Tag: realise

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, desire, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, love, Meditation, Mind, root, self, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q239. If love and hate are neutral and both are illusions, then, what difference does it make whether I am loving or cruel?

Zen Fools

A. It’s true that love and hate are neutral and both are illusions. In fact, it doesn’t make any difference whether you are loving or cruel. To realise the truth means to realise that everything is empty and feel oneness with the whole universe. Then, your feeling of love and hatred cannot help but be different from the feeling that you have had before realising the truth.

Above all, when you feel your hate as empty, your hate seldom develops into being cruel. Your cruel feeling, if or when it occurs, is not as strong or acute as before and doesn’t last long even though you don’t struggle to control your emotion. Rather, your cruel feeling turns into sympathy as you feel oneness. That is called compassion.

SRH_5738a_thumb

 

In fact, as many people become unhappy because of love as do those who become unhappy because of hatred. As often as not cruel feelings result from love. If you realise the truth mentioned above, you will not be obsessed with, or attached to love, to the extent that your love makes people feel burdened or even tortured rather than happy. And you will not become so frustrated by the loss of love, if it happens, that you stray from your normal life. That is called wisdom.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, mindful, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q238. What is the difference between ‘form’ and ‘illusion’?

Zen Fools

A. Form can be likened to wind, and emptiness to air. All winds, whether breezes or storms, are the actions of air. There can’t be any wind which is not air. Wind is air, and air is not separate from wind. Form is to emptiness as wind is to air. All forms, whether bad or good, or moral or immoral, are action of emptiness, the true-self.

When we know the truth that form is the action of emptiness, the true-self, just as wind is the action of air, form is called form. When we are ignorant of this truth and believe that form is self-existing apart from emptiness, then form is referred to as illusion. This is like believing that wind is one thing and air is another. What is form to the enlightened is an illusion to the unenlightened.

The purpose of Zen meditation is to see everything as it is, which means to see everything in both ways, as form and emptiness at the same time, just like we know that wind and air are the same when wind brushes against our skin.

SRH_1260a_thumb

 

Student: “How can I avoid illusions and see my true-self, Sir?”

Master: “Why do you hope to see your true-self while trying to avoid It?”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, Enlightenment, final goal, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q237. Student: “All forms return to emptiness. Where does emptiness return to?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Waves never leave the sea.”

SRH_1329a_thumb

 

Commentary:

Winds never return to air because they never leave air.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, Enlightenment, final goal, Happiness, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, Photography, Practice, Religion, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q235. What is the true-self, Buddha?

Zen Fools

All you see, hear and feel is your true-self. If you think of anything else as your true-self, Buddha, that is none other than an illusion of your true-self.

People, in fact, are chasing after the illusion of Buddha created by their imagination while always facing Buddha. The problem is that you don’t recognise Him while being together with Him all the time and never having left each other. If you pursue anything else other than what you are confronting now, it is to add another illusion which prevents you from seeing your true-self.

The true-self is one or non-dual, and it is the origin or the root of everything including ourselves. We have divided the true-self into many with imaginary lines, all labels. In fact, we have drawn so many complicated lines that we can neither see nor imagine the original shape of the true-self without any lines. We have been addicted to such imaginary lines for such a long time that we cannot recognise the One now. However, no matter how many lines there are and no matter how complicated the lines are, we are still the true-self itself, have never left it and can’t leave it, whether we are aware of this truth or not. The purpose of Zen meditation is to realise the truth by seeing the intact shape of the true-self.

SRH_9400a_thumb

 

Student: “What is the Buddha, Sir?”

Master: “Why do you only see an old man and not the Buddha?”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, master, Meditation, Mind, Photography, Practice, Religion, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q234. Student: “How can I enjoy an eternal life without birth and death?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “Live in the land without light and shade.”

Student: “Where is the land?”

Master: “There.”

Student: “Where is there?”

Master: “There.”

File0160a_thumb

 

Commentary:

You don’t have to dig the earth for gold with your hands full of gold.

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, compassion, Enlightenment, illusion, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, suffering, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q233. What’s the best way to act if I find someone’s behaviour really irritating and distracting?

