Tag: death

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, master, Meditation, One, Photography, root, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q359. Is death the end of life or a new start?

Zen Fools

A. It is both at the same time. Is this moment the end of your past life or the start of your future? Whether it is the starting line or the finishing line depends on your view. There is no beginning without end and no end without beginning, which is like left and right in that there is no left without right and no right without left. In fact, beginning and end, and right and left are all imaginary labels produced by you, and they can be changed anytime according to your perspective.

SRH_3636a_thumb

Ask yourself what death is instead of whether it is the end or a new start. Ask yourself whether you are alive or dead. If you are alive now, were you alive or dead 500 years ago before your birth? If you had been dead then, it would mean that something dead became a living thing like you. If you had been nothing then, it would mean that nothing became something. Does it make sense? Furthermore, no one can deny the truth that we are part of the universe. And the universe is neither alive nor dead. It means that we are not dead and not alive as well.

 

If there is no beginning and no end, death is neither beginning nor end. When there is no start and no end, birth is neither start nor end, either. In brief, birth and death are also imaginary labels like start and end.

 

Student: “Is death the end of life or a new start?”

Master: “Are you right or left?”

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Koan, master, Photography, root, self, sutras, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q357. How can I avoid going where I am going to die?

Zen Fools

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett fielded questions at the annual shareholders meeting for his company Berkshire Hathaway. When asked about reflections and lessons learned in his long life, Warren Buffett referenced Charlie Munger, the 93-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who says, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”

(Reference: NPR, May 6, 2017: ‘Oracle of Omaha’)

 

A. Student: “Can I know where I am going to die?”

Master: “Yes, you can.”

Student: “Where is it?”

Master: “It is where you are alive.”

Student: “How can I avoid going there?”

Master: “Don’t move even a step.”

Student: “Do you mean that I should stay here where I am alive now?”

Master: “Don’t stay here, either. Don’t you remember my saying that where you are going to die is where you are alive?”

Student: “Where should I stay if I should neither move a step nor stay where I am now?”

Master: “Don’t move at all, but don’t stay anywhere.”

Student: “How far is it?”

Master: “It can’t be nearer.”

Student: “Why is it so difficult to get there?”

Master: “Because you are going the wrong way.”

Student: “What is the right way?”

Master: “Get there quickly and directly.”

Student: “How can I get there quickly and directly?”

Master: “You already took the wrong way.”

SRH_9353a_thumb

 

 

Commentary:

Do you want to know where you don’t die?

It can’t be nearer.

The right way to there is invisible.

If it takes even a second to get there, it’s the wrong way.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, master, Meditation, One, Photography, Practice, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q348. Kyogen said, “Let’s suppose a man is hanging by his teeth from a branch of a tree that is leaning over a precipice. His hands grasp no branch, his feet rest on no limb, and under the tree another man asks him, ‘Why did Bodhidharma come to China from the West (India)?’ If the man in the tree does not answer, he misses the question, and if he answers, he falls and loses his life. Now what shall he do?”

Zen Fools

A. Student: “How can you both answer the question and save your life?”

Master: “In danger.”

Student: “Who is in danger?”

Master: “You are in danger.”

_SRH9861a_thumb

Commentary:

Don’t stumble over the lines drawn on flat land by you.

They can’t catch your feet however tangled they are.

Don’t be scared of your shadow.

It can’t harm you however horrible it may look.

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Bible, Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Photography, Religion, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q345. Christians say that Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins. How should we understand this?

Zen Fools

A. Buddhism has similar metaphors. Buddha said, “Those who want to see me through my voice and body won’t see me.” He also said, “Kill me when you meet me if you do want to see me.”

 

According to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus once said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father.” Who is one who was not born of woman? He is not one who is doomed to birth and death. You should know him. ‘Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins’ means that he died on the cross in public in order to teach people that his physical body was not him and tell them not to be deluded by the illusion of his body. If you cling to the idea that the young crucified person is Jesus, you are being deluded by an illusion. In other words, you can see the true Jesus when you are free from the illusion of Jesus.

SRH_8943a_thumb

 

 

Student: “Why did Jesus die on the cross, saying that his father was almighty?”

Master: “Don’t insult him. He didn’t die but gave his teaching.”

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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

Q332. What does Zen meditation have to do with reincarnation?

Zen Fools

A. All our life we try to make good causes for good effects tomorrow. Trying your best to make yourself happy is trying to make good causes for good effects tomorrow. However, the key problem is that we don’t know what a good cause is and what a bad cause is, partly because our view of it varies according to our viewpoint and partly because what we think is a good cause very often turns out to bring a bad effect. So, we can’t help being worried about what effect we will get tomorrow even though we do our best to make good causes today. Furthermore, whatever good causes we may try to make, we can neither avoid death nor know what will happen to us after death. As a way of settling this challenging problem, primitive people would depend on the gods created by their imagination.

