Tag: koan

Enlightenment, final goal, Meditation, Truth, Zen

Q95. What does ‘enjoy being still’ mean?

Zen Fools

A. Most people think it means to enjoy sitting still with our mind focused on something like our breath or Zen question during the meditation practice. Of course we can have such a feeling during the practice, and the stillness we feel during the practice will grow deeper and deeper along with it. That is a very essential process which we go through in order to reach the final goal. However, that is not the stillness mentioned in Zen meditation because as soon as we stop the practice, the stillness breaks and we come back into the noisy world. The stillness that can be enjoyed only during practice is of no practical use in our life. The purpose of Zen meditation is not to change only a given part of our life at a given time, but to change our whole life. In other words, the stillness we pursue is not temporary but permanent stillness, which we can feel only when, after removing all illusions, we realise the whole universe is still all the time regardless of whether we practice or not. Then our life is always still and peaceful, and we can enjoy stillness all the time even in a busy street or a crowded market place.

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If I were asked what stillness is, I would say,

“Ten volcanos erupt at the same time.”

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Meditation, true self, Truth, Zen

Q91. What do you mean by ‘Everything is the gate to the truth’?

Zen Fools

A. It means that everything you hear and see is teaching you. You can reach your final goal if you grasp this teaching. Let me give you an example.

Once upon a time a monk who had been practising Zen meditation with the Zen question, ‘What was your original face like before you were born?’ happened to be walking across a market place. He saw a group of people making a great fuss around a humble looking man. The fact was that this man was caught stealing some money from an elderly woman. Some bystanders in the crowd blamed him and some were feeling pity for him. One of them said to him, “You’ve lost your face now. How can you save your face before your family?” The poor man answered with his head bent, “I have no face to lose any more.” The moment the monk heard the phrase ‘I have no face to lose’, his question ‘What was your original face like before you were born?’ was solved perfectly. The trivial word from the humble thief was the greatest teaching to the monk that he had ever heard in his life. What would not be a gate to the truth, if even such a trifle as the thief’s words is the greatest teaching?

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Do you want to hear the teaching of the truth?
Listen carefully to your family and neighbours.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddhism, Koan, Meditation, Zen

Q90. Student: “What are you when your body is not you?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “A piece of cake.”
Student: “What is it like?”
Master: “When small, it is smaller than a mustard seed.
When large, larger than the whole universe.”

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Commentary:
It is neither large nor small since it has no boundary.
It never moves however hard we try to lift it, but it is not heavy at all.

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

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Meditation, mindful, mindfulness, true self, Truth, Zen

Q87. Student: “What are you when your body is not you, sir?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Take a look carefully.”
Student: “What shall I look at?”
Master: “Listen carefully.”

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Commentary:
Don’t seek to approach it.
If you put your face near it in order to see it closely, you will have your face burnt.

©Boo Ahm

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

Koan, Truth, Zen

Q84. Student: “Sir, what are you when your body is not you?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Go and ask Tom, your senior.”
(He goes to Tom and asks him.)
Student: “What are you when your body is not you?”
Tom: “Go and ask my friend, John. I can’t tell you the answer now because I have a bad headache.”
(He goes to John and asks him.)
Student: “What are you when your body is not you?”
John: “I can’t tell you the answer since I am busy now. Why don’t you ask such a question of the master?”
(He returns to the master and tells him what Tom and John said to him.)
Master: “Tom’s hair is white, and John’s hair is black.”

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Commentary:
A dog dashes to the stone when it is thrown to it but a lion to the thrower.

©Boo Ahm

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

Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, Truth, Zen

Q78. Master: ‘What are you doing here?’

Zen Fools

A. Student: ‘I am doing nothing.’
Master: ‘Then you are sitting at leisure.’
Student: ‘Sitting at leisure is also doing.’
Master: ‘You say you are doing nothing. What are you not doing?’
Student: ‘Even saints don’t know it.’

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Commentary:
He can be said to know how to do nothing.
If you knew who does what, you would know how to do nothing.

©Boo Ahm

Koan, Truth, Zen

Q75. Student: ‘What are you when your body is not you, sir?’

Zen Fools

A. Master: ‘I don’t know. ‘
Student: ‘Why don’t you know?’
Master: ‘Don’t tell anyone that I said I didn’t know.’

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Commentary:
It is not for the sake of his reputation but for the sake of his student’s reputation that Master advises his student not to tell anyone that he said he didn’t know.

©Boo Ahm

illusion, Koan, Meditation, Mind, Zen

Q74. What does ‘escape from the trap of birth and death’ mean?

Zen Fools

A. Birth and death are like the right and the left. There is no fixed right side and no fixed left side. The right can be the left anytime and the other way around. Besides, when we are not conscious of right and left, there is neither the right nor the left.

Nobody can deny the fact that we are part of the whole universe. Then is the universe dead or alive? It’s neither alive nor dead. Then are we, part of it, alive or dead? Though we define a given part of universe as birth or death, actually there is no birth and no death unless we divide the universe into many with the imaginary lines we produce.

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There is no birth and no death unless we are conscious of them. To conclude, to experience in person the fact that birth and death are nothing but an illusion, like the right and the left, is to escape from the trap of birth and death.

©Boo Ahm

Koan, Meditation, self, Truth, Zen

Q72. What are you when your body is not you?

Zen Fools

A. Don’t eat lees but drink wine.

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Commentary:
What is wine? And what are the lees?
Don’t make believe that you drank wine after eating the lees.
He who eats the lees plays a drunken frenzy.
He who drinks wine steals the whole universe.
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway.