A. Master: “A gate.”
Student: “How can I see it?”
Master: “Open it.”
Student: “How can I open it?”
Master: “Break it open.”
Commentary:
All gates are wide open.
Don’t bump into the gate itself, just pass through the gateway.
Trying to open it is turning your back on it.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. If you are anxious to know where you will go after death, you should know where you are now. How could you expect to know your future which is invisible, not knowing the present right before your eyes? Once you know where you are standing now, you can know not just where you will go after death but also where you were before you were born. In order to know where you are, you, first of all, should know what you are. How could you know where you are, not knowing what you are?
Your true-self is not born and does not die. It has always been and will be the same without any change forever. It never changes at all. You are eternity itself. Death and birth are only illusions. The problem is that you are not aware of this truth because you can’t see things as they are. The end of Zen meditation is to experience the truth through your body.
Do you want to know where you will go after your death?
Watch carefully what you are stepping on.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. That is like telling a baby who can’t even stand on his own feet to run as fast as a sprinter. The first thing you should do in order to put your mind down is to know what your mind is. How would it be possible for you to put your mind down when you don’t know what it is? The key point in Zen meditation is whether or not you realise what your mind is, and not whether to put it down or not. Once you realise what your mind is, holding it or putting it down is up to you.
One of the most common mistakes we make is to think that we know what we don’t know. You seem to be making the same mistake of trying to put your mind down, thinking that you know your mind while in fact you don’t know it. If you are anxious to put your mind down, do try to realise what it is before trying to put it down in vain. In fact, once you realise what your mind is, you can be said to have completed your practice, or to have attained enlightenment. Should you see your master again, first of all ask him what your mind is.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Master: “True-self.”
Student: “Could you open your mind and show it to me?”
Master: “Of course. Flower. Sky. Tree. Stone.”
Commentary:
A breeze stirs revealing the air.
The inside of the air is showing clearly.
Is it air or wind?
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Once in a while, you can have new experiences or changes in your life. For example, your life feels even more simple than usual. You start to see what you couldn’t see; perceiving every single gesture or movement of people or things as a movement of the truth, or feeling oneness with things and people around you. Also, you start to hear what you couldn’t hear; hearing all sounds as Dharma talks and as the sound of the truth. However, these are not all but just a few of many examples, and not all people have the same experiences.
When these changes happen, some people are so attracted by them that they expect the same things to happen to them again, or even believe it to be the final goal and therefore cease to practice. Also, there are people who are so bewildered or scared that they hesitate to keep practising. You should neither be attached to these experiences nor be scared of them, but leave them alone, since all of them are not only signs indicating that you are making progress, but also illusions created by your mind. Trying to experience the same again, or struggling to avoid them is making other illusions.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Discussions on Zen meditation and the Dharma are a very important part of our practice because we can help one another through them. In order to make the discussions efficient and helpful, special attitudes are required for these discussions, especially in the absence of a master who has can guide us.
When you ask your Zen friend a question, you should think you are not asking your friend, but Buddha the question and listen to him in the same way. When you are not satisfied with his answer, either because you don’t understand his answer or because you think he is giving a wrong answer, you should blame yourself for not understanding his perfect teaching rather than think he is wrong. You should keep in mind that he is telling you the truth regardless of whether his answer is right or wrong.
When you are asked a question, you should regard the questioner as Buddha and think you are being tested by Buddha. Be frank about your practice, and try your best to make the best answer you can. Be neither happy because he agrees with you, nor unhappy because he doesn’t, since his approval itself doesn’t advance your practice and his disapproval doesn’t disturb your progress.
When you ask, asking itself is important because the answer is in your asking. When you listen, listening itself is important because the answer is in your listening. When you answer, answering itself is important because the answer is in your answering. In summary, what matters is all in you, not out of you.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. In the beginning, you might feel it a little difficult to keep focused on the question for a long time. However, if you keep practising, your practice will grow easier and easier with time, and the duration of your concentration on the question becomes longer and longer until you reach the stage of becoming oneness with your question.
Once you get to this stage, your practice goes on by itself spontaneously all day long without your effort. You can’t separate your question from yourself or stop practising even though you try to stop it. Whatever you do; speak, listen or eat, you feel as if your question did it. Then your life itself becomes your practice and your practice is as easy as breathing.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. What is enlightenment? It means to realise that everything is empty and an illusion. To the enlightened, there is nothing to obtain because everything is an illusion. They are aware that not only practice but also enlightenment is an illusion. Then, practice, to try to obtain enlightenment is to make another illusion. In brief, the purpose of practice is to remove illusions. Why should we make new illusions while trying to remove illusions?
Some people say it takes time to remove old bad habits that we have had for a lifetime even after enlightenment. However, the enlightened never make an artificial effort to remove them, but leave them alone to disappear by themselves of their own accord, because they know that not only old bad habits but also the disappearance of them is empty.
Waves in the sea, however wild, naturally grow calm with time when the storm stops.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. This question is like asking whether we should view food as a cause of illness, such as obesity and diabetes, or a necessary thing for survival. Desire itself is neutral. It depends on you whether it is the motivation of life or the root of suffering. Try to see the root of your desire clearly when it occurs. When you realise it clearly, it is not only the motivation of life but also the root of happiness. It is when you don’t know what it is that it becomes the root of suffering.
However beautiful a thing may be, it is no more than an illusion as long as you don’t know the root from which it is from.
However ugly a thing may be, it is the truth itself when you know its root.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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
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