Category: final goal

Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Meditation, true self, Truth, Zen

Q91. What do you mean by ‘Everything is the gate to the truth’?

Zen Fools

A. It means that everything you hear and see is teaching you. You can reach your final goal if you grasp this teaching. Let me give you an example.

Once upon a time a monk who had been practising Zen meditation with the Zen question, ‘What was your original face like before you were born?’ happened to be walking across a market place. He saw a group of people making a great fuss around a humble looking man. The fact was that this man was caught stealing some money from an elderly woman. Some bystanders in the crowd blamed him and some were feeling pity for him. One of them said to him, “You’ve lost your face now. How can you save your face before your family?” The poor man answered with his head bent, “I have no face to lose any more.” The moment the monk heard the phrase ‘I have no face to lose’, his question ‘What was your original face like before you were born?’ was solved perfectly. The trivial word from the humble thief was the greatest teaching to the monk that he had ever heard in his life. What would not be a gate to the truth, if even such a trifle as the thief’s words is the greatest teaching?

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Do you want to hear the teaching of the truth?
Listen carefully to your family and neighbours.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Bible, Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Truth, Zen

Q88. Why is it difficult to get the point of masters’ teachings?

Zen Fools

A. You should remember that all sayings from the Sutras, the Bible and masters are all like a piece of broken tile for knocking on the door. Let’s suppose you are locked in a burning room and trying to get out of it. The room has a single window through which you can escape from it but unfortunately you are not aware of the window. I throw a piece of broken tile at the widow in order to let you know the existence of the window, the only exit.

What should you do now? As soon as you hear the strike of the broken tile on the window or see the broken tile thrown into the room, you should be able to escape from the burning room through the window.
However, most of you pick up the tile and try to analyse it: the elements of it, location of its production, its colour, its weight, the effect it can have on the room and so on. This is the way you accept masters’ teachings, so you can’t avoid finding it difficult to get to the point of the teachings.

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Which is your way of approaching Zen?

In order to catch the point of the teachings, don’t cling to the words themselves, but try to grasp the main

intention of their being spoken.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

intention of their being spoken.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Meditation, mindful, mindfulness, true self, Truth, Zen

Q87. Student: “What are you when your body is not you, sir?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Take a look carefully.”
Student: “What shall I look at?”
Master: “Listen carefully.”

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Commentary:
Don’t seek to approach it.
If you put your face near it in order to see it closely, you will have your face burnt.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Meditation, self, true self, Truth, Zen

Q82. I was told to treasure my True-self. How can I treasure it well?

Zen Fools

A. In order to treasure your True-self, you, above all, should know exactly what it is. How can you treasure your True-self, if you don’t know it? You can’t treasure it whatever you may do unless you realise it through experience. However, once you realise your True-self through experience, you don’t have to try to treasure it because it is so perfect that there is nothing you can do for it. You can neither throw it away, treasure, destroy, purify nor protect it. It is always perfect without any change, regardless of whether you do something for it or not. If you have any intention to do something to treasure or protect it, it is also rather an illusion to stain it. So the best way to treasure your True-self is to realise it through experience.

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©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Buddha, final goal, illusion, Koan, Meditation, self, Zen

Q80. What did ancient masters mean when saying, “Kill the Buddha”?

Zen Fools

A. It is from the well-known saying in Zen, “If you want to see the Buddha, kill him if you should meet him.”
It means that you should break away the illusion of a thing when it comes to you if you are to see the essence of it. Most people have images of the Buddha although they have never seen him. It is indeed a very good example of an illusion. Illusions die hard because we are highly addicted to them, so masters employed strong language like that in order to put emphasis on eliminating illusions.

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Likewise, if you are to see the essence of you, you should remove the image of you. The very typical image of you is your body, and I can tell you to kill yourself to convey my meaning that you should remove your established image of yourself, instead of telling you to ask yourself what you are when your body is not you. So “Kill the Buddha” mentioned above, means to perfectly remove the illusion of a thing in order to see the essence of it.

©Boo Ahm

Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Truth, Zen

Q79. How can we remove illusions?

Zen Fools

A. When we say that we practice Zen meditation to escape from the trap of illusions or remove illusions, it never means separating them from ourselves, but realising the fact that illusions are the truth which is the root of everything; the final goal we long to achieve. However, many people, believing that an illusion is different from the truth, make the mistake of trying to stop thinking, when thoughts, good or bad, come to them, regarding them as illusions. That is one of the most common mistakes we make when practising Zen meditation.

Therefore, try your best to see yourself as you are or try to trace back to the root of the thinking that you look upon as an illusion. When you can see either yourself as you are, or the root of your thinking, all illusions will disappear by themselves.

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Don’t avoid illusions
since they are a form of the truth.
Don’t follow the truth
since it is also an illusion.

©Boo Ahm

Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Truth, Zen

Q78. Master: ‘What are you doing here?’

Zen Fools

A. Student: ‘I am doing nothing.’
Master: ‘Then you are sitting at leisure.’
Student: ‘Sitting at leisure is also doing.’
Master: ‘You say you are doing nothing. What are you not doing?’
Student: ‘Even saints don’t know it.’

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Commentary:
He can be said to know how to do nothing.
If you knew who does what, you would know how to do nothing.

©Boo Ahm

final goal, illusion, Truth, Zen

Q77. Buddhism says, ‘Don’t kill a living thing.’ Can we live without killing any living things?

Zen Fools

A. As long as we want to remain alive, we have to kill some living things to keep ourselves alive. Though, as a vegetarian, we don’t touch meat or fish, we can’t avoid killing countless invisible living things. All plants such as vegetables, for example, are living things, and countless micro-organisms, living things too small to see with naked eyes, are living on their surface. Feeding on plants, being a vegetarian means killing such living things as well.

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So asking us not to kill a living thing is asking us to get out of illusions because we can’t help killing living things while living in the world of illusion. Getting out of illusion also means escaping from the trap of birth and death. In the world free of illusion, not only ourselves but also all other living things, escape from birth and death. Leaving ourselves to stay in the world of illusion is leaving both ourselves and all other living things to die. In other words, not trying to get out of illusions is to leave ourselves and all other living things alone to die, and to leave dying people and things alone that you can save is not different from killing them. So it means you should save not only yourself but also all living things by getting out of illusions, reaching the final goal.

©Boo Ahm

Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Truth, Zen

Q76. How different is an illusion from the final goal, the truth?

Zen Fools

A. In fact both are not different from each other, but they are one, just as sea and waves are not separate. There is nothing but the truth. If, regarding illusions as different from the truth, we try to remove illusions and reach the final goal, it is like trying to remove waves in order to see the sea. We should keep in mind that to eliminate illusions doesn’t mean to put the illusions away to another place, but means to change our viewpoint and realise that all illusions including us, are the truth itself we are looking for. ©Boo Ahm SRH_1462b_thumb

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.