Life is sometimes sunny.
Life is sometimes moonlit.
Life is sometimes rainy.
Life is sometimes windy.
Life is sometimes snowy.
Life is sometimes cloudy.
Life is sometimes blooming.
Life is sometimes autumn-tinted.
What is your life like at this moment?
Whatever your life is like,
All of these are from the same root, your mind.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. Though you know everything is an illusion, it can be said, you have never experienced the fact in person. Knowing everything is an illusion is quite different from experiencing in person the truth that everything is an illusion. If you were aware that everything is an illusion, why wouldn’t you know that you yourself are also an illusion and that your anger and your regret are also an illusion? What else would matter when not only your anger and regret but also you are an illusion?
Don’t rule out anything from everything.
Trace back your agony to its root, and you will experience the truth that everything including you is an illusion.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. Why can’t we stop doing things as we please? Many people, for example, can’t stop smoking though they are eager to stop it and some are suffering intense agony because they can’t stop bad memories they want to forget from reviving. It is because we don’t know what, or who, allowed our body to do something in the past and wants it to stop doing it now. Saying, “I allowed myself to do it,” we don’t know who or what I am when my body is not me. Likewise, saying, “I want to stop smoking,” we don’t know who or what wants to stop smoking, since we don’t know what we are when our body is not us. How could you stop doing something when you don’t know who permits your body to do something and wants it to stop doing it?
The Bible 1 John 4:4 says, “The spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world.” ‘The spirit who is in you’ means your true-self, the final goal, and ‘the spirit in those who belong to the world,’ implies your body, which is an illusion. Only when you know what you are when your body is not you, can you become more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world.
If you realise what you are, you can be as free to stop doing it as you were to start to.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. It seems to leave room for misunderstanding. It is impossible to live without discriminating mind in our everyday life. Our life is a series of discrimination every moment: crossing the street, buying things, meeting people and so forth. In a word we are living in the world created by a discriminating mind, which is also referred to as the world of illusion. The happiness and the success of our life can be said to depend on how good the decisions and choices that we make are, which rests on how well we discriminate things in our life. Our education is to provide us with the methods by which we can make good discrimination.
When masters advise us to eliminate discriminating mind, they mean not that we should not discriminate at all but that we should see both the world of illusion and the world out of illusion at the same time. In order to see the world out of illusion, we should be able to stop discriminating, when we can see the essence of things which is covered with an illusion. When we can see not just the illusion of a thing but also the essence of it, we can make better decisions and choices in our life. That’s why masters are encouraging people to eliminate discriminating mind.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
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