Category: Practice

Enlightenment, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q49. Do we become emotionless, not feeling sad or happy after reaching the final goal?

Zen Fools

A. Many people think we will not have feelings like sad, anger, pride, lust, happiness and so on after reaching the final goal. Some people use being emotionless as a scale to measure how much progress they have made in meditation progress. This is one of the most common wrong ideas about Zen meditation. Why should we continue our life, not to mention practising to reach the final goal, if we become emotionless like a wooden craft? We have the same feelings: feel sad when seeing sad things, angry when encountering unjust situations, and happy when seeing happy things.

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When we’ve reached the final goal, we can see things as they are, which means we can see things as neutral. Then we see things like a movie: we are sad during a sad movie and happy during a comic play. What counts is that we never become frustrated however sad the movie is and never become so attached to the movie as to disturb our life, since we know it is not real. Likewise, when coming upon a sad situation in reality, we feel sad but never feel so frustrated as to damage our life because we know it is neutral in itself. Meeting with a good thing, we feel happy but never become so proud of, or attached to it, as to mess up our life because you know it is also neutral in itself.
In a word, we have the same feelings but in a different dimension.

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

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Happiness, Koan, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q47. Student: What are you when your body is not you?

Zen Fools

A. Master: A piece of cake.
Student: How does it taste?
Master: Bitter.
Student: What happens when we eat it?
Master: All die.

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Commentary:
How mysterious!
It tastes bitter and kills all.
Why do people struggle to eat it?

When all die, all illusions die.
When all illusions die, you are eternity itself.

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

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, God, Meditation, mindful, mindfulness, One, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q45. How can I be mindful?

Zen Fools

A. Very simple. If you know what your mind is, you can be mindful all the time with no effort. Most people try to mindful only to fail because they strive to do what they don’t know. In other words, to be mindful is difficult since you don’t know what your mind is. Actually, most people don’t know how to start to be mindful when they try to be mindful because they don’t know their mind.

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Anyway to be mindful, you must know what your mind is. How could you try to be mindful without knowing what your mind is? Try to find what your mind is and you will become mindful with no effort. What are you when your body is not you? Mind is the name of you when your body is not you, which is also referred to as true-self, true-nature, the nature, the truth, the Buddha in Buddhism and the God in Christianity. Whatever it is called, the name itself doesn’t matter. We should know what it is beyond the name.

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

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, God, Koan, Meditation, Mind, One, Practice, Religion, Truth, Zen

Q39. Could you describe what we are when our body is not us?

Zen Fools

A. In fact it is beyond description and can’t be reached through words, but it is not separate from words and can’t be explained without words. When reading a text, or hearing a talk about it, you should take it as more than words.

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It is called the truth, the mind, the true nature, the true self, or the Buddha in Buddhism. In Christianity, it is referred to as the truth, the spirit in you, the word, the lord, or God – as John 8:32 says, “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Everything, whether living or non-living, or whether saints or sentient beings, belongs to nothing but the truth. The truth is neither blue nor yellow, and has neither any frame nor any form. It is neither existing nor non-existent, and since it is boundless like the empty air, not only does it have no inside and no outside but also it can’t be measured. It is with us all the time, and we can’t escape it even for a moment.

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

Meditation, Mind, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q37. Some masters advise us to stop thinking. How can we live our life without thinking?

Zen Fools

A. When masters advise you to stop thinking, to stop thinking has two kinds: before and after reaching the final goal. When they use it in the former sense, they usually mean not that you should stop thinking in your life, but that you should not try to find the answer to the Zen question through thinking, or knowledge, during the practice. Since the purpose of Zen practice is to free you from the web of illusions but thinking produces illusions, the more thinking you do, the more complicated you make it. That is why masters urge you to stop thinking.

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However, the latter is to stop thinking in the truest sense that is possible, when you have reached the final goal, which means to think without being trapped in illusions. In a word, when they tell us to stop thinking, what they mean is not to stop thinking, but to think without being trapped in illusions.

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

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Koan, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q36. What is a koan in Zen meditation? Why can’t I understand koans even though I have read a lot on meditation? They make no sense to me.

