buddha. ‘The one functioning right before your eyes, he is not different from the Buddhas and patriarchs’ implies that everything, yourself included, that you can see and hear is the very Buddha you are looking for and that there is nothing that is not the Buddha.
Student: “If everything is the Buddha, what is not the Buddha?”
A. The root of fortune and disaster is your discriminating mind. Is fire, for example, fortune or disaster? It can be disaster when it leaves people miserable by devastating all they have accumulated and built all their lives and taking the lives of their beloved in a moment. It can be fortune when it makes people happy by being used for cooking food and heating their places when it is cold.
However, fire has neither intention to benefit people nor intention to harm them. Fire itself is neutral; not fortune, not disaster. Its value is solely determined by our views. Likewise, everything is neutral in essence. Whether it is fortunate or disastrous is up to how we see it. This is why the Buddha said that everything is from our mind.
On the seventh day after the Buddha’s death Mahakasyapa arrived back late and circled around the coffin three times. Then, the Buddha revealed his two feet out of the coffin, and Mahakasyapa offered bows. People around were bewildered.
Student: “How was it possible for a dead body to stick its feet out of the coffin?”
Master: “A dead body cannot do it, but the Buddha can.”
Commentary:
The Buddha is not the Buddha, but the Buddha is the Buddha.
The Buddha cannot do it, but the Buddha can do it.
Zen Fools 