Category: suffering

Buddha, Buddhism, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, Religion, student, suffering, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q251. What is fear and how shall we deal with it?

Zen Fools

A.Fear is a very natural and instinctive feeling we have in order to protect ourselves. Its role is to warn us of danger that has or will come so that we may get ready to cope with it. It is like a sentry. If it were not for the feeling of fear, we would take less care of ourselves and therefore be more likely to lose our lives earlier by taking more reckless actions and having more accidents. In that sense, fear is very essential and useful for our survival.

 

However, sometimes fear itself can be more dangerous and harmful than the danger that it warns us of. In other words, you are more threatened by your sentry than by the danger itself. This is a good instance of showing how we are deluded by illusions.

 

Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to try to see fear as it is by tracing it back to its root, keeping in mind that everything is an empty illusion.

 

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Student: “Sir, I am very afraid. How can I remove my fear?”

Master: “Bring it to me and I will keep it.”

Student: “I can’t find it anywhere.”

Master: “Then your fear is already removed.”

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, desire, emptiness, empty, illusion, love, master, Meditation, Mind, Photography, Practice, self, sex, sexual, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q236. I was unfaithful to my wife, and she wanted to get divorced from me. I apologised to her for my misdeed with all my heart and she promised to forgive me. We, as Buddhists, thinking that everything is empty, agreed to forget the matter. However, she still keeps bringing up the matter, which leads to arguments and we still talk about divorce.

Zen Fools

A. To think that everything is empty seems to be a good way to solve your problem. Try to keep thinking that way even though you’ve not realised the truth and your life will gradually become more stable with your Zen practice growing mature. The most important thing that you should realise now is that if everything is empty, your wife’s attitude is also empty just like your misdeed is empty. Then, your situation is not a problem anymore.

You might think that she also should see your past deeds as empty and not be so angry with you, but she should take responsibility for her own behaviour. If she also viewed things as you want her to, it would be the most ideal solution. However, if you really believe that everything is empty, why does her attitude, rude or polite, matter. If you can’t accept her attitude as empty while saying that everything is empty, you are being self-contradictory after all.

Why don’t you think of her attitude as her struggle to forgive you. Her head may have forgiven you but her heart still might not since the latter takes longer to forgive you. She, I think, is determined to forgive you since she still loves you and wants to keep your family together, but she still feels suffering from the incident because her wound has not yet healed perfectly. It is your duty as her husband to comfort and help her to surmount her suffering and become what she used to be.

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Seeing others’ suffering as yours is compassion.

Seeing your suffering as empty is wisdom.

 

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q233. What’s the best way to act if I find someone’s behaviour really irritating and distracting?

Zen Fools

A. Try to associate everything good or bad with your practice. Imagine you are being tested by a master and remember the following. Everything is neutral. Everything is non-dual. Everything is created by your discrimination. Everything is an action of your true-self. See and hear it as an action of your true-self or a Dharma talk. If you get angry, you don’t have to remember all of these things but only one of them, and try to trace your anger to its root. When you are faced with irritating and distracting behaviour, it will disappear by itself if you don’t think of it as irritating and distracting.

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Student: “How can I avoid getting angry?”

Master: “Why do you try to avoid your true-self? Getting angry is none other than the action of your true-self that you are anxious to see.”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, root, self, student, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q226. How can I motivate myself to practise Zen when I feel that there is nothing to attain?

Zen Fools

A. When we say that there is nothing to attain, this means that everything is so perfect that there is nothing to be desired. That is, there is nothing to attain because all is already yours. Our problem is that we are not aware of the truth and struggle to make our life perfect in our own way. In other words, we are like a rich beggar who is struggling for a living, not knowing that he has great wealth in his bank account.

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Student: “Sir, why is there nothing to attain?”

Master: “Because everything is already yours.”

Student: “Why do I have to practise Zen when there is nothing to attain?”

Master: “Because there is still something for you to attain.”

Student: “You said that there is nothing to attain because everything is already mine. Why do you say there is still something for me to attain now?”

