Category: Uncategorized

Who is the wise person who knows the secret?

“The Buddha told you: ‘You are the world.’ You create the world you live in. Yet, you have to find this for yourself. Listen carefully. Not just to what I’m saying, but to some wise person that YOU think knows the secret. You can go to the library, you can find the Truth. You can go to the church of your choice and find it. You can go to a Kahuna and find it. You can go anywhere in the world, and once you know what Truth is, you’ll hear it spoken all over the world. You’ll hear it on a day-to-day basis.” Syd Banks

Student: “How can I find the truth?”
Master: “You won’t find it if you move around in search of it.”
Student: “Who is the wise person who knows the secret?”
Master: “Only a wise man can recognise him. You should become wise to see him.”
Student: “How can I become wise?”
Master: “See the wise man inside you.”
Student: “Why does he advise us to go to see wise people and go to the library?”
Master: “Try to see the wise man inside you and ask yourself instead of going to the library. Why should we bother to wander in search of what is everywhere all over the world?”
Student: “What is it like?”
Master: “It is exactly like you.”

Commentary:
The truth is like you, like me, like a dog, like a mountain,
because you, I, dog and mountain are all part of the truth.
There is nothing that is not the truth.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wEHr9

Q. How different is practising Zen from praying to God or Buddha in facing suffering?

A. Let’s suppose you happen to get surrounded by very dangerous looking snakes, and there is no other alternative but to be bitten to death by them. You are seized with fear, not knowing when they will attack you. Prayer and practice are the ways to overcome or get rid of the fear.

The former is to depend upon God or Buddha; through prayer, you can feel relieved by the belief that you are protected by Buddha or God. Whenever you feel scared or worried, you can avoid or forget the fear for a while through prayer by comforting yourself with the thought that Buddha or God will protect you from their attacks.

The latter is to practise with the belief that all the poisonous snakes surrounding you are not real and realise the fact that all of them are not living snakes but just pieces of broken rope. All your fear will disappear for good on realising the truth. Once you realise the fact, you don’t have to be scared of them and don’t need to make any more useless effort to avoid your fear.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/xdjWn

Q. If enlightenment is the top of a flight of stairs, and every step that we take up the staircase is a level of awakening, can we mistakenly think that we are already awakened because we have made some progress and now see things differently?

A. That is very likely. Let’s suppose that you go to London from Manchester on foot. You have little information about London and the way to it because you have never been there. You make your trip with a few maps through a lot of trial and error since you don’t know how to read the maps correctly. During your trip, you come to face new circumstances and scenery as you move towards your destination, or sometimes away from it.

Once in a while, you may encounter unexpected terrible and apparently difficult obstacles and sometimes breath-taking scenery. Whatever strange or dangerous looking situations you may be faced with, you should not be scared of them or shy away from your journey. However beautiful and attractive the situations that you may come across seem, you should not be lured into wasting time enjoying them.

Especially when you come across a city that looks very large to you, you are very likely to be tempted to conclude that you have finally reached your final destination because you don’t know exactly what London is like and how huge it is, even though you have heard a lot about London. In fact, there are many people who fail to reach the goal because they don’t surmount this situation.
Ancient masters would compare this situation to serving a thief as one’s father.

When you think that you have reached the destination, you had better ask the people who already live there whether you have arrived at the right place. Therefore, you need to have an interview with masters who are already there so that you can get your practice checked when you think you have made some progress.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/x4Sg8

Why did the Creator hide the realisation?

A Sioux creation story says that long ago the Creator gathered all of Creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.”
The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”
“No. They will go there too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”
The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”
Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.”
And the Creator said, “It is done.”

Student: “Why did the Creator hide the realisation?”
Master: “Because we have eyes.”
Student: “When are we ready for it?”
Master: “When you realise that this story was created by you.”
Student: “How could Grandmother Mole without eyes produce such a wise idea?”
Master: “She was not discriminating.”
Student: “Why did the creator hide it inside of us?”
Master: “Because it can’t be hidden anywhere, even inside of us.”
Student: “How can we find it?”
Master: “Just look and listen.”

Commentary:
Don’t believe that the creator hid it.
He laid it out before your eyes.
Inside and outside are all your own creation.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/vB4ZM

Q. What shall I do when my family don’t want me to practice Zen because Christianity is our family religion?

A. In fact, Zen meditation has nothing to do with religion even though it is from Buddhism. To practise Zen never means to change our religion just as for a Korean patient to take British medicine doesn’t mean to change him into an Englishman.

As mentioned previously, words are not real but illusionary, so you need not use the word Zen which makes your family members uncomfortable. You can replace the word Zen with ‘prayer’ which is one of the most popular terms among your family members. Say, “I pray” instead of “I practice Zen meditation”. Whatever label you may put on it, the label never changes the essence of it.

The Bible says, “Everything is created and controlled by God”, which means that God is making you pray when you pray and not that your body prays on its own. You can see God clearly only if you see what or who is getting you to pray. One step further, if you ask yourself and try to realise what is controlling your body not only when you pray, but also when you do something else, whatever it may be, that is no other than Zen meditation.

Pray with your family members as usual. I don’t encourage you to change your religion but to change the way of your praying. If you try to know what makes your body pray when you pray and what makes your body say, “I love you” when you say, “I love you” to your spouse or children, that is true prayer and Zen meditation.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/x1aSG

Q. Why do you tell us to ask your question of anything such as a tree, a spoon, a bird and so on?

A. To practise means to try to break illusions so that we may see things as they are. The reason why I encourage you to ask anything you encounter in your life is that everything we hear and see is a gate to the final goal, the true Self. In fact, everything is the final goal itself rather than a gate to the final goal. It is not that an illusion is quite different and separate from the truth, but that an illusion is no other than the truth.

There is nothing but is the truth, and the thing we think of as an illusion is also the truth. In other words, when we see a flower, for example, ‘flower’ is only a name given to it as a sign of agreement used for communication and not the essence of it. When we identify the thing with the name and confine it to its name, we can’t see its essence. Then we call the name an illusion. The name here applies not only to nouns but also all words regardless of whether verb, adjective or adverb even though I present only one example of a noun here. So, when I tell you to ask anything you see or hear in your life, I mean that you should try to see or hear beyond all your fixed ideas, that is, break the illusions of things.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/x1azD

What did Zuigan mean by such a strange monologue?

Every day Zuigan used to call out to himself, “Master!” and then he answered himself, “Yes, Sir!” And he added, “Awake, awake!” and then answered, “Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir!” “From now onwards, do not be deceived by others!” “No, Sir! I will not, Sir!”

Student: “What did Zuigan mean by such a strange monologue?”
Master: “He meant ‘strange’.”
Student: “What is it?”
Master: “Strange.”
Student: “I still can’t make sense out of it. Say a little more.”
Master: “Why don’t you know the ‘strange’ that you yourself just mentioned? It is you that are really strange.”

Commentary:
It is not for the sake of showing off his lantern but for the sake of others seeing him that a blind man carries a lantern during a night trip.
It is not for the sake of showing off his voice but for the sake of others hearing him that a blind man sings during a night trip.
The foolish, not aware that they themselves are strange, think of him as strange.
When Zuigan’s monologue is strange, all other things are also strange because all things are from the same root.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/vB4td

Q. What is the difference between prayer and practice?

A. Prayer is to speak to God or Buddha in order to ask for help or pay homage, and practice is to try to realise, through not knowledge but experience, what God or Buddha is.

I don’t want to discourage people from praying, but I would like to encourage them to know what the object of their prayer is through practice prior to their prayer. How could we speak to God or Buddha, or ask for help when we don’t know what or who God or Buddha is?

When you see and talk to him face to face, you can offer a true prayer to him.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wERee

Q. What is the truth when everything is an illusion?

A. Every illusion is the truth itself. To take the sea for example, there are countless waves in the sea, each of which has its own unique form. There are no two waves that are exactly the same as each other. However, the essence of the waves is just part of the sea, whatever shape and size they may have.

All things we can see, hear, and feel are to the truth as waves are to the sea. We classify and label all things individually or in groups according to their size and shape. In fact, the essence of all the things, however, is the truth, whatever labels are put on them.

Everything is an illusion when we don’t know that everything is the truth.
However, when we have realised that everything is the truth, there is nothing, whatever label it may have, that doesn’t belong to the truth, just as there is no wave that doesn’t belong to the sea. Therefore, it is said that every illusion is the truth when you can see things as they are.

Student: “What is the truth?”
Master: “What is not?”

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wER0T

How will you greet an enlightened man not with words, nor with silence?

Goso said, “When you meet an enlightened man on the road, greet him not with words, nor with silence. Tell me, how will you greet him?”

Student: “How will you greet an enlightened man not with words, nor with silence?”
Master: “I will say ‘Hello’.”
Student: “Hello is a word.”
Master: “It is certain that you are not an enlightened man.”

Commentary:
You should watch your tongue before young children.
Don’t discuss poems with him who is not poet.
Don’t show off your swordsmanship before a man who is not a swordsman.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wEQDx