Category: Koan

Koan, Truth, Zen

Q84. Student: “Sir, what are you when your body is not you?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Go and ask Tom, your senior.”
(He goes to Tom and asks him.)
Student: “What are you when your body is not you?”
Tom: “Go and ask my friend, John. I can’t tell you the answer now because I have a bad headache.”
(He goes to John and asks him.)
Student: “What are you when your body is not you?”
John: “I can’t tell you the answer since I am busy now. Why don’t you ask such a question of the master?”
(He returns to the master and tells him what Tom and John said to him.)
Master: “Tom’s hair is white, and John’s hair is black.”

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Commentary:
A dog dashes to the stone when it is thrown to it but a lion to the thrower.

©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, 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

Koan, Truth, Zen

Q75. Student: ‘What are you when your body is not you, sir?’

Zen Fools

A. Master: ‘I don’t know. ‘
Student: ‘Why don’t you know?’
Master: ‘Don’t tell anyone that I said I didn’t know.’

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Commentary:
It is not for the sake of his reputation but for the sake of his student’s reputation that Master advises his student not to tell anyone that he said he didn’t know.

©Boo Ahm

illusion, Koan, Meditation, Mind, Zen

Q74. What does ‘escape from the trap of birth and death’ mean?

Zen Fools

A. Birth and death are like the right and the left. There is no fixed right side and no fixed left side. The right can be the left anytime and the other way around. Besides, when we are not conscious of right and left, there is neither the right nor the left.

Nobody can deny the fact that we are part of the whole universe. Then is the universe dead or alive? It’s neither alive nor dead. Then are we, part of it, alive or dead? Though we define a given part of universe as birth or death, actually there is no birth and no death unless we divide the universe into many with the imaginary lines we produce.

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There is no birth and no death unless we are conscious of them. To conclude, to experience in person the fact that birth and death are nothing but an illusion, like the right and the left, is to escape from the trap of birth and death.

©Boo Ahm

Koan, Meditation, self, Truth, Zen

Q72. What are you when your body is not you?

Zen Fools

A. Don’t eat lees but drink wine.

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Commentary:
What is wine? And what are the lees?
Don’t make believe that you drank wine after eating the lees.
He who eats the lees plays a drunken frenzy.
He who drinks wine steals the whole universe.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

illusion, Koan, Meditation, Mind, Zen

Q. 68 Life

Zen Fools

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.

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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.