Zen Fools

A. A koan is a sort of dialogue between a master and his students that is used to check whether they have reached the final goal. At the same time, it can be a good question you can practice with. It is just like a maths question in maths, in that a question can be used to test students on one hand and can be material to study on the other hand; so it can be referred to as a Zen question. If you understand perfectly the principle of a question, you can solve other questions easily. Koans might seem to be funny and even look like a joke. Sometimes they may seem to make no sense at all. However, once you have reached the final goal, you will understand how clever, correct and beautiful they are.

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Some people think that each question has a single answer, and, memorising it, say they know the correct answer. The truth is that each koan has so many answers that we can’t say all the answers, even if we spend all our life saying the answers to a single question.
It is just like when five year old children are asked a maths question, “What is 3 + 2?” Not all, but most of them can provide only a single answer 5, because they have not mastered the four rules of arithmetic. However, most secondary school students know that though the answer to the question is 5, it can be said in countless other ways, such as 6 – 1, 1.5 + 3.5, 4 + 1, 4.8 + 0.2, 100 – 95 and so on. They also know that although each of the answers seemingly has a different form, all of them are perfectly correct answers.
If you expect to understand koans by reading books, it is natural for them to seem to make no sense at all. Trying to grasp them through reading is like trying to wash a mud-stained cloth with muddy water; it will make things more complicated, since koans are asked to check whether Zen students are freed from the illusions with which we are bound, but reading books is to create illusions. Only when you are freed from illusions can you understand them clearly.

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

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, Koan, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q34. Would you recommend any other way to practice Zen, when I feel tired of the question ‘What am I when my body is not me?’

Zen Fools

A. If you feel tired of asking yourself the same question, I’d say two things.
One is that you may take another Zen question that is likely to stimulate your curiosity. I plan to provide a new Zen question a week.
The other is that you ask your question of the things around you instead of yourself. Seeing a tree, you can ask the tree your question ‘Hi, tree. What am I when my body is not me?’ or a little different question ‘Hi, tree. What are you when you are not a tree?’ You can ask such a question of anything such as a car, a puppy, a bird, a desk, spoon, a cup and so forth that you can see in your everyday life. My words might sound ridiculous but they, whenever you ask them the question, never fail to tell you the correct answers. The problem is that you can’t grasp their answers because your eyes and ears are veiled by illusions. To try to understand their answers is a good practice, too.

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

Buddhism, Meditation, One, Practice, Religion, Truth, Zen

Q30. When we help others we get such a great feeling….is this just us patting oneself on the back, or is it because that we are all one and by helping others we truly are helping our self?

Zen Fools

A. If you get a great feeling, as most people do, it is likely to be a kind of sense of accomplishment. We have been taught and told to help others in need since our kindergarten days. However, we usually feel that we have not helped others as much as we think we should, and we always feel guilty or burdened unconsciously, for it as though we didn’t do our homework. When we help others, we get a kind of accomplishment we would feel when no one but I in the class did the homework in our school days and, enjoying secret pride, we pat ourselves on the back just like our teachers did to us.

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Let me ask you a question. Do you happen to get such a great feeling when you feed yourself? In fact, if you had helped others because you felt oneness with them, you would have felt it natural rather than great. The Bible says, “When you help others, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does.” However, Zen books say, “When you help others, don’t let even your right hand know what your right hand does.” This is a saying that shows the essence of Zen. You should not have even the idea that you helped someone. You should feel as natural as if you buy yourself lunch, when you serve a nice lunch to a hungry man. That is, to love your neighbours as yourself – just like the Bible says.

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

Enlightenment, Koan, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q29. What are you when your body is not you?

Zen Fools

A. A piece of cake.

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Commentary:
A piece of cake,
It is neither soft nor tough.
How deplorable!
Numerous people have tried to eat it so far,
Few of whom swallowed it.
Countless people have tried chewing it,
But no tooth-mark is left on it.

If I were asked the question,
I would answer, “Why do you ask me the taste of the food you are chewing?”

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