Autumn wind has no intention at all to cool people,
but they say it is cool.
A cow, producing milk, has no intention to give it to people,
but they say it is a beneficial animal.
A snake, producing poison, has no intention to harm people,
but they say it is a harmful animal.
What would they think of people?
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. In order to treasure your True-self, you, above all, should know exactly what it is. How can you treasure your True-self, if you don’t know it? You can’t treasure it whatever you may do unless you realise it through experience. However, once you realise your True-self through experience, you don’t have to try to treasure it because it is so perfect that there is nothing you can do for it. You can neither throw it away, treasure, destroy, purify nor protect it. It is always perfect without any change, regardless of whether you do something for it or not. If you have any intention to do something to treasure or protect it, it is also rather an illusion to stain it. So the best way to treasure your True-self is to realise it through experience.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. Master: “Bring your mind to me, and I’ll make it comfortable.”
Student: “I can’t find it anywhere.”
Commentary:
Oh! Poor fellow.
It is like he’s saying that he can’t find his mouth.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. It is from the well-known saying in Zen, “If you want to see the Buddha, kill him if you should meet him.”
It means that you should break away the illusion of a thing when it comes to you if you are to see the essence of it. Most people have images of the Buddha although they have never seen him. It is indeed a very good example of an illusion. Illusions die hard because we are highly addicted to them, so masters employed strong language like that in order to put emphasis on eliminating illusions.
Likewise, if you are to see the essence of you, you should remove the image of you. The very typical image of you is your body, and I can tell you to kill yourself to convey my meaning that you should remove your established image of yourself, instead of telling you to ask yourself what you are when your body is not you. So “Kill the Buddha” mentioned above, means to perfectly remove the illusion of a thing in order to see the essence of it.
©Boo Ahm
A. When we say that we practice Zen meditation to escape from the trap of illusions or remove illusions, it never means separating them from ourselves, but realising the fact that illusions are the truth which is the root of everything; the final goal we long to achieve. However, many people, believing that an illusion is different from the truth, make the mistake of trying to stop thinking, when thoughts, good or bad, come to them, regarding them as illusions. That is one of the most common mistakes we make when practising Zen meditation.
Therefore, try your best to see yourself as you are or try to trace back to the root of the thinking that you look upon as an illusion. When you can see either yourself as you are, or the root of your thinking, all illusions will disappear by themselves.
Don’t avoid illusions
since they are a form of the truth.
Don’t follow the truth
since it is also an illusion.
©Boo Ahm
A. Student: ‘I am doing nothing.’
Master: ‘Then you are sitting at leisure.’
Student: ‘Sitting at leisure is also doing.’
Master: ‘You say you are doing nothing. What are you not doing?’
Student: ‘Even saints don’t know it.’
Commentary:
He can be said to know how to do nothing.
If you knew who does what, you would know how to do nothing.
©Boo Ahm
A. As long as we want to remain alive, we have to kill some living things to keep ourselves alive. Though, as a vegetarian, we don’t touch meat or fish, we can’t avoid killing countless invisible living things. All plants such as vegetables, for example, are living things, and countless micro-organisms, living things too small to see with naked eyes, are living on their surface. Feeding on plants, being a vegetarian means killing such living things as well.
So asking us not to kill a living thing is asking us to get out of illusions because we can’t help killing living things while living in the world of illusion. Getting out of illusion also means escaping from the trap of birth and death. In the world free of illusion, not only ourselves but also all other living things, escape from birth and death. Leaving ourselves to stay in the world of illusion is leaving both ourselves and all other living things to die. In other words, not trying to get out of illusions is to leave ourselves and all other living things alone to die, and to leave dying people and things alone that you can save is not different from killing them. So it means you should save not only yourself but also all living things by getting out of illusions, reaching the final goal.
©Boo Ahm
A. In fact both are not different from each other, but they are one, just as sea and waves are not separate. There is nothing but the truth. If, regarding illusions as different from the truth, we try to remove illusions and reach the final goal, it is like trying to remove waves in order to see the sea. We should keep in mind that to eliminate illusions doesn’t mean to put the illusions away to another place, but means to change our viewpoint and realise that all illusions including us, are the truth itself we are looking for. ©Boo Ahm 
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.
A. Master: ‘I don’t know. ‘
Student: ‘Why don’t you know?’
Master: ‘Don’t tell anyone that I said I didn’t know.’
Commentary:
It is not for the sake of his reputation but for the sake of his student’s reputation that Master advises his student not to tell anyone that he said he didn’t know.
©Boo Ahm
A. Birth and death are like the right and the left. There is no fixed right side and no fixed left side. The right can be the left anytime and the other way around. Besides, when we are not conscious of right and left, there is neither the right nor the left.
Nobody can deny the fact that we are part of the whole universe. Then is the universe dead or alive? It’s neither alive nor dead. Then are we, part of it, alive or dead? Though we define a given part of universe as birth or death, actually there is no birth and no death unless we divide the universe into many with the imaginary lines we produce.
There is no birth and no death unless we are conscious of them. To conclude, to experience in person the fact that birth and death are nothing but an illusion, like the right and the left, is to escape from the trap of birth and death.
©Boo Ahm
Zen Fools 