being – Zen Fools

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Q265. What am I when my body is not me?

October 11, 2016October 11, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Remove all the labels attached to you by others. Remove all words that can describe your identity. Let’s suppose you are a sixty-year-old British man named John who is living in London. When you say that you were born in London sixty years ago, what is left when all the labels are removed? ‘You’ or ‘I’, ‘were born’, ‘in London’, ‘sixty’, ‘years’ and ‘ago’ all are labels. You still have a lot of labels to represent your identity such as your parents, your job, your school records and so on. You think that you are human being, which is also an artificially coined label. Remove all artificial labels and see what is left, whatever it is. That’s it. What is it?

Master: “What is left now?”

Student: “Nothing is left.”

Master: “If nothing were left, what would be saying, ‘Nothing is left’?”

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Meditation, Photography, Practice, root, self, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q263. What is emptiness?

October 6, 2016October 6, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Emptiness is not void but being both existent and non-existent at the same time, as it were, before division into ‘being existent’ and ‘being non-existent’. That is a state or an appearance without any imaginary lines. When asked what emptiness is like, some masters would say that it is full and others that it is active. All you can feel is emptiness. Even your body is emptiness. There is nothing that is not empty. If you follow emptiness, you will forsake it.

Student: “What is emptiness?”

Master: “Don’t forsake it.”

©Boo Ahm

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, One, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q200. How can I discard ignorance and attain wisdom?

May 12, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Don’t try in vain to abandon one and attain the other. It’s like trying to discard the left and attain only the right. In fact, both are one when you know them. They only look separate and different from each other when you don’t know them. Try to realise what the ignorance is that you think you have, rather than striving to attain the wisdom you think you don’t have. Wisdom is none other than to know what ignorance is. Becoming Buddha is realising what a sentient being is.

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Student: “What shall I do when I have a thief in my house?”

Master: “Once you know him, he is not an enemy any longer.”