Category: Zen

A. This time I will answer the question based on the Bible. According to the Bible, God created everything. If God created everything, what was there before things were created by God? There was nothing else but God, or there was only God and nothing else. Then, God was not God because there was no one else and nothing else to distinguish him from, and no one who would call him God. There was just oneness that was nameless. We nowadays refer to the oneness as God for the sake of convenience.

 

What do you think God created, or made everything out of? He could not help but make everything out of part of God himself, since there was nothing else but God himself before he started to create things. This means that everything, including human beings, is part of God. Therefore, Jesus said, “When the day comes, you will know that I am in my father and that you are in me, just as I am in you.” (John 14:20)

 

How can we return to the state prior to creation, the state of oneness that was the figure of God before we were made into human beings? We can do this if we do in reverse what God did when he created us. To do in reverse what God did when creating us, we must know how He created everything. The Bible has the answer to this as well. John1:2-3 says, “From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him.”

 

It is apparent that everything was made through word. Then, doing in reverse what God did when creating everything is removing or detaching all the words. What will happen if all the words that define the boundary and identity of everything are removed? Everything becomes oneness, the state prior to creation. We return to the nameless oneness which we call God for the sake of convenience. In Buddhism it is called the Buddha, the true-Self, or Oneness. Enlightenment means returning to the nameless oneness.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

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Master Namchun once said, “Once I was taught to return to the source. If I had thought so, I would have caused a serious disaster.”

 

Student: “I have also been taught to return to the source. Is this teaching wrong?”

Master: Wandering in search of the source following the words ‘Turn to the source’ is a serious disaster.”

Student: “How should I accept it?”

Master: “Return to the source now.”

 

Commentary:

The best medicine can be poison if used wrongly and poison can be medicine that can save people when used properly.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

 

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Students ceaselessly take hold of names and phrases, and get obstructed by words like ‘worldly’ and ‘sacred’ which obscure the eye, and so they cannot see clearly. The Twelve Divisions of the Teachings are only surface explanations. But students, not realising this, take to these surface explanations of words and letters and deliver interpretations of them. All this is only supporting their dependence and, accordingly, they fall into cause and effect and so do not escape birth and death in the Three Worlds.

Commentary:

‘Take hold of names and phrases, and get obstructed by words like worldly and sacred’ means that we are deluded by words such as ‘worldly’ and ‘sacred’. ‘They cannot see clearly’ implies that we cannot see things as they are, or as empty. ‘The Twelve Divisions of the Teachings are only surface explanations’ represents that all doctrinal teachings are just words that explain the true-Self, not the true-Self itself. Being lost in the words themselves while losing sight of the true-Self is looking at the finger pointing to the moon instead of looking at the moon itself. This is like thinking of the boundary line of one’s land, which merely indicates the extent of the land, as being one’s land itself, whilst being ignorant of the fact that in reality it is the land inside the boundary that is one’s own. ‘All this is only supporting their dependence’ means that being deluded by words induces people to cling to and depend on the illusion of Buddha, or God.

Student: “How should we accept ‘The Twelve Divisions of the Teachings’?”

Master: “Don’t be deluded by the words of them.”

 

©Boo Ahm

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A. Understanding without experience can be said to be imperfect understanding as a kind of knowledge. Enlightenment is perfect understanding through personal experience. We, for example, can understand how to swim by reading books on it and even explain it to others. However, understanding how to swim merely as knowledge is quite different from swimming in person in a pool.

In the same way, many people, with a lot of understanding about the Buddha and enlightenment, say that the Buddha is with them all the time, but few can really see Him in person. Regarding literal understanding as enlightenment is like thinking of the literal understanding of swimming manuals as being good enough to save us from drowning. Zen meditation is to help people to internalise their knowledge through personal experience, that is, help them to turn their knowledge into their experience.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

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A. One day a master cut a piece of honey cake into two before one of his students and asked him, “What should we call it? Should we call it honey cake or not?” The student said, “We can’t help but call it honey cake.” The master didn’t approve him.

Student: “What would you have said in the student’s shoes?”

Master: “I would have said, ‘Why do you ask me your father’s name, Sir?’”

Commentary:

How could he know his father’s name whilst not recognising his father?

 

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Just enter the birthless Dharma realm and play about in it; enter the world of the Lotus Treasury; everywhere, all things are without form, and are not real things. There is only the Independent Man of the Way who is now listening to the Dharma. He is the mother of all the Buddhas. Therefore the Buddha is born from the Independent Man of the Way. If you truly understand this independent Man of the Way, then you know that the Buddha is not something to be attained! One who can see it like this is a man of genuine insight.

 

Commentary:

‘The birthless Dharma realm’ and ‘the world of the Lotus Treasury’ are different expressions of the Pure Land, and so to enter it means to attain enlightenment. Once you enter it, that is, you are enlightened, there is nothing but the true-Self, Emptiness. ‘All things are without form, and are not real things’ means that when you see everything as empty, all things are not things but Emptiness. This is why Rinzai said that there is only ‘the Independent Man of the Way’ which is a personified expression of the true-Self, Emptiness. ‘He is the mother of all the Buddhas’ implies that all things, including all the Buddhas and Maras, are just the functions of the true-Self. So, if you truly understand, realise this Independent Man of the Way, you don’t have to try to attain the Buddha because you will find yourself being the Man of Way. That’s why ancient masters would say that the Buddha and Maitreya are his servants.

Student: “What is the Independent Man of the Way?”

Master: “You and I are from Him.”

Student: “Where is He?”

Master: “He is amongst the grasses.”

 

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A. To know that everything is empty is one thing and to internalise the knowledge through experience, to attain enlightenment, is another. In other words, this happens since you don’t have the faith that comes from enlightenment, direct experience of Emptiness.

This perception that is very common among Zen practitioners can be a good motive that spurs you to practise harder and upgrade your practice. Seek to realise why you can’t see your unfavourable situations as empty in the same way you see other situations by comparing your ways of seeing the situations. That is very helpful to your practice. So, ancient masters would say, “Unfavourable things you are faced with in your reality are good masters who can check your practice.”

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Nirvana asked Nanquan, “Is there any dharma that has not been spoken by the sages in the past?”

Nanquan said, “It’s not mind, it’s not Buddha, it’s not a thing.”

Nirvana said, “Have you finished speaking?”

Nanquan said, “I am like this. What about you?”

Nirvana said, “I am not a teacher. How should I know if there is a dharma that has or has not been spoken?”

Nanquan said, “I don’t understand.”

Nirvana said, “I have said enough for you.”

Student: “What did Nirvana mean?”

Master: “He said what has not been spoken by the ancient sages.”

Student: “What did he say?”

Master: “He said what can’t be done.”

Commentary:

The reason why you don’t know the Dharma that has not been spoken by sages in the past is that you don’t know what they said.

 

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One asked: “What is genuine insight?”

The master said: “Entering the realms of the worldly and the sacred, the tainted and the pure, the land of the Buddha, the upper chambers of Maitreya, and Vairocana’s Dharma world, you will see them all as subject to (the law of) coming to be and ceasing to be. Buddha appeared in the world, turned the wheel of the Dharma, and then entered Nirvana. But he did not see these as the features of coming and going. Searching around birth and death, in the end you cannot attain.

 

Commentary:

‘What is genuine insight?’ is to ask how the enlightened see and hear things. They see all things as empty, no matter how wonderful and splendid, or ugly and dirty they are since they are aware that all of them are just illusions, which are the functions of the true-Self. So, to the enlightened ‘the worldly’, ‘the sacred’, ‘the tainted’, ‘the pure’, ‘the land of Buddha’ ‘the upper chambers of Maitreya, and Vairocana’s Dharma world’ are no better than illusions which appear and disappear according to one’s karma.

 

‘Buddha appeared in the world, turned the wheel of the Dharma’ means that the historical Buddha taught the principle of the Dharma and ‘entered Nirvana’ here implies his death. ‘He did not see these as the features of coming and going’ means that Buddha didn’t see these as really coming and going but saw them as illusionary, namely as empty. ‘Searching around birth and death, in the end you cannot attain’ implies that if you believe that birth and death are real, that is, are deluded by the illusions of them, you can’t attain enlightenment.

 

Student: “What is genuine insight?”

Master: “It is to see and hear what can neither be said nor be done.”

Student: “How can I do it?”

Master: “Don’t follow what I say”

 

©Boo Ahm

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A. What happens when you have mastered the four rules of arithmetic? What happens when you have become literate after a long illiterate life? Nothing happens to the world and everything is as it was, but your way of living will be changed a lot with new capability to see, know and do what you couldn’t see, know and do before.

 

When we are enlightened, we can see the perfection of everything, including ourselves, that we have previously missed seeing. In other words, enlightenment is to realise how beautiful and perfect this world where we are residing now is and that this world which is likened to the ocean of suffering is actually no other than the Heaven and the Pure Land we are anxious to enter. That’s why Enlightenment is often compared to awakening from a nightmare.

 

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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