Tag: emptiness

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

Q244. How do I know if I am enlightened or not?

Zen Fools

A. If you practice Zen meditation in the right way, you can experience small and big changes in the course of your practice. You can come across a moment when you feel a big unexplainable change. During this experience, feeling oneness with the whole universe, you realise simultaneously that everything is empty and you are eternity itself.

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From then on, you can see things as form and emptiness at the same time. Then masters’ records, or the Sutras, read like your own stories, and you can understand them as clearly as if experiencing them through your whole body rather than understanding them with your head. Then, you have nothing to ask others since there is nothing that you don’t know. An ancient master once said, “When you are full after hearty food, you need not ask others whether or not you are full.” If you experience the changes mentioned above, you can be said to be enlightened even if you are not checked by a master.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Koan, Meditation, Mind, mindful, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q243. Student: “What is pure mind?”

Zen Fools

A. Student: “What is pure mind?”

Master: “Rotten shit.”

Student: “What is dirty mind?”

Master: “Beautiful flowers.”

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Commentary:

Don’t aim at the shadow on the ground of a game bird when it has flown away high in the sky.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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

Q241. Is it necessary to practice Zen meditation for many years in order to attain enlightenment? How can I, a Westerner, expect to achieve enlightenment?

Zen Fools

A. Nobody knows how long it will take for you to attain enlightenment. It may take some time, or you may get enlightened at the sound of birds tomorrow morning or at a word of my talk during the next retreat. However, don’t be impatient but pay attention only to your question. Impatience won’t help with but will disturb your practice by causing you to make more illusions. However, you should not be too relaxed. Practice just like a hen incubates eggs.

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You must remember that everything is not dual but one. We are divided into a Westerner and an Easterner by our discrimination. They are only imaginary lines or labels produced by us. They are referred to as illusions because they are empty. The purpose of Zen meditation is to remove such illusions. Why do you keep the illusion, Westerner? That is going against your practice. Enlightenment is just to remove all the labels attached to you. Thinking that you can’t attain enlightenment because you are a Westerner is like thinking that Koreans can’t attain enlightenment because they are not Indian like the Buddha.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q240. Master: “Are you married?”

Zen Fools

A. Student: “Yes, Sir.”

Master: “Do you know your wife?”

Student: “Of course, Sir. I share the same bed with her.”

Master: “How many hairs does she have on her head?”

Student: “I don’t know. How could I know that?”

Master: “Don’t say that you know your wife then.”

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Commentary:

Don’t try to extract juice by squeezing dry sticks.

The number of the fingers of a hand is five.

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, desire, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, love, Meditation, Mind, root, self, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q239. If love and hate are neutral and both are illusions, then, what difference does it make whether I am loving or cruel?

Zen Fools

A. It’s true that love and hate are neutral and both are illusions. In fact, it doesn’t make any difference whether you are loving or cruel. To realise the truth means to realise that everything is empty and feel oneness with the whole universe. Then, your feeling of love and hatred cannot help but be different from the feeling that you have had before realising the truth.

Above all, when you feel your hate as empty, your hate seldom develops into being cruel. Your cruel feeling, if or when it occurs, is not as strong or acute as before and doesn’t last long even though you don’t struggle to control your emotion. Rather, your cruel feeling turns into sympathy as you feel oneness. That is called compassion.

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In fact, as many people become unhappy because of love as do those who become unhappy because of hatred. As often as not cruel feelings result from love. If you realise the truth mentioned above, you will not be obsessed with, or attached to love, to the extent that your love makes people feel burdened or even tortured rather than happy. And you will not become so frustrated by the loss of love, if it happens, that you stray from your normal life. That is called wisdom.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, mindful, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q238. What is the difference between ‘form’ and ‘illusion’?

Zen Fools

A. Form can be likened to wind, and emptiness to air. All winds, whether breezes or storms, are the actions of air. There can’t be any wind which is not air. Wind is air, and air is not separate from wind. Form is to emptiness as wind is to air. All forms, whether bad or good, or moral or immoral, are action of emptiness, the true-self.

When we know the truth that form is the action of emptiness, the true-self, just as wind is the action of air, form is called form. When we are ignorant of this truth and believe that form is self-existing apart from emptiness, then form is referred to as illusion. This is like believing that wind is one thing and air is another. What is form to the enlightened is an illusion to the unenlightened.

The purpose of Zen meditation is to see everything as it is, which means to see everything in both ways, as form and emptiness at the same time, just like we know that wind and air are the same when wind brushes against our skin.

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Student: “How can I avoid illusions and see my true-self, Sir?”

Master: “Why do you hope to see your true-self while trying to avoid It?”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q237. Student: “All forms return to emptiness. Where does emptiness return to?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Waves never leave the sea.”

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Commentary:

Winds never return to air because they never leave air.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, Photography, Practice, Religion, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q235. What is the true-self, Buddha?

Zen Fools

All you see, hear and feel is your true-self. If you think of anything else as your true-self, Buddha, that is none other than an illusion of your true-self.

People, in fact, are chasing after the illusion of Buddha created by their imagination while always facing Buddha. The problem is that you don’t recognise Him while being together with Him all the time and never having left each other. If you pursue anything else other than what you are confronting now, it is to add another illusion which prevents you from seeing your true-self.

The true-self is one or non-dual, and it is the origin or the root of everything including ourselves. We have divided the true-self into many with imaginary lines, all labels. In fact, we have drawn so many complicated lines that we can neither see nor imagine the original shape of the true-self without any lines. We have been addicted to such imaginary lines for such a long time that we cannot recognise the One now. However, no matter how many lines there are and no matter how complicated the lines are, we are still the true-self itself, have never left it and can’t leave it, whether we are aware of this truth or not. The purpose of Zen meditation is to realise the truth by seeing the intact shape of the true-self.

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Student: “What is the Buddha, Sir?”

Master: “Why do you only see an old man and not the Buddha?”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q233. What’s the best way to act if I find someone’s behaviour really irritating and distracting?

Zen Fools

A. Try to associate everything good or bad with your practice. Imagine you are being tested by a master and remember the following. Everything is neutral. Everything is non-dual. Everything is created by your discrimination. Everything is an action of your true-self. See and hear it as an action of your true-self or a Dharma talk. If you get angry, you don’t have to remember all of these things but only one of them, and try to trace your anger to its root. When you are faced with irritating and distracting behaviour, it will disappear by itself if you don’t think of it as irritating and distracting.

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Student: “How can I avoid getting angry?”

Master: “Why do you try to avoid your true-self? Getting angry is none other than the action of your true-self that you are anxious to see.”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, final goal, illusion, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q231. Student: “What is the true-self?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “What do you think it is?”

Student: “I have no idea.”

Master: “You are right.”

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Commentary:

Master opens the shell and offers the flesh.

Why do you try in vain to eat only the hard shell?

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway