A. Master: “It’s already open”
Commentary:
If you stick to ‘open’, it’s already locked.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Category: Practice
Q265. What am I when my body is not me?
A. Remove all the labels attached to you by others. Remove all words that can describe your identity. Let’s suppose you are a sixty-year-old British man named John who is living in London. When you say that you were born in London sixty years ago, what is left when all the labels are removed? ‘You’ or ‘I’, ‘were born’, ‘in London’, ‘sixty’, ‘years’ and ‘ago’ all are labels. You still have a lot of labels to represent your identity such as your parents, your job, your school records and so on. You think that you are human being, which is also an artificially coined label. Remove all artificial labels and see what is left, whatever it is. That’s it. What is it?
Master: “What is left now?”
Student: “Nothing is left.”
Master: “If nothing were left, what would be saying, ‘Nothing is left’?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q263. What is emptiness?
A. Emptiness is not void but being both existent and non-existent at the same time, as it were, before division into ‘being existent’ and ‘being non-existent’. That is a state or an appearance without any imaginary lines. When asked what emptiness is like, some masters would say that it is full and others that it is active. All you can feel is emptiness. Even your body is emptiness. There is nothing that is not empty. If you follow emptiness, you will forsake it.
Student: “What is emptiness?”
Master: “Don’t forsake it.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q262. The phrase ‘Striving to reach London while staying in London’ doesn’t make any sense to me. What does it mean?
A. The purpose of Zen meditation is to experience emptiness in person. London is a symbol of emptiness and reaching London means to experience emptiness. It means, in other words, that we are trying to experience emptiness while being emptiness itself. Reaching emptiness is realising the truth that we ourselves are emptiness, not reaching it by moving towards it.
In order to see whether you grasp these words clearly, ask yourself the following question.
Student: “How do you feel when you realise emptiness?”
Master: “I’ll be wrong if I answer your question.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q259. How can I grasp the core meaning of the Sutras?
A. What do you think the core teaching of the Sutras is? It is enlightenment. What all the Sutras say is nothing but how to attain enlightenment and what enlightenment is like, nothing else. If you are to grasp the core teaching of Buddha, don’t look for it in the Sutras. The Sutras are only like a map or an arrow pointing to your destination. They are not the place itself that you want to reach.
Don’t think of Zen meditation as being apart from the Sutras. Zen meditation is an expedient means to grasp the core teaching of the Sutras. The Sutras are maps and Zen is to move towards the destination indicated by the maps. So, the best way to grasp the core meaning of the Sutras is to experience what the Sutras say through practice.
Student: “How can I grasp the core meaning of the Sutras?”
Master: “Discard all the Sutras.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q258. Master: “When a guest comes, you should take care of him, but when a thief comes, you should turn him away.”
A. Student: “What is a guest?”
Master: “Just passed by.”
Student: “What is a thief?”
Master: “A guest.”
Commentary:
What you think is a guest is a thief, and what you think is a thief is a guest.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q257. I have been a Christian for over 20 years and believed that God is perfect. Why does He make my life so troublesome?
A. If you have true faith in God and His perfection, you should not think that your life is troublesome. Thinking that your life is problematic is contrary to the truth that God never makes any mistakes since He is perfect. When He made you what you are, He had his intention. What you are is the exact expression of his intention. The reason why you think that your life is spoiled and troublesome is that you don’t understand his intention. Instead of blaming God for making your life troublesome, you had better try to know what God intends you to be like.
Student: “Why does God make my life so hard?”
Master: “Why don’t you ask God in person?”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q256. What does ‘being like a mirror’ mean?
A. An ancient master said, “Everybody has a mirror. An unenlightened person’s life is like a monkey looking in a mirror, but an enlightened person’s is like a mirror looking at a monkey.” A monkey, when looking in a mirror, mistakes its reflection as another monkey and tries in vain to do something with it. However, a mirror, when something or someone is before it, just reflects the thing or the person as it is or as they are. It neither names, evaluates nor loves or hates it or them. In other words, it never discriminates. So, ‘being like a mirror’ represents the undiscriminating mind of the enlightened.
Student: “How do you feel when you are like a mirror?”
Master: “I become a big liar if I answer your question.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q255. Student: “How can I distinguish the true-self from an illusion?”
A. Master: “What you think is the true-self is an illusion and what you think is an illusion is the true-self.”
Commentary:
Both the true-self and an illusion are illusions.
It is the true-self that tries to distinguish the true-self from an illusion.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
Q254. You always advise us not to follow language, but how can we understand you unless we follow your language?
A. There is a well-known saying ‘If following words, you will fall into the hell. If not grasping the meaning of words, you will be deluded’. When I tell you not to follow my language, I don’t mean that you should ignore my language but that you should not follow the superficial meaning of it.
When pointing to the moon, we can use a finger, a wooden stick, a plastic stick or an iron stick. We can point to the moon even with a fork or a knife if we are asked what the moon is in the middle of eating. Regrettably, people pay all their attention only to studying and analysing the things used to point to the moon: what they are made of, how old they are, what shape they are and so on.
When I use a lot of different words and expressions to point to the true-self, my language is like the things above used to point to the moon. If you accept my words in the way you understand general knowledge, you are like a person who studies the stick or the spoon used to point to the moon. Then, you are said to follow or be deceived by language. If you are deceived by language like this, you will be immersed in illusions and even all Sutras and the Bible will become illusions.
Student: “What’s the true-self?”
Master: “Don’t follow my language.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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