Zen Fools

A. Try to associate everything good or bad with your practice. Imagine you are being tested by a master and remember the following. Everything is neutral. Everything is non-dual. Everything is created by your discrimination. Everything is an action of your true-self. See and hear it as an action of your true-self or a Dharma talk. If you get angry, you don’t have to remember all of these things but only one of them, and try to trace your anger to its root. When you are faced with irritating and distracting behaviour, it will disappear by itself if you don’t think of it as irritating and distracting.

SRH_3022a_thumb

 

Student: “How can I avoid getting angry?”

Master: “Why do you try to avoid your true-self? Getting angry is none other than the action of your true-self that you are anxious to see.”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, Religion, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q232. Shall I pray to Buddha for my enlightenment?

Zen Fools

A. If you know what Buddha is, it means that you have already attained enlightenment. Then, you need not pray to Him for enlightenment any longer. If you are not enlightened, it means that you don’t know what Buddha is. Then, how would you pray to Him while not knowing what or who he is and where he is? If you want to pray to Him for your enlightenment, do your best to realise what He is before you pray. That is Zen meditation.

_SRH6440a_thumb

 

 

Student: “Shall I pray to Buddha for my enlightenment?”

Master: “Not bad. Tell me where He is. I also hope to pray to Him.”

Student: “I don’t know where He is.”

Master: “What nonsense! How can you pray to Him while not knowing where He is?”

Student: “What shall I do, Sir?”

Master: “Why are you, ‘King’, going to make yourself a beggar?”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, final goal, illusion, Koan, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, root, self, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q231. Student: “What is the true-self?”

Zen Fools

A. Master: “What do you think it is?”

Student: “I have no idea.”

Master: “You are right.”

_SRH0878a_thumb

 

Commentary:

Master opens the shell and offers the flesh.

Why do you try in vain to eat only the hard shell?

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, Enlightenment, final goal, master, Meditation, Mind, Practice, present, Religion, root, sexual, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q230. My former master gave emphasis to sitting meditation. Do I have to sit for practice?

Zen Fools

A. Zen meditation is not sitting itself but keeping your question. Sitting meditation is not the end but one of the means. No matter how long you may sit, it is far from Zen meditation if you don’t keep your question. Even dancing or singing, however, can be a good practice if you can keep questioning what is making your body dance or sing while dancing and singing. In fact, your posture doesn’t matter, whether sitting, standing, lying or walking, if you can keep the question.

_SRH6075a_thumb

 

 

Let me introduce a dialogue between an ancient master and his student:

 

One day, seeing his student sitting on the rock behind the temple, the master started to grind a brick against the rock before his student.

 

Student: “Sir, what are you doing with the brick?”

Master: “I am making a mirror out of a brick.”

Student: “How is it possible to make a mirror by grinding a brick?”

Master: “What are you doing now?”

Student: “I am trying to attain enlightenment.”

Master: “How is it possible to attain enlightenment by sitting?”

Student: “What shall I do then?”

Master: “Which is right, to hit the horse or hit the cart in order to move the load?”

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

Buddha, Buddhism, emptiness, empty, Enlightenment, final goal, illusion, master, Mind, moment, Practice, present, student, true self, Truth, Uncategorized, Zen

Q229. I practise Zen meditation no more than two hours a day. My problem is that my busy life doesn’t allow me to practise as much as I want. Could you recommend any way to help with my practice?

Zen Fools

A. Remove all your time lines. They are only imaginary lines created by your imagination. There is no fixed time in the universe. Time is a typical illusion. Remove all time lines and you will become eternity itself. Think of eternity as your practice and you will become practice itself. Then, whatever you may do, whether eating, talking, or working, just question what makes your body do it. That is practice. In other words, you make yourself one with the question or your practice. Then, you can practise 24-hours a day 7-days a week. You can’t stop practising.

File32116a_thumb

 

Student: “What is the best way to practise well?”

Master: “Don’t practise.”

Student: “Why do you tell me not to practise when I ask you the best way to practise?”

Master: “If you practise 24-hours a day, your practice is not practice any longer. That is true practice.”

 

 

©Boo Ahm

 

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway