All you see, hear and feel is your true-self. If you think of anything else as your true-self, Buddha, that is none other than an illusion of your true-self.
People, in fact, are chasing after the illusion of Buddha created by their imagination while always facing Buddha. The problem is that you don’t recognise Him while being together with Him all the time and never having left each other. If you pursue anything else other than what you are confronting now, it is to add another illusion which prevents you from seeing your true-self.
The true-self is one or non-dual, and it is the origin or the root of everything including ourselves. We have divided the true-self into many with imaginary lines, all labels. In fact, we have drawn so many complicated lines that we can neither see nor imagine the original shape of the true-self without any lines. We have been addicted to such imaginary lines for such a long time that we cannot recognise the One now. However, no matter how many lines there are and no matter how complicated the lines are, we are still the true-self itself, have never left it and can’t leave it, whether we are aware of this truth or not. The purpose of Zen meditation is to realise the truth by seeing the intact shape of the true-self.
Student: “What is the Buddha, Sir?”
Master: “Why do you only see an old man and not the Buddha?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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