A. Master: “Before your question.”
Commentary:
Why are you tearing one into two while trying to make them one?
A dead sheep was neither different nor separate from the field until you thought of them as different and separate.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The knowledge that everything is just labels is quite different from the realisation that everything is just labels. In fact, we don’t know exactly what labels are while saying that everything is just labels. That is why we can’t remove them easily. The purpose of our practice is to see clearly what a label is, which is to realise that everything is empty. Once we realise what a label is, we don’t care about labels because we know that they are not real entities but only imaginary lines produced by us like the horn of a rabbit or the hair of a turtle. Taking labels for real entities is being deluded by illusions, and being able to see labels as imaginary lines is enlightenment. Then, we are said to be free from illusions, or not to be deluded by illusions.
Student: “Why can’t I remove illusions easily?”
Master: “Because you don’t know what they are.”
Student: “I know that everything is an illusion.”
Master: “When everything is an illusion, not only your question but also you and I are illusions. Who asks whom what?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Such a thing never happens. Enlightenment means to attain eternal happiness. If someone says that he is still unhappy after enlightenment, he is confessing not only that he is not enlightened but also that he doesn’t know what enlightenment is. Your question is like ‘What if eating too much makes me hungry?’ or ‘What if earning huge wealth makes me poor?’. Enlightenment means to realise that you are eternity itself and happiness itself.
Student: “What if enlightenment brings us unhappiness?”
Master: “Be willing to accept it. That is the happiness that you are looking for.”
Student: “Why should I accept unhappiness while looking for happiness?”
Master: “Your unhappiness results from mistaking happiness for unhappiness. Enlightenment is to realise that unhappiness is not different from happiness.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. It is true that we should try to be unattached even to meditation and Buddhist teaching. However, it is not that we attain non-attachment by suppressing our desire, but that non-attachment comes by itself as a result of our realising that everything is empty.
The core teaching of Buddhism is to realise that everything is empty through seeing everything as it is. When we realise that everything is empty and that there is nothing to be attached to, our attachment perishes of its own accord. Unless we realise that everything is empty, we might be able to control or suppress our attachment for quite some time, but we can’t remove it for good.
Buddhist teaching and meditation are like medicine for curing us of attachment. Once we get well after taking medicine, we don’t need it any longer, and our attachment to medicine disappears naturally. However, you won’t be cured of the disease, attachment, if you only keep away from medicine while you are sick. Keeping away from medicine in order to remove your attachment to medicine while you are sick is making matters worse and making another strong attachment to non-attachment.
Student: “How can I attain non-attachment?”
Master: “Don’t discard your attachment.”
Student: “Why do you tell me not to discard my attachment?”
Master: “Because your attachment is the very non-attachment.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. In Zen we have a saying that the higher your practice is, the more powerful Mara (temptation) is. In fact, this is one of the sayings that are very often misinterpreted. Most people think that this saying means that the more your practice grows, the more powerful Mara becomes. We have this interpretation because we usually make good progress when we face a big challenge in our life as a test of our practice and try to overcome it. However, it is not true that the more your practice grows, the more powerful Mara becomes, because this would mean that as your practice became higher and higher, it would attract more and more powerful Mara.
The correct interpretation is that the greater your practice becomes, the more powerful Mara that you can surmount grows. The better your practice becomes, the more capable you become of surmounting Mara. Although you can overcome only a small Mara when your practice is weak, you can overcome much more powerful Mara when your practice develops. In other words, the richer you become, the larger and the more expensive the house that you can buy becomes. The stronger your muscles become, the heavier the weights that you can lift become.
Speaking of sexual desire, not only the Buddha but also we sentient beings have attachment to it. So, it was not that Mara’s daughters came to tempt the Buddha since his practice was of a high level, but rather that he could overcome the temptation of sexual desire which is one of the most difficult instinctual desires to surmount.
When faced with a challenge in your life, don’t think that your practice has brought it upon you, but look upon it as a test of your practice. Then your challenge will turn into your practice, and you can deepen your practice and solve your challenge at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The truth is that there is nothing that is not the true Self. At the same time, it is also true that everything is an illusion. Whether everything is an illusion, or the true-self, depends on whether or not you can see it as it is. When you can see everything as it is, everything is the true-self, but when you can’t see things as they are, everything is an illusion.
When you can see things as they are, your love is the action of the true-self. Then your love is referred to as compassion, true love or wise love.
However, when you can’t see things as they are, both you and the object of your love are illusions. In other words, when you don’t know what you are and what the object of your love is, how can you say that you love someone or something without knowing who loves whom or what?
Then you are said to be attached to and deluded by an illusion, love, which can often lead you to frustration and unhappiness.
Student: “May I, as a practitioner, love?”
Master: “I don’t tell you to not love but advise you to know who loves whom.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Everything is said to be empty because nothing by itself has its own nature. What, for example, do you think the nature of gold is? We can say its colour is yellow, it is heavier, softer and more valuable than other metal, and it doesn’t rust.
Why is it yellow? Does it say itself that it is yellow? No, it is yellow because we label it as yellow and say it is yellow. In the same way, it is heavier, softer and more valuable than other sorts of metal only because we think so. But in fact, it is neither heavier nor lighter than other kinds of metal unless we compare it with other sorts of metal and then label it as ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’. Whether it is heavier than other kinds of metal or not depends on our view and not actually on its own nature. In summary, gold does not have its own nature unless it is labelled by us. Gold itself is not gold unless we label it as gold. Therefore, it is said that everything is empty, and all things are from the same root, our mind.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathawa
A. Reading thousands of books and the Sutras is not as good as grasping a single word out of the books you read. Trying to realise the true meaning of a single word of the Sutra is much more beneficial than reading the Sutra a thousand times.
You should know that all books including the Sutras are not the essence of the true-self but only a kind of manual that describes the true-self. In other words, the core of what the Sutra says is not in the Sutra but in you who are reading the Sutra. You should know that the true Sutra is not the one made of paper put before you, but your true-self that is making your body read it.
You should also know that each word of the Sutra contains all the contents of the Sutra. So, if you can grasp only a single word from the Sutra, you can know the rest of the Sutra, which is enlightenment. You should think that each word is the gate to enlightenment, and try to understand it clearly rather than read many books, or read a book many times. Then it takes longer to read the Sutra than before. It may take more than a year to read the Sutra that you could previously read in two hours. Then your reading is not reading any more but practice. This is the way of reading the Sutra that I’d love to recommend.
Master: “What did you do last night?”
Student: “I read the Diamond Sutra.”
Master: “What does it say?”
Student: “It says that everything is empty.”
Master: “Did you read only that one sentence?”
Student: “I read many other sentences as well, but I don’t remember all of them.”
Master: “Don’t say that you read the Sutra after picking up and eating black beans.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Hand-copying the Sutras itself is not meditation just like wheat flour itself is not bread. It can be meditation only when you keep the question, ‘Who or what is making my body copy this Sutra?’ just as wheat flour becomes bread only when you knead the flour and bake it.
If you can keep such curiosity, all of your acts, whatever you may do, can be meditation. During a walk, you can practice walking meditation. When drinking tea, you can practice tea meditation. When talking with others, you practice talking meditation. If you can turn all your acts into meditation like this, you can be said to have become one with your practice. This means that you are very near the final goal. However, hand-copying the Sutras without such a question may enhance your penmanship, but it has nothing to do with enlightenment.
Master: “How do you practice these days in order to attain enlightenment?”
Student: “I hand-copy the Diamond Sutra.”
Master: “How long does it take to hand-copy the Sutra?”
Student: “It takes almost a day.”
Master: “You still don’t know how to copy the Sutras. You should be able to do it in a second.”
Student: “How can you do that in a second?”
Master: “Shall I show you how?”
Student: “Of course, Sir.”
Master: (slapping the student in the face) “Do you see the Sutra?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The true-self is non-duality, oneness. There is nothing that is not the true-self, which is often compared to the universe. Bubbles, bottle, water and surroundings are all part of the universe. Which of them doesn’t belong to the universe? It is because you separate them from the universe by putting labels or drawing imaginary lines on them that you think that the universe contains them. In fact, it is impossible to break or tear the universe whatever we may do, because even we who try to break it are the universe itself. Even when things change or are changed into other forms whether visible or invisible, their changes are part of the universe as well.
To conclude, there is nothing that is not the true-self. The reason why you think that a bottle contains water is that you put different labels on them. I’d like to recommend that you think over the phrase ‘You should be able to put Mt. Everest into a grain of mustard seed’.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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