A. Student: “From home, Sir.”
Master: “What did you see on the way here?”
Student: “I saw sheep.”
Master: “How many sheep did you see?”
Student: “Five sheep.”
Master: “No, you saw ten sheep.”
Student: “Sir, I saw five sheep. Why do you say I saw ten sheep?”
Master: “You still didn’t see the sheep.”
Commentary:
Things go wrong when you look upon an official affair as a personal affair.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The expression ‘We are already enlightened but we don’t realise the fact’ is a very incorrect expression. The right expression is ‘We are already perfect but we don’t realise the fact’. To realise the fact that we are already perfect is enlightenment. Then, you might ask, “Why should we try to attain enlightenment when we are already perfect?” The key problem is that we are not aware of the truth. However perfect we are, we can’t be said to be perfect if we struggle in vain to become perfect while not conscious of the truth that we are already perfect.
We are like a billionaire who is living as a beggar because he is not aware of the fact that he has a great deal of money in his bank account and a lot of real estate to his name. Even though he is told that he is very rich, he can’t accept the fact easily since he has never seen the huge wealth and never lived a rich life lavishing the money freely. Can we say that he is rich? Whatever we say, he is no more than a poor beggar until he realises the fact that he is wealthy. Likewise, we cannot be said to be perfect until we realise and enjoy the truth that we are perfect. Enlightenment is to confirm the truth that we are perfect just like a rich beggar confirms that he is a billionaire.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. It is true that Zen practice is also an illusion. However, the point is that, while saying that everything including Zen practice is an illusion, we actually don’t know the truth clearly because we have never acquired it through experience. It follows that we still mistake illusions for reality while saying that everything is an illusion with our mouths. If you can see everything as an illusion, you don’t need Zen practice any more. Ancient masters would say, after enlightenment, that all the efforts they had made in order to attain enlightenment were of no use at all. However, you should remember that only after enlightenment did they mention such words as a token of their realisation that everything is empty and an illusion.
As long as you are not enlightened, Zen practice is important and necessary as a means to enlightenment until you realise the truth that everything is an illusion. Zen practice can be compared to medicine for a patient. However effective and essential a medicine may be to a patient, it is of no use at all or even harmful to a healthy person. Once the patient becomes well, the medicine is not medicine any more to him. However, it is very useful and important as a medicine to a patient until he gets well.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Master: “It feels full after eating hearty food.
Student: “I feel that, too.”
Master: “That’s it.”
Student: “I still don’t know.”
Master: “Not knowing is not wrong.”
Commentary:
Don’t go to beg your neighbours for embers for cooking with a lamp in your hand.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. It means ‘no discrimination’. However, what matters is not whether we pick and choose but how to pick and choose. You should not mistake it for making no discrimination and having no thought at all, which means death.
Picking and choosing is an essential part of your life. How is it possible to maintain your life with ‘no picking and choosing’? When shopping for instance, you have to pick and choose what to buy and when to go shopping before leaving the house. During your shopping, you also make a lot of discrimination about prices and brands. Your life can be said to be an endless series of ‘picking and choosing’. The enlightened also make ‘picking and choosing’ in their life.
The difference between your ‘picking and choosing’ and the enlightened’s is that the enlightened know that all their ‘picking and choosing’s are empty and illusions while you don’t. When you realise the truth that everything is empty, you come to know that both the objects of your ‘picking and choosing’ and the action of your ‘picking and choosing’ are empty. Then, your ‘picking and choosing’ is not ‘picking and choosing’ any more. Then you can be said to do without doing, or enjoy a life without ‘picking and choosing’ or discrimination.
There is a similar phrase about ‘chopping wood and carrying water before enlightenment and chopping wood and carrying water after enlightenment’. Both the ‘chopping wood and carrying water’s look and sound the same, but the latter is quite different from the former because the latter is not ‘chopping wood and carrying water’ any more. In fact, they are actually so subtle and different from each other that only the enlightened can be conscious of the difference.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The reason why we can’t know what happens to our true-self when our bodies die, is that we can’t see the situation now, I think.
Let me ask you a question, ‘2 + 3 = ( )’. What is the suitable number for the blank? I am sure you know that the correct answer is ‘5’ because it is such a simple question. How can you work out the right answer when there is nothing visible, not even a number in the blank?
You know the right answer since you can clearly understand the visible thing, ‘2 + 3’. If you don’t understand even one of the three visible things, ‘2’, ‘+’, and ‘3’, you can’t know the appropriate number for the blank. Likewise, if you can see everything as really it is, clearly knowing all things that you see and hear, then you can perfectly perceive invisible things as clearly as if you saw them now, in the same way that you would know the right number for the blank, as clearly as if you saw the number ‘(5)’ written there.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Master: “Behold the puppets prancing on the stage, and see the man behind who pulls the strings.”
Student: “Who is the man?”
Master: “He is pulling the strings now.”
Commentary:
Seeing leaves fluttering, we can be aware of the existence of wind.
Seeing a feather flying in the air, we can be conscious of the existence of a bird.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Don’t be impatient. If you are practising correctly, practice itself is important. Never think you are trying to reach somewhere away from you.
Whether going fast or slow, don’t have any intention to reach a goal somewhere else other than yourself. Try to realise that each step you take is itself the final goal.
Student: “What is the true-self?”
Master: “Take a look at beneath your feet.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. The point is not whether to break up or not, but whether you forgave him or not. True forgiveness brings peace and happiness to the forgiver as well as to those who are forgiven.
Ask yourself if you really forgave your husband. Are you sure that you forgave him? If you are not sure, ask yourself whether or not you happen to have any concerns about his unfaithfulness and your forgiveness in your mind, or feel that you did something very big for him and that he should be grateful to you for your forgiveness and recompense you for it. If you think even a little in this way, your forgiveness is not forgiveness at all but a penalty wrapped in the sweet-sounding word ‘forgiveness’. You actually didn’t forgive him but are demanding reparation for your suffering.
In Zen, forgiveness means to regard your husband’s affair as empty and think that there is nothing to forgive him for, and to realise that even your forgiveness is empty as well. If you can’t forgive him like this, try to see the situation as empty. Your effort to see your situation as empty will make your life peaceful and stable regardless of your husband’s reaction to your endeavour.
Don’t expect a quick reaction from him. A sick person usually takes time to return to what he was after his disease is cured. Likewise, it might take time for him to return to what he was because he still needs more time to forgive himself.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Master: “A word”
Student: “Where is it?”
Master: “In your mouth”
Commentary:
It cooks, and chats.
It brings peace, and causes troubles.
It makes the light and the darkness.
It does all these things.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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