A. Student: “I’m fifty years old.”
Master: “How old is fifty years?”
Student: “I don’t know.”
Master: “How come you still don’t know your age?”
Student: “How old are you, Sir?”
Master: “Eighty years old.”
Student: “How old is eighty years?”
Master: “Eight times ten is eighty.”
Commentary:
Don’t think that the student’s right answer is five times ten.
The curved can’t contain the straight.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. If you practice Zen meditation in the right way, you can experience small and big changes in the course of your practice. You can come across a moment when you feel a big unexplainable change. During this experience, feeling oneness with the whole universe, you realise simultaneously that everything is empty and you are eternity itself.
From then on, you can see things as form and emptiness at the same time. Then masters’ records, or the Sutras, read like your own stories, and you can understand them as clearly as if experiencing them through your whole body rather than understanding them with your head. Then, you have nothing to ask others since there is nothing that you don’t know. An ancient master once said, “When you are full after hearty food, you need not ask others whether or not you are full.” If you experience the changes mentioned above, you can be said to be enlightened even if you are not checked by a master.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. Student: “What is pure mind?”
Master: “Rotten shit.”
Student: “What is dirty mind?”
Master: “Beautiful flowers.”
Commentary:
Don’t aim at the shadow on the ground of a game bird when it has flown away high in the sky.
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
A. People think that a cow is very beneficial and that a snake is very harmful because the former gives us milk, sometimes working power and even gives its body as food, but the latter makes poison and can harm us with it. It is said that we should be altruistic like a cow.
A cow has no intention to sacrifice itself to help people although it produces milk and has a huge body and a lot of power.
A snake has no intention to harm people although it produces poison.
It is only because of people’s discrimination that a cow is helpful and a snake is harmful.
What would they think of people?
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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
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
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
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
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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