illusion – Page 12

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, Meditation, mindful, mindfulness, One, Practice, root, self, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q160. If everything, even enlightenment is empty and just an illusion, why should we try to attain enlightenment?

February 9, 2016 Zen Fools

A. If we really know that everything is an illusion, we don’t have to make an effort to attain enlightenment since enlightenment is also then an illusion. The reason for trying to obtain enlightenment is that we have not realised in person the truth while saying that everything is empty. The knowledge of enlightenment is not enlightenment itself. The former is as different from the latter as the knowledge of a meal is different from eating the meal. The knowledge of enlightenment can no more give us eternal happiness than the knowledge of food can satisfy our hunger. We practise in order to experience, in person, the truth that everything is empty.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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

Q159. How can I clap with one hand?

February 7, 2016 Zen Fools

A. You already did.

Commentary:
The banker informs him that he is a billionaire, but he is still worried about his next meal.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, suffering, Uncategorized, Zen

Q157. How can we have less suffering when an unhappy thing happens to us?

January 19, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Why do we have less fear than children when we get an injection in the hospital? Do we have less pain than children? When do we feel more pain, getting an injection while awake or while asleep? We feel much less suffering while awake because we can know the context before and after the injection: why we have to get it, what will happen after we get it, and what the feeling will be like, and we can get ourselves mentally ready to take it in advance.

However, being injected while asleep will make me feel more pain because we are not ready. Likewise, children feel more pain or suffering than grown-ups because they can’t understand the context including the fact that the injection will relieve them of the suffering they are undergoing now. In the same way, when we can see the essence of things we are going through by seeing things as they are, we can feel much less suffering than those who can’t see things as they are.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, Koan, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q151. I heard that we should remove our ‘I’ and experience ‘non-ego’ in order to see the true-self. How can I remove my ‘I’?

December 15, 2015December 6, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Don’t try in vain to remove your ‘I’. You can’t do so because you don’t know what it is. Just try to know what you are when your body is not you. When you reach the final goal, you realise that it is not worth mentioning ‘I’. In short, the illusion of your ‘I’ will disappear. Then, you can be said to experience or realise ‘non-ego’.

When you can’t see yourself as you are, you see the illusion of your ‘I’ as yourself. When you can see yourself as you are, you come to realise the essence of your being, your true-self called Buddha Nature. When you don’t know what you are, your ego is you, but when you know what you are, you have no ‘I’ to remove. Then you feel oneness.

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, Meditation, Mind, sutras, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q150. Does enlightenment have anything to do with gender?

December 13, 2015December 6, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Absolutely not. It is a very common belief that only males can attain enlightenment and so females have to be reborn as males in order to attain enlightenment. However, it makes no sense at all. That is against Buddha’s teaching that everything is empty and equal. Gender is also empty and is an illusion.

Enlightenment is to realise your true-self, that is, what you are when your body is not you. When your body is not you, how can you be male or female? Enlightenment has nothing at all to do with gender but a lot to do with how hard you practice and whether or not you practice in the right way.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, Koan, Mind, mindful, mindfulness, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q148. Is happiness obtained through filling our mind or through emptying our mind?

December 8, 2015December 6, 2015 Zen Fools

A. This is not a matter of whether to fill or empty, but a matter of realising what the mind is. The ultimate end of Zen meditation is to realise what the mind that you are going to fill or empty is.

This question shows well how unaware we are of what we say and how imprudently we are seeking happiness. How could we fill or empty the mind while not knowing what it is? In fact, it is because you don’t know what your mind is that you have such an idea of filling or emptying it. Once you get to see it clearly, you will realise that it can’t be filled or emptied because it is perfect, and that you are happiness itself.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

compassion, illusion, love, Meditation, Practice, Zen

Q137. Are compassion and love also illusions?

November 12, 2015November 12, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Suppose that you unconditionally helped someone who is in need. There can be two scenarios.

The first is that you want to show off or are secretly proud because you think you had compassion for a suffering person. The moment you thought that you had compassion, your compassion was not compassion any longer but an illusion. This is because you created a new illusion of compassion concerning your act.

The second is that you never had the idea that you helped someone because you took it for granted, just as if you had fed yourself because you felt oneness with the other person. Then you can be said to have had true compassion because you didn’t have any thought of compassion. In this case, your kindness is not an illusion.

We should know how to do nothing, or how to do without doing. This means that we should not leave any trace in our mind after doing something, just like a flying bird never leaves any trace in the air. Everything is both the truth and an illusion at the same time. Your act becomes an illusion at the moment you label it.

So, the Sutras say that to do good without doing good brings about immeasurable merit.

©Boo Ahm

Buddha, Buddhism, final goal, illusion, Meditation, Practice, Zen

Q134. How can we remove all the illusions that we may have created over many decades at one time, not one by one?

November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Then how would it be possible to remove all of the countless illusions by removing them one by one when many new illusions are made as fast as they are eliminated?

Trying to remove all illusions one by one is like trying to remove all of the sand from a huge river by counting the grains of sand one at a time.

When you reach the final goal, it is like all dreams immediately disappear by themselves when you wake up from sleeping. Then you can see all things clearly as they are all at once, like removing some coloured glasses that distorted your vision.

©Boo Ahm

Buddha, Buddhism, God, illusion, Meditation, Practice, Religion, Truth, Zen

Q133. Do heaven and hell really exist?

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 Zen Fools

A. Heaven is to hell what right is to left. As there is no left without the right and no right without the left, so there is no hell without heaven and no heaven without hell. In fact there is no fixed right or left, and whether something is the right or the left depends on beholder’s view. What is the right to someone can be the left to someone else. Likewise, what is heaven to someone can be hell to someone else. What is hell today can be heaven tomorrow and the other way around.

As long as we believe that heaven is one thing and hell is another, we are tricked by illusions of heaven and hell. What we pursue is not to avoid hell and go to heaven, but to realise the fact that both of them are illusions. That is called the middle path without extremes; no good and bad nor right and wrong.

©Boo Ahm

Buddhism, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, moment, now, present, root, Zen

Q128. How can I live now?

October 22, 2015October 21, 2015 Zen Fools

A. In brief you can live now if you do away with ‘now’. ‘Living now’ mentioned here means living out of the trap of illusions. You should realise the word ‘now’ is an illusion. Only when the illusions of present, past and future disappear can you live now. As long as you keep the illusion of now, you can never experience ‘living now’.

When the thought of ‘present’ or ‘now’ occurs to you, trace your thinking back to its root where it comes from. As mentioned earlier, everything is from the same root. Once reaching there, you will realise not just that you are the root itself but also that everything including present, past and future is nothing but an illusion created in and by you, the root. Then you will perceive that you are eternity itself. That is to live now all the time.

How can I live now?
Get out of now.
How can I get out of it?
Take a close look at its root.