 

The purpose of Zen meditation is to help people to escape from the trap of reincarnation by realising that everything is empty. When everything is empty, not only birth and death but also transmigration and souls are empty illusions. Then reincarnation that means endless rebirth through transmigration of souls is also an empty illusion. In other words, Zen is to help people to free themselves from reincarnation by realising that reincarnation implies an endless cycle of illusions that feed on themselves and reproduce. So, to become free from reincarnation means to obtain eternal life or escape from the trap of life and death, which is also referred to as enlightenment in Buddhism.

 

_DSC1118a_thumb

 

Student: “What do you think you will be reborn as after your death?”

Master: “I couldn’t care less.”

Student: “What if you should be reborn as a cow after death?”

Master: “Not bad at all.”

Student: “How can you say being reborn as an animal is not bad at all?”

Master: “Because it is empty.”

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Meditation, Photography, Practice, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q331. What is Samsara, reincarnation?

Zen Fools

A. I have talked to you before about the world of memory, the realm of form and the world beyond memory, the realm of emptiness. Reincarnation is another expression of how the realm of form, full of endless causation, works.

 

As long as we are in the realm of form, we can’t avoid being subject to the law of cause and effect. There are always a start and an end, appearance and disappearance, which have their causes and effects. There is no start without an end and no end without a start, and each start and end has its cause and effect. There is no effect without cause and vice versa. What you are now is the effect of what you did yesterday, and how you live today determines what you will be tomorrow.

SRH_0677a_thumb

 

 

In brief, our life of today is the effect of yesterday and the cause of tomorrow at the same time. One step further, our present life is the result of our previous life and the cause of our future life, the life after death. In other words, we can’t avoid making cause and effect even for a moment forever. Birth and death is also part of endless causation. To conclude, reincarnation implies an endless cycle of causation, which is called the trap of causation as well.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Photography, root, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q329. Why does Zen compare us sentient beings to a patient?

Zen Fools

A. As soon as we are born, we are all doomed to an incurable illness, ageing, which leads to death, that no one can avoid. While we have many kinds of painkillers for the illness, there is no medicine to cure it. Whenever we feel the pain of hunger, we take a painkiller, food.

017_8054a_thumb

 

However, over the course of time, the illness worsens to the extent that no painkiller can help us, and leads us to death in the end. Therefore, we sentient beings are compared to a patient. The purpose of Zen is to help people to be cured of the fatal illness, ageing. So, ancient masters would refer to enlightenment as the solution to the matter of birth and death.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, illusion, Meditation, moment, present, root, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q328. Is everything empty because it is always changing and not everlasting?

Zen Fools

A. Absolutely not. Everything is empty not because it is always changing and not everlasting but because it doesn’t have its own fixed nature unless you grant it labels such as hard, soft, fragile, flexible et cetera. Emptiness is the state without any label or imaginary line, where there is no time.

017_8052a_thumb

 

Time is a typical imaginary line. When there is no time, no change can take place since change means the passage of time. When there is no change, there is no life and death. Therefore, when you experience the truth that you are emptiness itself, you are said to escape from the yoke of life and death.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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

Q325. At the moment I die or when I fall asleep, does the world cease to exist?

Zen Fools

A. Who, or what, dies or falls asleep when you die or sleep? When everything is empty, which of ‘I’, ‘death’, ‘sleep’ and ‘the world’ is not empty? Saying that everything is empty means that all of them are empty, too.

srh_5715a_thumb

 

However, when your sleep is not empty, the places such as your bed, your room et cetera where you sleep are not empty, either. When they are not empty, things and people related to the places are also not empty. When the things and people related to the places are not empty, other things and people related to these things and these people are also not empty. If we keep expanding in this way, we reach the conclusion that if your sleep is not empty, all the world is not empty, either. So, ancient masters would say that when even a grain of dust is not empty but real, all the world is real.

 

Therefore, saying that the world is empty but your sleep isn’t makes no sense at all. When your sleep is not empty but real, the world is also real. When your sleep is empty, the world is empty. To sum up, when you think that you fall asleep, the world exists. When you, however, think that your falling asleep is empty, the world is empty as well. Whatever things may happen, whether they exist or not depends upon your view.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, One, Photography, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q264. Student: “The deepest lake, when dried up, reveals its bottom after all. Why can’t we see a person’s mind even when he dies?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Because you try to see it.”

p1050989b_thumb

 

Commentary:

Cut the tendon in the air and you can see it clearly.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway