Q. Student: “Where do you think you will go, heaven or hell?”
A. Master: ” Hell, of course.”
Student: “You are enlightened. Why do you go to hell?”
Master: “Because there is nowhere else.”
Commentary:
Don’t avoid hell, because it is where you can repose.
Don’t be attached to heaven, because it is a pool of suffering.
Try to know where you are now.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/z8hcr
Q. How different is ‘live now’ in Zen from that in mindfulness meditation?
A. I don’t know what they mean by it in mindfulness meditation since I have never practised it. ‘Live now’ in Zen means to live our life without being deluded by the illusion of time which is a typical illusion.
‘Now’ mentioned here is not the word ‘now’ used when referring to past, present and future. The ‘now’ here is the situation where there is no discrimination of time such as past, present and future. Here all words including names are erased and all boundaries disappear since all of them are based on time. For instance, saying ‘there is a house’ means that a house was built in the past. Like this, all names we are accustomed to are from the past. Where are they from when there is no past? Nothing can exist and come into being without the notion of time.
So, when there is no discrimination of time, all illusions based on time disappear by themselves. Then, you realise that you are eternity itself because there is no birth and no death, and you can feel oneness since all boundaries that divide oneness into many like subject and object, you and me and so on disappear. Ancient masters would express the situation by saying, “Everyone and everything is equal and enlightened there.” In summary, living now means living without being deluded by illusions, which is called enlightenment.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/z8h5h
Q. Why does God steal our happiness?
A. What or who do you think is God? Have you ever seen him stealing your happiness? If you have, you don’t have to believe in and worship him anymore because he is no better than a mean and malicious thief who steals your happiness. What, if you have not, makes you think that God steals your happiness? Don’t make such an assumption, which is to make an illusion. You should know that your problem is that you don’t know who steals what from whom.
You should know that what can be taken from you is not yours and that what you can possess is doomed to be taken from you someday. Ancient masters would say to their students, “Discard all you have because what you can possess is not yours originally and it is doomed to be taken from you someday. Your desire to attain what is not yours and keep it in your possession as long as possible is the cause of suffering.”
Likewise, the happiness that you can possess and lose is not true happiness because it is destined to leave you some day and because it never leaves you without giving you suffering. So, the happiness that God can steal from you is not yours and not true happiness because it results in suffering just like you feel now. True happiness can be felt not when it is possessed by you but only when you become happiness itself.
Student: “What shall I do when God steals my happiness?”
Master: “Keep him under close guard.”
Student: “How could I keep him under guard when he is invisible?”
Master: “Don’t think that he is invisible. He is always showing himself, but you are blind to him. He can’t steal your happiness when you can see him.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/zpDWT
Q. Why doesn’t the tail go through?
Goso asked, “A water buffalo goes out of its enclosure. The head, the horns, and the four legs go through, but why doesn’t the tail, too?”
Student: “Why doesn’t the tail go through?”
Master: “Because you are holding it firmly now.”
Commentary:
What a poor fellow!
He is worried about the buffalo’s tail, not knowing that he is holding it.
He is laughing at his own reflection in the mirror.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/zmSd0
Q. How can we avoid death?
A. If you are to enjoy eternal life without death, you should realise that you are not alive now, because you can’t avoid death as long as you think that you are alive. From the moment we are born, we start to die little by little. To grow means to be dying. ‘I am sixty years old’ means that I have been dying for sixty years. To be dying is the evidence of being alive since non-living things have no death. So, in fact, saying, “I want to live” is the same as saying “I want to die”.
Life is to death as the right is to the left. Wanting to live without death is as paradoxical as wanting to be on the right without the left.
If you don’t want to be on the left, instead of struggling to stick to the right, you should realise that the right and the left are not real things but just imaginary divisions created by an imaginary line. You are neither the right nor the left until you make imaginary divisions. Whether you are the right or the left is not set or fixed from the beginning but depends on your view. When you erase the imaginary line that makes the right and the left, you are not the right and not the left.
Likewise, in order to avoid death, don’t separate yourself from the universe by drawing an imaginary line of ‘I’ but rather identify yourself with the universe by removing the imaginary line. No one can deny the truth that you are part of the universe. The moment you feel oneness with the universe, you also feel free from death and can be sure that you are eternal like the universe because you are the universe itself.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/zhSBQ
Q. Is there anyone who doesn’t die in the world?
A. Yes, there is, but there are few who know him. Those who know him don’t die as well. The truth is that we all die, not because we really die, but because we don’t know that we never die. In other words, we die because we think and believe that we die.
