A. Master: “Telling you the way is very easy. But I am afraid that I may induce you to make light and shade.”
Student: “Please, tell me the way.”
Master: “Everything is empty.”
Student: “I already know that, too.”
Master: “That is making light and shade in your plot.”
Commentary:
However efficacious medicine may be, an internal medicine will cause trouble if put into eyes or ears.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The purpose of Zen meditation is not to make people belittle, become indifferent to, or abandon worldly life but to help them to realise the truth that the realities of the life they are facing every day is no other than the heaven or the paradise they dream of. If you happen to have the slightest thought that, after enlightenment, you may be someone else, or somewhere else, other than exactly where you are now, you are far from the right way of practice.
Zen is telling us why we can’t see and how we can see the paradise that is spread out before us. We can’t see it since our views are clouded by labels, which are called illusions. Zen doesn’t tell people to make light of or abandon worldly life, but advises them to try to see beyond the labels of worldly life and teaches how to do it. Zen encourages people to enjoy the eternal happiness that they have not recognised so far. To try to see beyond the labels when seeing things is Zen practice.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Who, or what, dies or falls asleep when you die or sleep? When everything is empty, which of ‘I’, ‘death’, ‘sleep’ and ‘the world’ is not empty? Saying that everything is empty means that all of them are empty, too.
However, when your sleep is not empty, the places such as your bed, your room et cetera where you sleep are not empty, either. When they are not empty, things and people related to the places are also not empty. When the things and people related to the places are not empty, other things and people related to these things and these people are also not empty. If we keep expanding in this way, we reach the conclusion that if your sleep is not empty, all the world is not empty, either. So, ancient masters would say that when even a grain of dust is not empty but real, all the world is real.
Therefore, saying that the world is empty but your sleep isn’t makes no sense at all. When your sleep is not empty but real, the world is also real. When your sleep is empty, the world is empty. To sum up, when you think that you fall asleep, the world exists. When you, however, think that your falling asleep is empty, the world is empty as well. Whatever things may happen, whether they exist or not depends upon your view.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Saying that there is no ‘I’ means not that there is no ‘I’, but that there is nothing specific worth mentioning as ‘I’. However, if there were no your ‘I’, what would get your body to read this writing now?
In fact, ‘non-I’ is another expression of the fact that everything is empty and one. When everything is empty, everything is oneness as emptiness. When everything including you is oneness, oneness is part of you and you are part of oneness. When everything including you is oneness, there is nothing else but oneness. Then oneness is all and nothing else. This means that all is you and there is nothing else that is not you since oneness is you. When there is nothing else but you, all is you and you are all.
In order for you to become you, there must be someone or something else that is not you that you can be discriminated from. When all is you and you are all, you are not you any more, just as red is not red any more when all is red. So ‘non-I’ means not that there is no ‘I’ at all but that there is only ‘I’. So, Buddha said, “In the whole universe, only I exist” when he was born.
Student: “What happens when there is no ‘I’?”
Master: “All becomes you.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Master: “If I answer your question, I become menial.”
Commentary:
Don’t blame the master for not answering.
He is soiling himself to answer the question.
What he is worried about is not his becoming menial but your becoming menial.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. An illusion is to the true-self as wind is to air. We divide air into many kinds of winds such as breeze, gale, waft, gust and so on. No matter how many kinds of winds there may be, the essence of them is the same, air. In the same way, we divide the true-self, emptiness into many forms by drawing imaginary lines or through labelling, and the forms are referred to as illusions. However many forms there may be, the essence of them is the true-self, emptiness. Therefore, it means that all illusions are true-self, just as all winds are air.
Student: “What is the true-self?”
Master: “An illusion is.”
Student: “What is an illusion?”
Master: “The true-self is.”
Student: “What is the difference between them?”
Master: “The difference is not between them at all but only in your view because they are one.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Interpreted more simply, this question means “How can we live without being deluded by illusions and without being attached to enlightenment when we happen to get it?” It is possible to know, through perfect realisation of the truth, that everything is empty. In other words, when everything is empty, we should realise that not only illusions but also enlightenment is empty.
If we are attached to enlightenment after getting enlightened, this is making another illusion, just like making a new form of clay after destroying an old form of clay. You should realise that when everything is empty, you are emptiness itself, and then there is nothing to gain or lose. So, an ancient master said, “Don’t be stained by purity.” when his student asked him how he could remain pure. In other words, you should neither be deluded by illusions while living amid them nor be attached to emptiness.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The true-self is an illusion and an illusion is the true-self. When you can see, for example, the cup put before you as empty, it is the true-self, but it is an illusion when you can’t see it as empty and see it only as a cup. This is true of everything that you can see and hear; your wife, your friends, your puppy, et cetera. In other words, when you can see things as empty, everything is the true-self. When you can’t see things as empty, everything is an illusion.
A thing doesn’t determine on its own whether it is seen as the true-self or an illusion, but it depends on whether or not you can see it as empty. When you can see everything as empty, you are said to have attained the eye of wisdom or enlightenment. So, an ancient master would say that if you get the eye of wisdom, all the rubbish heaps turn into treasure heaps. When you are enlightened, everything including yourself is perfection itself to you. That is referred to as the Pure Land or the Buddha Land.
Student: “What is the true-self?”
Master: “There is nothing that is not the true-self.”
Student: “Why can’t I see it?”
Master: “Because you seek it while seeing it.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The primary means emptiness or the true-self and the secondary forms or illusions. This means that you should not follow illusions while forsaking the true-self. But this doesn’t mean to sort out the true-self from illusions, but means to realise that illusions are no other than the true-self. If you fall into the division of the true-self and illusions and regard illusions as different and separate from the true-self, you come to think that you should follow the former and avoid the latter. This is to be deluded by the illusions of the true-self and illusions, which is to follow the secondary while forsaking the primary. You can stop this by ceasing to discriminate.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Matthew 5:29,30: 29) “So if your right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. 30) If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose one of your limbs than to have your whole body go off to hell.”
A. Here your whole body means your true-self or your whole life, and parts of your body such as eyes and hands means illusions. To remove your eyes and hands means to stop following illusions. Having your whole body thrown into hell refers to leaving your true-self lost and living in the world of illusions. So, ‘losing parts of your body is much better than having your whole body thrown into hell’ means that to stop following illusions, although it is not easy, is much better than to live in the world of illusions.
Student: “How do you prevent your eyes and hands from sinning?”
Master: “I don’t have eyes and hands to sin.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Zen Fools 