Questions & Koans

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

Q. What does ‘stop discriminating’ mean?

A. Discriminating means to make labels or imaginary lines such as car, pen, or house and bad, good, useful or harmful and to believe that they are real. We remember such previously drawn lines and produce new ones based on them, which are no other than words. And we live our lives according to these lines. That is to live in the world of memory or in the realm of form.

Many people mistake ‘stop discriminating’ or non-discrimination as stopping thinking. How could we maintain our life without thinking or discriminating? How could we feel happy without discrimination? Why should we continue to live if we became motionless like stone?

‘Stop discriminating’ in Zen meditation doesn’t mean to stop thinking but means to stop being deluded by the lines by realising that everything is empty. Once you have realised the truth, whatever lines and however many lines you may draw, it doesn’t matter because you know that they are just illusions when you know that they are all empty.

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

Q. Which is their real daughter, his real wife?

Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden who fell in love a handsome young man. She wanted to get married to him, but her parents who were very rich and high class would not allow her to marry him, not only because they had another son in law candidate from a rich and respectable family in their mind, but also because her boyfriend was a poor man whose parents had passed away when he was young. She felt so frustrated that she came to be ill in bed. There was nothing her boyfriend could do against her powerful father, and he finally gave up everything in the village and decided to leave in order to forget her.

After leaving the village, having walked for a few hours, he heard a very familiar female voice calling his name from behind. It was his girlfriend who had escaped from her parents in order to follow him. In the end, they ran away together to a strange village far from their native land where no one could recognise them.

After 10 years, they came to be very well off and happy since they had one son and one daughter and were successful in their business. The woman always felt guilty and sorry for her parents, and missed them more and more with time. Her husband, sensing her feelings, suggested to her that they visit her parents. They decided to go to see her parents and implore their forgiveness.

As they approached the village where they had lived 10 years before, where her parents still lived, they became very nervous and worried that her parents might be still upset and not forgive them. So, they decided that her husband would go to her parents’ house alone to see whether they would forgive them or not while she stayed in a village nearby.

When her husband visited her parents, and told everything to them, her parents were more perplexed and puzzled than furious or happy. They led him to their daughter’s room. Then he not only understood why they had been so puzzled to hear his story, but he himself was also at a loss. In the room there was their daughter, his wife, ill in bed.

Which is their real daughter, his real wife, the woman ill in bed or the woman waiting in the neighbouring village?

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wEPA8

Is there any teaching no master has ever preached before?

A monk asked Nansen, “Is there any teaching no master has ever preached before?”

Nansen replied, “Yes, there is.” “What is it?” asked the monk. Nansen answered, “It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not things.”

Student: “Other masters also said, ‘It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not things’ earlier than Nansen did. Why did he think that no other master had not preached that before?”
Master: “His saying was wrongly reported.”
Student: “What did he say then?”
Master: “He said, ‘It is mind, it is Buddha, it is things’.”
Student: “They were also mentioned by other masters.”
Master: “Don’t be friends with those who report wrongly.”

Commentary:
A tree is known by its fruit, and a man by his friends.
It is because man doesn’t know who is good and who is bad that he is friends with bad people.
Don’t try to distinguish good friends from bad friends.
Having no friends is better than having good friends.

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

Q. Isn’t the lamp fire?

A. Once upon a time there lived a couple whose only son was away for his job in the city. One day their son came back late at night and his mother was going to cook for him. However, she happened not to have any fire lit in the fireplace. She had to ask her husband to get some embers from one of their neighbours because at that time people had no matches and had to keep their fire alive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for cooking and heating.

So, her husband went to his next-door neighbour for embers while carrying a lamp. When he asked his neighbour for fire, his neighbour said to him with a curious look on his face, “What are you talking about? Why do you ask me for fire while holding it in your hand? Isn’t the lamp fire?”

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/wzQ0X

Q. What does pure mind mean?

A. Many people interpret ‘pure mind’ as keeping pure or beautiful thoughts such as love, compassion, the Buddha or God. In Zen, pure mind means a mind without illusions. An illusion is an imaginary line or a label produced by us. Then ‘beautiful’, ‘love’, ‘compassion’. ‘Buddha’ and ‘God’ are all illusions. There can’t be such relative ideas as pure and dirty in the mind without illusions. So ancient masters used to say that a good thought, however good and great, is not as good as no thought. The mind without any illusion is the very pure mind that we are pursuing, which is referred to as Buddha, God or true Self.

Student: “What is the pure mind?”
Master: “You are staining it now.”

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

Why did Nansen cut the cat in two?

One day Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. He seized the cat and said, “If any of you can say a right word, you can spare the cat. Otherwise I will kill it.” No one could answer. So, Nansen cut the cat in two.

That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him what had happened. Joshu thereupon took off his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked away. Nansen said, “If only you had been there, you could have saved the cat.”

Student: “Why did Nansen cut the cat in two?”

Master: “Because his students thought as you do now.”
Student: “Why did Joshu take off his sandals and place them on his head?”
Master: “Because he thought as Nansen did.”

Commentary:
Nansen was never so cruel as to kill a living thing.
Joshu was never so crazy as to put his sandals on his head.
Cutting the cat in two is to taking off his sandals and placing them on his head as father is to dad.

©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway http://ow.ly/i/vB4b3