Who doesn’t die? No one never dies. When you become ‘no one’, you don’t die. In order to be ‘no one’, you should know what you are now. To know what you are, remove all the labels attached to you because they are not you. When no label remains attached to you, you become ‘no one’. For example, let’s suppose that you are a man named Tom who was born 50 years ago. Here ‘man’, ‘named’, ‘Tom’, ‘was born’, ’50’, ‘years’, and ‘ago’ are all imaginary labels used to describe your entity, not you. Your problem is to take them for yourself.
First of all, remove the labels ’50 years ago’. What happens? Then the labels, ‘was born’ lose their meaning naturally because ‘was born’ necessarily requires time and place. ‘Was born’ is impossible without time and place. When there is no birth, there is no gender, either. So, the label, ‘man’ also becomes meaningless with ‘Tom’. Then, who or what are you?
When you are perfectly free of the labels, you become ‘no one’. When you become ‘no one’, you will not die because you were not born. Above all, there is no one to die when you are ‘no one’.
Were you alive or dead before birth?
A dead thing never becomes a living thing like you.
Were you nothing or something before birth?
Nothing never becomes something like you.
Student: “Is there anyone who doesn’t die?”
Master: “Yes, there is.”
Student: “Who is it?”
Master: “No body.”
Student: “Who is no body?”
Master: “One who is free of labels.”
Student: “Who is he?”
Master: “Have a cup of tea.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/zd8gW
Q. How can I hit the target one hundred percent of the time?
A. Student: “Point to the target correctly.”
Master: “Shoot.”
Student: “How should I shoot?”
Master: “Never miss the target.”
Student: “How can I hit target one hundred percent of the time?”
Master: “Shoot with your eyes closed.”
Student: “What is the principle of hitting the target one hundred percent of the time with my eyes closed?”
Master: “The target is on the head of your arrow.”
Commentary:
What are your bow and arrow?
Don’t be so foolish as to try to hit the target without knowing where your bow and arrow are.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/z9cHa
“To see my suffering as empty is wisdom and to see others’ suffering as mine is compassion.” Boo Ahm http://ow.ly/i/z44VW
Q. If I search for the true Self, or Oneness, who does the true Self search for?
A. When you say that you search for true-Self, or Oneness, do you know who is searching for the true-Self? Do you know what true-Self is when you ask who the true Self searches for?
If you know either of these two; you or the true-Self, you will automatically find the answer to your question because you are oneness with the true-Self that you are searching for. If you see what you are when your body is not you, you can know this truth. It is because you can’t see yourself as you are that you make a discrimination between you and the true-Self. In fact, you are oneness not only with the true-Self but also with everything since there is nothing that doesn’t belong to the true-Self. So, if you can see only a single thing as it is, you can know the answer to your question.
Your searching for true-Self is as if a wind were searching for air.
The true-Self doesn’t search for anyone or anything because it is all as perfection and there is nothing else other than the true-Self. The reason why you are struggling to go after something is that you are oblivious to the fact that you are all as perfection and eternity itself, which is because you can’t see yourself as you are. Therefore, you will have nothing to search for when you realise the fact that you are the true-Self itself, by seeing yourself as you are.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/z3Zkl
Q. Christians have an all-powerful God whom they see as a father figure that they fear and want to please. Whereas Buddha could be considered as a prophet. Is there a higher being that Buddha worshipped?
A. Many people, as you mentioned, think that Christians have an all-powerful God whom they see as a father figure that they fear and want to please. That is due to their misunderstanding of Christianity, I think. Seeing God as such a figure is no better than a primitive religion that worshipped idols created by people’s imagination. That is a kind of superstition, not a religion. The essence of a religion is and should be to realise what God is rather than to blindly believe in God. As far as I know, God is not a father figure to fear and please but something that we should realise and is another name of the essence of our being. Trying to realise what this is, is the essence of Christianity.
When it comes to Buddha, it has two meanings; the historical figure who was the originator of Buddhism and the true Self that is the essence of our being. Many Buddhists accept Buddha in the same way that Christians believe in God. However, the core of Buddhism is to realise what the essence of our being is, that is, what Buddha is.
‘Why can’t people escape from the sufferings of birth, ageing, illness and death even though there are so many gods?’ was the question that caused a young prince to give up his succession to the throne and become an ascetic who was devoted to finding the answer to this question. After a long and difficult practice, he realised the truth that the essence of everything is perfection itself as emptiness and that we are the creator of everything including God, not a creation of God. Therefore, he regarded worshipping gods as being deluded by illusions and used to tell his disciples not to worship anything but to realise their true Self, the essence of our being. He even said, “Kill me if you see me.” in order to prevent people from worshipping him.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/yZJPL
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