Questions & Koans

Hsin Shin Ming: “39. The wise do without doing, but the foolish fetter themselves.”

The wise are those who are enlightened. ‘Do without doing’ means not to be attached to, or not to be deluded by illusions. ‘Fetter themselves’ means to tie themselves with illusions or be deluded by illusions. To do without doing is possible only when we have realised that everything is empty and neutral.

Let’s suppose we did good to one of our friends for example. The wise regard their doing as empty and forget it as if they had done nothing. This is doing without doing. The foolish are likely to keep the idea that they did something good, as if to bank their money. Keeping the idea that we did something good is binding ourselves with an illusion that we did something good.

Let’s suppose that we are in such a needy situation that we are forced to ask the friend whom we assisted for help. When he complies with our request, the wise are as happy as if to take an unexpected gift form him and feel grateful to him. But the foolish are likely to take his help for granted just as if they withdrew their deposited money from a bank and so don’t feel as happy and grateful as the wise. When he refuses their request, the wise aren’t wounded by his refusal. However, the foolish will be wounded a lot and even feel betrayed, just as if their bank were to refuse them their previously deposited money when they wanted it back. In the end, when we fetter ourselves, we end up hurting ourselves even by doing good. So, ancient masters would say that doing good is not as good as doing nothing. The latter means doing without doing.

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Q. I have ambiguous vague malaise about my future.

A. In fact everybody has the same emotion as you have about the future to a certain extent. This is an emotion mixed with worry and fear coming from uncertainty. However, you should think that the uncertainty of the future makes our life exciting and interesting. We have a word ‘spoiler’ that means a person who reduces the excitement of a movie by telling the story of a film to the people who plan to see the movie. This means that removing uncertainty from the movie we are going to see is spoiling the excitement and expectation of it.

In the same way, our life is interesting and worth living without giving it up even in the worst situation because of the uncertainty of the future. We still can have hope even in the most difficult circumstances and feel the thrill of uneasiness even in the best situation due to the uncertainty of the future. The former makes us courageous during difficulties and the latter makes us humble when things are going well.

If your life were predetermined and you could know your future like reading a book, your ambiguous vague malaise about your future would turn into hopeless frustration and boredom. Ambiguous vague malaise about your future is a very important element that enriches your life, that you should enjoy rather than avoid.

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Dongshan’s Non-Buddha

Dongshan Liangjie said, “You should understand Buddha going beyond Buddha.” A monastic said, “What is Buddha going beyond Buddha?” Dongshan said, “Non-Buddha.”

Student: “What is the difference between Buddha and Buddha going beyond Buddha?”
Master: “Buddha is a name, and what is left when the name is removed is Buddha going beyond Buddha.”

Commentary:
The word ‘fire’ is not the essence of fire because you can’t boil even a drop of water by saying ‘fire’ no matter how long you may repeat the word.

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Hsin Shin Ming: “38. Indeed, to accept illusions fully is identical with true Enlightenment.”

To accept illusions fully means not to struggle to stop making illusions or stop thinking, since that is also to be deluded by illusions. In order to accept illusions fully, we should realise that everything is empty. To realise that everything is empty is enlightenment. When everything is empty, that is, when you are enlightened, you don’t have to strive to avoid illusions any more because they are not illusions any longer but emptiness, the true-Self. In emptiness there are no illusions to accept or reject. So, ancient masters would say that realising that every illusion is the true-Self, is enlightenment.

Student: “Why should we practise to remove illusions if they are also the true-Self?”
Master: “Because you still don’t know it.”

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Q. The world is noisy. Most of the time

A. It is not because the world is noisy but because you discriminate between noise and inner voice that the world sounds noisy. There is neither inside nor outside unless you make a division by creating an imaginary line. As long as you divide oneness into inside and outside and noise and inner voice, you can’t escape from noise. When you stop making discriminations of inside and outside and noise and inner voice, all sounds become the voice you are anxious to listen to.

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Deshan’s “Neither Asking nor Not Asking”

Deshan said to the assembly, “If you ask, you have missed it. If you don’t ask, you have also missed it.” Then a monastic stepped forward and made a bow. Deshan hit him. The monastic said, “I haven’t even asked yet. Why did you hit me?” Deshan said, “What difference would it make if I had waited till you spoke?”

Student: “Why did Deshan hit the monastic?”
Master: “Because he didn’t ask him.”
Student: “Should he have asked him?”
Master: “He would have been hit even if he had asked him.”
Student: “What should he have done?”
Master: “He should have hit the master before being hit by him.”

Commentary:
‘Ask’ is an imaginary line.
Even though you think that you will not ask, you are still caught by the illusion of ‘ask’.

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Hsin Shin Ming: “37. If you wish to realise the One Way, do not dislike even all the illusions.”

‘One Way’ means the true-Self or Emptiness, which contains all without exception. There is nothing that is not the One way. Even all illusions also belong to it. To see things as they are means to see things as empty, and this is to see the true-Self because the true-Self is Emptiness.

The true-Self that is the essence of everything including ourselves is empty. When all things are empty, they are one as emptiness. So, the true-Self is referred to as Emptiness, Oneness or Non-duality. The true-Self appears to be many only because we have divided it into many with a lot of labels or words which are imaginary lines. The true-Self is called Emptiness when we see it as undivided and forms when we see it as divided. So, the Sutras say that Emptiness is form and forms are Emptiness, or that One is many, and many are One. Our problem is that we are so addicted to imaginary lines that we can’t see the true-Self as undivided or Emptiness. Enlightenment is the ability to see everything both as forms and as Emptiness at the same time.

When we cling to or reject forms without being aware of this fact, forms are called illusions, and we are said to be deluded by illusions. As mentioned above, to realise that all illusions are the true-Self is to attain enlightenment. Put in another way, to see the true-Self as undivided or to see all things as Oneness is to enter the One Way, or to see the true-Self. However, clinging to the true-Self and disliking illusions is not entering the true-Self but making another illusion because it is to divide Oneness into the true-Self and illusions. Therefore, you should not dislike illusions but try to see them as they are, if you are to enter One Way, the true-Self.

Don’t avoid illusions, because they are the true-Self.
Don’t follow the true-Self, because it an illusion.

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Q. Does mantra have power? If so, where does it come from?

A. No, it doesn’t. As I have mentioned so far, nothing has its own nature unless we provide it with properties like power and colour. In other words, it is not because the mantra has its own power but because we think that it has power that the mantra has power. To believe that only a certain word or a certain phrase has special power is to be deluded by an illusion. Any word or any phrase can be a mantra; your wife’s name, your puppy’s name, the name of your favourite flower and so on. If you happen to feel any power while reciting a mantra, the power is not from the mantra but of your own making.

However, I don’t mean that you should not do mantra practice but that you should do it in the right way. What matters in doing mantra practice is not to believe in the power of the mantra but to try to know what is making your body recite the mantra. This practice is not different from Zen meditation in essence.

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Dongshan’s “Where Is the Fault?”

Dongshan Liangjie once invited Head Monastic Tai to have fruit with him and asked, “There is something that holds the sky above and the ground beneath. It is as black as lacquer. It is always in activity but cannot be received within activity. Tell me, where is the fault?” The head monastic said, “The fault is activity.” Dongshan shouted and then had the attendant take the fruit away.

Student: “What was the head monastic’s fault?”
Master: “He mistook an answer for a question.”
Student: “What would you have said if you had been the head monastic?”
Master: “I would have asked him back, ‘Where is the fault?’.”

Commentary:
There is nothing that is not the universe to him who knows what the universe is.

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Hsin Shin Ming: “36. Not well, the mind is troubled. Then why cling to or reject anything?”

‘Not well’ means ‘if or when things do not go well’. Put simply, this scripture means ‘We should not cling to or reject anything because our minds are disturbed when things don’t go well’.

The key problem is that it is impossible to live our lives without clinging to or rejecting anything because our lives consist of continuous decisions and choices, and because deciding and choosing is clinging to or rejecting something. You, for example, should cling to being sober while driving and reject drinking and driving. We should cling to taking good care of our children and reject abusing them. How could we avoid these things in our lives?

Why is the mind troubled when we cling to or reject anything? Sometimes we can’t get what we cling to, and from time to time we can’t avoid what we reject. Once in a while what we cling to turns out to be what we reject. When things don’t go as we please like this, we think that things don’t go well, and then our minds are troubled.

Our question here is how we can stop clinging to or rejecting anything, so that our minds can be free from being troubled while living our lives as usual. The answer is to see things as they are and realise that everything is empty. Our problem is that we don’t know who clings to, or rejects what, since we can’t see things as they are. When we can see things as they are, we can realise that not only the things we cling to, or reject, but we who cling to or reject them are also empty. When both the subject and the object of an action are empty, the result of the action is also empty regardless of whether it appears to be good or bad. Then, we can feel free to cling to or reject anything because our minds are not disturbed by the result of our clinging or rejecting, since we know that it is also empty.

This scripture doesn’t tell us not to cling to or reject anything at all, but rather to freely cling to or reject anything while being aware that both we and everything we cling to or reject are empty.

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