root – Page 3 – Zen Fools

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Q241. Is it necessary to practice Zen meditation for many years in order to attain enlightenment? How can I, a Westerner, expect to achieve enlightenment?

August 16, 2016August 16, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Nobody knows how long it will take for you to attain enlightenment. It may take some time, or you may get enlightened at the sound of birds tomorrow morning or at a word of my talk during the next retreat. However, don’t be impatient but pay attention only to your question. Impatience won’t help with but will disturb your practice by causing you to make more illusions. However, you should not be too relaxed. Practice just like a hen incubates eggs.

You must remember that everything is not dual but one. We are divided into a Westerner and an Easterner by our discrimination. They are only imaginary lines or labels produced by us. They are referred to as illusions because they are empty. The purpose of Zen meditation is to remove such illusions. Why do you keep the illusion, Westerner? That is going against your practice. Enlightenment is just to remove all the labels attached to you. Thinking that you can’t attain enlightenment because you are a Westerner is like thinking that Koreans can’t attain enlightenment because they are not Indian like the Buddha.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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

Q240. Master: “Are you married?”

August 14, 2016August 13, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Student: “Yes, Sir.”

Master: “Do you know your wife?”

Student: “Of course, Sir. I share the same bed with her.”

Master: “How many hairs does she have on her head?”

Student: “I don’t know. How could I know that?”

Master: “Don’t say that you know your wife then.”

Commentary:

Don’t try to extract juice by squeezing dry sticks.

The number of the fingers of a hand is five.

©Boo Ahm

All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway

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?

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 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.

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’?

August 9, 2016 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.

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?”

August 7, 2016 Zen Fools

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

Commentary:

Winds never return to air because they never leave air.

©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?”

July 31, 2016July 31, 2016 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.”

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?

July 28, 2016July 27, 2016 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.

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?

July 26, 2016 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.

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

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?”

July 25, 2016 Zen Fools

A. Master: “What do you think it is?”

Student: “I have no idea.”

Master: “You are right.”

Commentary:

Master opens the shell and offers the flesh.

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

©Boo Ahm

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?

July 19, 2016 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.

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.”