Tag: happy

Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Truth, Zen

Q85. Why am I still unhappy even though I know that all is an illusion?

Zen Fools

A. Let’s suppose there is an sick man whose illness is so serious that he can’t move around. You give him medicine that can cure him of the illness. The next time you meet him, finding him still ill, you wonder if he took the medicine. You ask, “Did you take the medicine I gave to you?” He answers, “Of course, I did.” You say, “You don’t seem to have taken it. You still don’t look well.” He says, “I did take it. I will show you the evidence that I took it.” He throws up the medicine you gave him in front of you and shows it to you. It must be the very medicine you gave to him. Do you think he took the medicine? This is the way we accept spiritual teachings and read spiritual books.

When a patient takes medicine, the medicine must be absorbed into the system of his body and its form should disappear, in order to help him. The evidence that the patient took the medicine is not that he keeps the medicine intact in his stomach, not feeling better, but that he acts energetically and is in good shape after the medicine disappears into his tissues of his body.

We often regard remembering teachings from masters and the contents of books you read as mastering it. Knowing something as knowledge is one thing and experiencing it is another. Just keeping the truth as your knowledge without experiencing it through your body is like keeping medicine undigested in your stomach. Zen knowledge without experiencing the truth is no more helpful to your life than undigested medicine is to your body.

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Don’t say you know that all is an illusion.
You are not aware of the truth at all.
What is worse,
you are not conscious of even the fact that you don’t know the truth.

You don’t know what you say since you can’t see yourself as you are.
When all is an illusion, you are also an illusion.
Who on earth is unhappy when you are an illusion?

©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?

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.

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

Buddhism, One, Zen

Q25. Why do we fight and tear the planet apart if we are one? Surely preservation should prevail?

Zen Fools

A. As I mentioned earlier, we do whatever we do for the purpose of attaining happiness. So we fight and tear the planet apart, it can be said, to increase our wealth in the hope that the more wealth we have, the more happiness we will have. The key problem here is that we don’t know what we are because we cannot see things as they are. Regarding ourselves as separate from nature, we very often don’t realize the fact we human beings are also part of nature.

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In fact, fighting and tearing the planet apart is fighting and tearing ourselves apart. This happens, I think, because we don’t experience in person the fact we are one, even while saying we are one with our mouth. If we can truly feel that we are one and that nature is part of us, how couldn’t we try to preserve her as we try to keep ourselves healthy?

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

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Happiness, Zen

Q22. How can I calm down my mind?

Zen Fools

A. Let me ask you a question. How can you wash your car? What is most important in washing your car? This question may sound ridiculous but shows how foolish we are. In order to wash your car, you should know where your car is parked above all. How could you wash your car if you didn’t know where it is, however good your car shampoo and a tool for washing it is? Likewise, to calm down your mind, you should know what your mind is first of all. How could you calm down your mind when you don’t know what it is? To calm down their mind seems difficult to most people because they strive to calm down their mind without knowing what it is.

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To conclude, try to realise what your mind is so as to calm down your mind. When feeling angry, sad or frustrated, trace back to the root where all such emotions come from. The root is your mind. In the process of tracing back to the root, you will become calm before you know it. If you happen to reach your mind, you will get eternal happiness. That is called ‘enlightenment’.

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

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Happiness, Meditation, Mind, One, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q5. Then, how can we see everything as it is?

Zen Fools

A. How do you think we can see everything as it is? It’s very simple, and much easier than you think. We can see everything as it is if we can see ourselves as we are, because we can see things only through ourselves. I can see everything as it is when I can see myself as I am. So, Zen is also said to be a kind of a practice to see ourselves as we are. Then how can we see ourselves as we are? How can you see yourself as you are? OK. Now, I am asking you a question? Do you have a car? Do you have a house? Do you have a mobile-phone? I believe all of you have one of them at least. When you say, “My house is small but very convenient” or when I say, “My car doesn’t work well these days”, what do they mean? When you say, “My house”, it means you own a house. It means a house belongs to you. It never means that you are your house. It never means your house is you. When I say, “My car”, it never means I am my car. It never means my car is me. Am I wrong? Likewise, when we say, “My body”, it never means I am my body, just like I am not my car when I say, “My car”. Then our final question is “What am I when my body is not me?” This is the very ultimate question we should solve, but it might take a lifetime. This is a very simple question but also a very important question for our happiness. Let me ask you one more very similar question. What is your wife when her body is not her, just like your body is not you? What are your mum and dad when their bodies are not them? In fact, we really don’t know what our wives are, what our children are, what our friends are, and so on, just like we don’t know what we are. Let’s suppose I say, “I love my wife.” In this very short sentence I mentioned, I don’t know what the subject “I” is, I don’t know what I am and I also don’t know the object “my wife”, I don’t know what my wife is. In summary, we don’t know what we say when we don’t know what we are. How can I know what I say, when I don’t know what I am? How can I love my wife, when I don’t know what she is? What does it mean when I say to you, “I love you” when I don’t know what you are? In reality, we often say, “I want to be happy”. It is a very natural idea we can have as a human being. However, how can I be happy when I don’t know what I am? How can I be happy when I don’t know who, or what, wants to be happy? This is the way we live our lives without knowing what we are(the essence of our being).

From now on, you take a (long) journey for the purpose of realizing what you are when your body is not you. I want to call this a journey for happiness, because I am sure that this journey will bring you happiness. I invite you to join our journey to happiness.
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All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.

Buddhism, Enlightenment, Happiness, Meditation, Practice, Truth, Zen

Q4. What shall we do to be happy?

Zen Fools

A. Then what shall we do now to be happy? We should try to see everything as it is. To be happy we should be able to see everything as it is. Zen is a kind of Buddhist practice to see everything as it is. However, don’t misunderstand me. Don’t think I want to make you Buddhist. My job is to help you to see everything as it is. I am not here to persuade you to be Buddhist but to help you to see everything as it is. I would never encourage you to change your religion but I encourage you to try to see everything as it is. I would never ask you to live a monastic life, or ascetic life, but ask you to try to see everything as it is. I would never discourage you from doing something, but encourage you not to give up trying to see everything as it is. I will only ask you and help you to see everything as it is, because you can be happy all the time when you can see things as they are.

When you can see things as they are, you can see what you couldn’t see before. You can hear what you couldn’t hear before. Your life changes as you can see things as they are. When we can see things as they are, we can see things more objectively than before. When we can see things more objectively than before, we can make wiser decisions and wiser choices than before. As we can see, our life is a series of decisions and choices. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration that our happiness depends on the decisions and the choices we make every moment. Our wise decisions and wise choices will lead us to happiness. I am sure you can become a better husband, a better wife, better father, better mother, and a better Christian if you are Christian. So we can be happy all the time by seeing everything as it is. You can see happiness when you can see everything as it is. So, Zen is a kind of way to happiness.

Hahoe Village

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