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Hsin Shin Ming: “48. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.”

‘To understand the mystery of this One-essence’ means to attain enlightenment, or to see things as they are. ‘All entanglements’ means karma, and so, to be released from all entanglements means to escape from the yoke of karma.

Karma is the cause and effect of everything. Enlightenment is to realise that everything is empty. When everything that is the element of causation is empty, the causation coming from it is also empty, which means that karma is empty. Therefore, to realise that entanglements are empty, by realising that everything that entanglements are composed of is empty, is to be released from all entanglements.

Student: “Why can’t I escape from karma?”
Master: “Because you don’t know what it is.”
Student: “How can I escape from it?”
Master: “By knowing exactly what it is.”

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Q. What is ‘good’? What is ‘evil’? Can there be ‘good’ without ‘evil’?

A. There can’t be ‘good’ without ‘evil’ just as there can’t be ‘right’ without ‘left’. They are relative concepts to each other.

For example, is a soldier who killed a lot of enemies good or evil? He may be admired as a great hero by his comrades and his people since he is regarded as a very unselfish and brave man who carried out his duty risking his life for his fellows and nation. However, he must be evil to the opposing side, their fellow soldiers and especially to the families of the victims whom he took lives from. Is he good or evil?

Therefore, it is not because human nature is good but because we think of it as good that human nature is good and vice versa. So, it can be said that whether human beings are good, or evil depends not on human nature but on our perspective. This is Buddha’s teaching that the essence of everything is empty and neutral unless we make discriminations.

©Boo Ahm

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Jinfeng’s Rice Cake

One day Zen master Jinfeng was in the monastics’ hall, where sesame rice cakes were being served. He took up one of them and from the teacher’s end of the platform he rolled it into the assembly. The assembly of monastics joined their hands palm to palm. Jinfeng said, “Even if you pick it up, you have only half of it.”
When Jinfeng gave instructions in the evening, a monastic said, “When you had a rice cake, seeing the monastics joining their hands, you said, ‘Even if you pick it up, you have only half of it.’ Master, please say it all for me.”
Jinfeng gestured, holding up a rice cake, and said, “Do you understand it?”
The monastic said, “No, I don’t.”
Jinfeng said, “I have expressed only half of it.”

Student: “What did Jinfeng mean when said ‘Even if you pick the rice cake up, you have only half of it’?”
Master: “He meant that you should not be deluded by illusions.”
Student: “The master said that he had expressed only half of it. Could you express the other half for me?”
Master: “This is the other half of it. Do you get it?”
Student: “No, I don’t. Could you express the whole of it?”
Master: “This is the whole of it.”
Student: “I still don’t understand it, either.”

Commentary:
The whole of it is only a half to the unenlightened, whereas even a tenth of it is the whole of it to the enlightened.

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Hsin Shin Ming: “47. If the mind makes no discriminations, all things are as they are, of One-essence.”

‘The mind make no discriminations’ means that we make no discriminations, and ‘all things are as they are, of One-essence’ means to see all things as they are as Oneness, Emptiness.

When you make no discriminations, all things are essentially not different from one another in and they are one as Emptiness. All things look separate and different from each other only because of our discriminations, not because of the difference of their nature. Our suffering is from the ignorance of this fact.

Student: “What are all things like when the mind makes no discriminations?”
Master: “They are like as usual.”
Student: “Why do masters say that all things look different from how they did before when the mind makes no discriminations?”
Master: “It is not because things change but because your perspective changes that they look different.”
Student: “What happens when the mind makes no discriminations?”
Master: “Nothing happens.”
Student: “Your answering is a kind of happening as well.”
Master: “I am not answering but you are listening to my answer. That is your following illusions.”
Student: “How can I hear your answer if listening to your answer is following illusions?”
Master: “Why don’t you hear my answer?”

©Boo Ahm

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Q. I was recommended to do prostration as practice. What do you think of it?

A. Prostration itself can be good exercise for your body but has nothing to do with Zen practice. However, if you keep questioning what makes your body prostrate while you do it, then it can be a kind of Zen practice as well.

In fact, not only prostration but also all of your actions can be practice if you keep questioning what is making your body do it whatever you may do; what is making you wash dishes while you wash dishes, what is making you dance when you dance, what is leading you to take a walk when you walk and so on. In this way, you can practise all day long. You can make your practice one with your life.

Student: “How should I practise Zen?”
Master: “How can you not?”

©Boo Ahm

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Fayan’s “Eye of the Way”

Once Zen master Fayan had the well uncovered. The outlet was clogged up with sand. He said to a monastic, “When the eye of the well is obstructed, sand is in the way. When the eye of the Way is obstructed, what is in the way?” The monastic could not answer.
Fayan answered for the monastic, “The eye is in the way.”

Student: “What did master Fayan mean when he said, ‘The eye is in the way when the eye of the Way is obstructed’?”
Master: “Do you see this?”
Student: “Yes, I do.”
Master: “What is this?”
Student: “It’s a stick.”
Master: “A stick prevents you from seeing the Way because the eye is in the way.”

Commentary:
Master means wind, but the student only sees the leaves fluttered by wind.

©Boo Ahm

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Hsin Shin Ming: “46. If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.”

Sleep is to dreams as ignorance is to illusions. Enlightenment is to ignorance as awakening is to sleep. When we get enlightened, all the illusions we are struggling to remove vanish by themselves just as all the dreams we are having die away by themselves when we are awakened from sleep.

As long as we are asleep, every trial and effort we make to remove dreams is just a dream as well, in the same way that all the successes and failures we make in our sleep are also just dreams. Likewise, all our efforts to remove illusions are also just illusions unless we are enlightened, that is, until we realise that everything is empty. Therefore, Zen meditation is often compared to making an effort to awaken from sleep and enlightenment to waking up from sleep.

Student: “What shall I do when faced with difficulties?”
Master: “When we are faced with a desperate dilemma that seems to be impossible to get out of in our dream, the best way to escape from it is to wake up from your sleep.”

©Boo Ahm

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Q. Does Buddhism allow its followers to attend other religions?

A. We should know that religion is not an end but just a means. We don’t live for the sake of religion itself, but we have religion for the sake of our happiness. In order to attain happiness, we can do anything under the condition that we do not harm others. No one is allowed to prevent you from pursuing happiness.

No religion likes its followers to attend other religions besides it. All religions want their followers to accept only their own teachings as the best and to be committed to them without turning their attention to other religions. However, no religion has a right to limit your religious life. If you want, you are free to have multiple religions regardless of whether or not your present religion allows you to do so, because it is not that religion chooses you, but that you choose religion.

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The World-Honoured One Ascends the Teaching Seat

One day the World-Honoured One ascended the teaching seat and the assembly came together. Mahakasyapa struck the mallet and announced: “The World-Honoured One has just expounded the dharma.”

The World-Honoured One descended from the teaching seat.

Student: “What was the dharma that The World-Honoured One expounded?”
Master: “Nothing special. You are doing it now as well.”

Commentary:
It is not because the Dharma itself is secret and special but because you don’t see it as it is that it looks and sounds secret and special.

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Hsin Shin Ming: “45. Gain and loss, right and wrong, abandon all such thoughts at once.”

Don’t try in vain to abandon such thoughts but try to see them as they are. You can’t let go of them unless you realise that they are empty by seeing them as they are. Let’s suppose that you have a big piece of glass that you have thought of as diamond for a long time. Could you discard it without hesitation when you are told that it is not diamond but glass? You can’t throw it away until you are sure that it is glass. However, you will not try to keep it when you have realized that it is glass.

Likewise, once you have realized that such thoughts are empty, your attachment to them disappears naturally just as your attachment to your diamond does when it turns out to be a piece of glass.

Student: “How can I abandon such thoughts as gain and loss, and right and wrong all at once?”
Master: “See them as they are.”

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