Questions & Koans

A. This question is like ‘Do we go to the Pure Land, or Heaven after death?’. According to the Sutras, there is no birth and death in the Pure Land, or Heaven. How would it be possible for the dead to enter where there is no death?

Enlightenment is to transcend death. So, there is a common question ‘Have you solved the great matter?’ in monastic community. ‘The great matter’ here refers to the matter of birth and death. This question means ‘Have you transcended your death?’ or ‘Have you attained enlightenment?’ Therefore, we should transcend death through enlightenment before being faced with it.

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When a monk asked Master Sukshang, “What’s the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the west?”, the master clapped his teeth. The monk didn’t make sense of the meaning and asked Master Goobong, “What’s the meaning of the master’s clapping his teeth?” after Master Sukshang passed away. Goobong said, “Even if I get my tongue cut out, I can’t violate what the nation prohibits.”

Student: “What’s the meaning of the master’s clapping his teeth?”

Master: “Goobong already said the answer.”

Student: “Why did Goobong say that even if he got his tongue cut out, he couldn’t violate what the nation prohibited?”

Master: “He obeyed well the national law.”

Student: “Why can’t I understand it?”

Master: “Because you violate the national law.”

Commentary:

What the national law prohibits is not your freedom but your making barriers obstructing your freedom.

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But the Zen School does not see it like this. It is truly apparent now without any further delay. All I am talking about is just medicine appropriate for curing specific ailments. In my talks there is nothing absolutely real. If you see it thus, you are a true leaver-of-home and can spend ten thousand pieces of yellow gold per day (enjoy yourself).

Commentary:

‘All I am talking about is just medicine appropriate for curing specific ailments. In my talks there is nothing absolutely real’ is showing us how we should accept the Sutras and Masters’ Dharma talks. Sentient beings are compared to patients who are suffering from a specific ailment and the Sutras and Masters’ Dharma talks appropriate medicine.

When we take medicine, it should be digested and absorbed through our bodies and disappear. The most marvellous medicine cannot help patients, if it stays undigested and unabsorbed in their stomachs, but will harm rather than cure them. Following and bearing in mind the words of the Sutras and Masters’ Dharma talks without grasping the core of them is like keeping medicine unabsorbed and intact in patients’ stomachs. This is going against Buddha’s teaching that we should not be deluded by words.

‘You are a true leaver-of-home and can spend ten thousand pieces of yellow gold per day (enjoy yourself)’ means that you are a truly enlightened man who can enjoy perfect freedom.

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A. What do you think the ‘I’ is when you say ‘I’? Your problem is not ‘I’ itself but your misunderstanding of your ‘I’. You mistake the bundle of illusions of ‘I’ created by your imagination for the real ‘I’, which causes you to be attached to it and go through fire and water for the sake of it.

Things, however, don’t go as you please; your ‘I’ gets sick, ages and comes to an end after all, no matter what you may try in order to preserve it, which makes you upset. Buddhism refers to your misunderstanding of ‘I’ as ignorance, your attachment to it as greed and being upset as anger, saying that they are three poisons that make people fall into suffering. The essence of Buddhism is to realise what your ‘I’ is, which is enlightenment.

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When Master Haesan visited Master Tooja, Master Tooja, handing a cup of tea to Haesan, said, “All the universe is in this.” On receiving it, Haesan, pouring the tea out of the cup, asked, “Where is all the universe now?” Master Tooja said, “A cup of tea is wasted.”

Student: “Where is all the universe when the tea is poured out of the cup?”

Master: “Still there?”

Student: “What do you mean by ‘still there’?”

Master: “It can’t be either poured or wasted.”

Commentary:

What can’t be poured is hidden in what is poured and what can’t be said is hidden in what is said.

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Followers of the Way, if you know that fundamentally there is nothing to seek, you have settled your affairs. But because you have little faith, you run about agitatedly, seeking your head which you think you have lost. You cannot stop yourselves.

Such are the Bodhisattvas of sudden enlightenment who enter the scheme of manifested things, turning to the Pure Land, disliking the worldly and desiring the sacred. They have not yet forgotten either grasping or letting go, and so their hearts contain both taints and purity.

Commentary:

‘You have settled your affairs’ means that you have realised that everything is empty, that is, you have attained enlightenment. ‘You have little faith’ implies that you are not enlightened. In other worlds, we run about agitatedly in vain pursuit of the true-Self since we have not realised that everything, including ourselves, is empty and that there is nothing at all to seek.

‘The Bodhisattvas of sudden enlightenment’ here implies those who believe that their doctrinal understanding is enlightenment. They are still deluded by such illusions as ‘grasping’, ‘letting go’, ‘taints’, ‘purity’ and so on because they have not realised that there is nothing to grasp or to let go of, not to mention ‘taints’ and ‘purity’.

Student: “What is the Pure Land?”

Master: “You’ve just tainted it.”

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A. An ancient master named Dongshan once said, “The Way becomes one with human being and human being becomes one with the Way. Do you want to know the meaning? One grows old and the other doesn’t.”  ‘The Way’ here means the true-Self, the Buddha that doesn’t get old. Buddha said on his deathbed, “Take a close look at me. If you think I perish, you are not my students. If you think that I don’t perish, you are not my students, either.” In other words, Buddha doesn’t mean physical being that is born and dies but means immortal and eternal being that transcends birth and death. Buddha never dies because He has never been born. To think that Buddha dies is to be deluded by the illusion of Buddha.

The point is that Buddha is not a special being somewhere else that is superior to us but no other than the essence of our being. The core of Buddhism is to realise the fact.

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One day a monk said to Master Sukshang, “They say that we should go to the place without any grass for 10,000 miles. How can I go there?” Sukshang said, “If you go out of the gate, you cannot avoid stepping on grassland.” When the monk asked another master about Sukshang’s answer, the master said, “Even though you don’t go out of the gate, you will fall into a grass-covered field as well.”

Student: “What should I do if I have to stay neither within nor without the gate?”

Master: “Why do you make the gate into grassland?”

Commentary:

Do away with the gate, and each blade of grass will turn into a gate to the Pure Land.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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