Master: “Because you don’t know the fact that everything is already yours. The purpose of Zen is to enable you to confirm the fact that all is already yours. It is like no matter how much money you may have in your bank account, you can’t be said to be rich if you, not conscious of the fact that you have the money,  still struggle to make a living.”

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

 

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, mindful, Practice, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q214. My husband was once unfaithful to me. I said that I would forgive him when he asked me for forgiveness. However, we have had a lot of trouble since, and now we are on the point of breaking up. What shall I do?

Zen Fools

A. The point is not whether to break up or not, but whether you forgave him or not. True forgiveness brings peace and happiness to the forgiver as well as to those who are forgiven.

Ask yourself if you really forgave your husband. Are you sure that you forgave him? If you are not sure, ask yourself whether or not you happen to have any concerns about his unfaithfulness and your forgiveness in your mind, or feel that you did something very big for him and that he should be grateful to you for your forgiveness and recompense you for it. If you think even a little in this way, your forgiveness is not forgiveness at all but a penalty wrapped in the sweet-sounding word ‘forgiveness’. You actually didn’t forgive him but are demanding reparation for your suffering.

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In Zen, forgiveness means to regard your husband’s affair as empty and think that there is nothing to forgive him for, and to realise that even your forgiveness is empty as well. If you can’t forgive him like this, try to see the situation as empty. Your effort to see your situation as empty will make your life peaceful and stable regardless of your husband’s reaction to your endeavour.

Don’t expect a quick reaction from him. A sick person usually takes time to return to what he was after his disease is cured. Likewise, it might take time for him to return to what he was because he still needs more time to forgive himself.

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, empty, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, suffering, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q 175. Is it okay to try to heal ourselves through mind-control instead of taking medicine when we are sick because everything is from mind?

Zen Fools

A. There are people think they can cure themselves of any illness through mind-control by a kind of meditation practice instead of taking medication because everything is created by mind. They are misunderstanding the words, ‘Everything is created by mind’. They are unaware of the fact that medication is also created by mind, while saying that everything is created by mind. When you are well, there is no medicine. But everything that you take can be medicine when you are ill. If you think of daily food as important medicine and take it as sincerely as if you take medicine, then your everyday food can play more than the role of daily food that only meets your hunger, in your recovering from illness. Besides, if you regard your medicine as being rather good food that can make up for your nutritional deficiency instead of being just a medicinal substance, you can escape from or at least alleviate the stress, or the obsession that you have to take medicine.

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©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, desire, Enlightenment, Meditation, Mind, mindfulness, root, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q161. Is desire the motivation of life or the root of suffering?

Zen Fools

A. This question is like asking whether we should view food as a cause of illness, such as obesity and diabetes, or a necessary thing for survival. Desire itself is neutral. It depends on you whether it is the motivation of life or the root of suffering. Try to see the root of your desire clearly when it occurs. When you realise it clearly, it is not only the motivation of life but also the root of happiness. It is when you don’t know what it is that it becomes the root of suffering.

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However beautiful a thing may be, it is no more than an illusion as long as you don’t know the root from which it is from.
However ugly a thing may be, it is the truth itself when you know its root.
©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, suffering, Uncategorized, Zen

Q157. How can we have less suffering when an unhappy thing happens to us?

Zen Fools

A. Why do we have less fear than children when we get an injection in the hospital? Do we have less pain than children? When do we feel more pain, getting an injection while awake or while asleep? We feel much less suffering while awake because we can know the context before and after the injection: why we have to get it, what will happen after we get it, and what the feeling will be like, and we can get ourselves mentally ready to take it in advance.

However, being injected while asleep will make me feel more pain because we are not ready. Likewise, children feel more pain or suffering than grown-ups because they can’t understand the context including the fact that the injection will relieve them of the suffering they are undergoing now. In the same way, when we can see the essence of things we are going through by seeing things as they are, we can feel much less suffering than those who can’t see things as they are.

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©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway