When a heretic asked the Buddha, “Are all things permanent?”, the Buddha remained silent. The heretic said again, “Are all things impermanent?” The Buddha continued to remain silent. Then, the heretic said to the Buddha, “Why don’t you answer my question while you are equipped with the wisdom to know everything?” The Buddha answered, “Because all your questions are just wordplay.”
Student: “Why did the Buddha refuse to answer the heretic’s questions, regarding them as wordplay?”
Master: “Because you play upon words.”
Commentary:
The best food can be poison when it is not digested well.
The Buddhas and patriarchs are only names of adoration. Do you want to know the Three Worlds? They do not differ from the sensation of your listening to the Dharma now! A momentary desire is the world of greed. Momentary anger is the world of form. And a second’s foolish ignorance is the formless world. These are the furniture of your own house. The Three Worlds do not by themselves proclaim: It is the one clear and lively before your eyes who perceives, weighs and measures everything in the world that grants the names ‘the Three Worlds’.
Commentary:
As the true Buddha is the perfect state without any illusions, it is essentially nameless since a name is a sort of illusion. The Buddhas and patriarchs are no more than expedients; names, imaginary labels that are employed for the sake of convenience to express the perfect state. In the same way the Three Worlds are just names, imaginary labels used for the purpose of explaining the world of sentient beings and are not real.
The core of this paragraph is that the Buddhas and patriarchs are not the deceased who are mentioned in the Sutras and the Buddhist texts but everyone and everything, including you who are reading this writing at this moment and that the Three Worlds are not different and separate from the Pure Land but one. The Pure Land appears as the Three Worlds to those who cannot see things as they are. That is why ancient masters would say that we should not struggle in vain to leave the Three Worlds for the Pure Land and that we will be wrong if we move even a single step in order to move to the Pure Land from the Three Worlds.
Student: “What is the Buddha?”
Master: “Why do you ask me the taste of the food you are chewing?”
A. Without teachers, how would it be known that the true-Self is gateless, formless, and pathless? Furthermore, you cannot know what this scripture means until you realise the true-Self in person. Jumping to a conclusion according to literal understanding, without experience, is to be deluded by illusions.
The fact that the true-Self is gateless, formless, and pathless makes teachers more necessary since they can help those who, not knowing which direction to take and what to begin with, are wandering about, by presenting fake gates and fake paths as a temporary expedient. This is why all Buddha’s talks are said to be just expedients.
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.
Zen Fools 