enlightenment – Page 15

Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Truth, Zen

Q79. How can we remove illusions?

July 1, 2015 Zen Fools

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

Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Truth, Zen

Q76. How different is an illusion from the final goal, the truth?

June 24, 2015June 24, 2015 Zen Fools

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.

Enlightenment, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q73. Is there a shortcut to the final goal? What is it if any?

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Let me ask you a question. What is the quickest shortcut to the earth? The final goal is difficult to reach not because it is too far away from us, but because it is too near us. In a word, nearness is rather a barrier. The harder you look for a shortcut, the farther you will get away from the final goal. The root of the desire to take a shortcut is the very final goal you are eager to reach. You should look for it within, not without. When a thought that you need to take a shortcut occurs to you, trace back the thought to its root, which is the quickest shortcut.

Do you want to take a shortcut?
Don’t move even a single step.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Enlightenment, Happiness, Meditation, mindfulness, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q70. Can we feel something good only when reaching the final goal?

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 Zen Fools

A. This is not an all or nothing game. In the course of trying to get there you can experience something new and positive. Everything looks more beautiful than before and your life feels simpler and easier. You find it easier and simpler to tackle your demanding life than before, feeling sometimes your problems solve themselves. Becoming more understanding and considerate, you are less apt to lose your head in a bad situation where you used to. You have less ups and downs and your life becomes more stable. You can feel your life becoming much happier than before with practice.

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Meditation, Mind, Practice, Zen

Q52. What shall I do when I don’t seem to make any progress in my Zen practice?

June 12, 2015 Zen Fools

A. That is a very common feeling novice practitioners can have. You don’t have to think you are not making progress because you don’t know what progress is like, and I wonder what your standard of making progress is. If you can keep good focus on the question, you are doing well regardless of whether you feel a change or not. If you can’t make concentration on your question, ask yourself what thinks you can’t make concentration and you are not making progress. In other words, trace back your negative thinking to its root.
Your negative thinking is the very form of your final goal.

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Enlightenment, Koan, Meditation, Mind, Truth, Zen

Q50. Student: What are you when your body is not you?

June 12, 2015 Zen Fools

Master: Two plus three is five.
Student: I know that, too.
Master: Then you are a master, too.
Student: I didn’t ask you about numbers.
Master: I didn’t talk about numbers, either.

Commentary:
Master is pointing to the moon with his finger.
Why aren’t you looking at the moon but the finger?
If I were the student, I would say, “You are wrong, sir. Two plus three is seven.”

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Enlightenment, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q49. Do we become emotionless, not feeling sad or happy after reaching the final goal?

June 9, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Many people think we will not have feelings like sad, anger, pride, lust, happiness and so on after reaching the final goal. Some people use being emotionless as a scale to measure how much progress they have made in meditation progress. This is one of the most common wrong ideas about Zen meditation. Why should we continue our life, not to mention practising to reach the final goal, if we become emotionless like a wooden craft? We have the same feelings: feel sad when seeing sad things, angry when encountering unjust situations, and happy when seeing happy things.

When we’ve reached the final goal, we can see things as they are, which means we can see things as neutral. Then we see things like a movie: we are sad during a sad movie and happy during a comic play. What counts is that we never become frustrated however sad the movie is and never become so attached to the movie as to disturb our life, since we know it is not real. Likewise, when coming upon a sad situation in reality, we feel sad but never feel so frustrated as to damage our life because we know it is neutral in itself. Meeting with a good thing, we feel happy but never become so proud of, or attached to it, as to mess up our life because you know it is also neutral in itself.
In a word, we have the same feelings but in a different dimension.

Enlightenment, Meditation, One, Truth, Zen

Q48. When practising at home alone, how can I know whether I am doing well or not? Can I feel any change when doing well as told?

June 9, 2015 Zen Fools

A. In the beginning you might feel it difficult to focus on your question, but it becomes easier and easier over time and the question will be internalised sooner or later.
Once your question becomes one with you, your practice feels very easy and even interesting, and you feel as if it is going on of itself, with little effort. Whatever you do, you feel your work is not separate from your practice, when we say work and practice are one. Then you start to feel what you couldn’t feel before: see and hear what you couldn’t see and hear before. For example, you can be surprised or shocked to hear a sound from a bird, a dog, a car, a person, the wind or anything. On hearing a sound, not knowing what it means, you feel it as the sound of the truth, feeling yourself becoming one with the universe. Sometimes you may feel as if your body has disappeared or collapsed down, becoming one with the universe. You are so happy at that moment that you might burst into tears.

The feeling doesn’t last long but your practice seems to go better and you get more confidence. Experiencing such changes, you come to grasp the words ‘see with ears and hear with eyes’. What is most important here is that you must not be attached to them, nor must you try to avoid them.
No matter how good or marvellous things are that you may experience; you must not attach yourself to them, keeping it in mind that it is also no more than an illusion. You should not be attached even to enlightenment.

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Meditation, Mind, Truth, Zen

Q46. I seem to have a lot of lust within me. How can I eliminate it from me?

June 9, 2015 Zen Fools

A. If you do want to eliminate your lust and have compassion, don’t struggle to do away with the former, but try to know what it is. How could you remove it without knowing what it is? To know it, trace your lust back to its root whenever you feel it. On reaching the root, you will realise not only that lust comes from the same root that compassion is from, but that the root is the very final goal you long to reach, when you will be compassion itself. Remember that everything is from the same root.

Don’t try to remove your lust,
since it is another face of your compassion.
Don’t be attached to compassion,
since it is another face of lust.

Meditation, Mind, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q37. Some masters advise us to stop thinking. How can we live our life without thinking?

June 8, 2015 Zen Fools

A. When masters advise you to stop thinking, to stop thinking has two kinds: before and after reaching the final goal. When they use it in the former sense, they usually mean not that you should stop thinking in your life, but that you should not try to find the answer to the Zen question through thinking, or knowledge, during the practice. Since the purpose of Zen practice is to free you from the web of illusions but thinking produces illusions, the more thinking you do, the more complicated you make it. That is why masters urge you to stop thinking.

However, the latter is to stop thinking in the truest sense that is possible, when you have reached the final goal, which means to think without being trapped in illusions. In a word, when they tell us to stop thinking, what they mean is not to stop thinking, but to think without being trapped in illusions.