Last week I recounted the story of The Monk & the General, and promised a follow-up that might help illuminate the Zen take on death. Zen teacher Kozan Ichikyo finished this poem, then died sitting upright with the brush still in his hand:
bq. Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going –
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
Zen Masters often compose such poems on their deathbed, as Ichikyo did. A summa for a life, and one final teaching lesson.
And he wrote that without blinking an eye too. But can a Zen master blink an eye, without blinking an eye?
This is similar to Job's lament:
Job 1:21 (KJV)
The difference, I feel, is Ichikyo has achieved detachment, indifference to his end (maybe because of his belief in Karma?). Job cries this out in the immediate despair of the loss of his wealth, his children's lives, and his health.
Samuel: You feel Ichikyo has achieved "indifference to his end".
Can you tell me what ended?
Charlie, his particular life ended. Whether that was the end of his karmic cycle or not, who knows?
It's a very non-Western view. Whereas the Western belief in individual worth derives from the belief that man was created in God's image, therefore each individual life is an holy gift; the Zen belief is that an individual life makes no difference one way or the other. Kinda sorta like the Copernican revolution to the nth degree.
As far as I know, Western thought similar to this only arises during lamentations and tragedies.
King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1. Eccliesiastes 4:2-3 CasablancaThat being said, I believe both traditions are correct in the we invest too much importance to our individual lives, circumstances, and problems. Zen tries to make this insight an everyday quotidien wisdom. Western thought tends only to acknowledge it at the end of life, or after great calamity.
Interestingly, Islamic theology, I believe, falls into the Western camp. Submit to Allah, or else face the consequences. Individual lives do matter, if only to the extent that Allah (or his chosen earthly representatives) "keep score" of each individual's virtues and vices, in order to account for who is to be let into Paradise and who is to be cast out.
Samuel --
So many words. If Ichikyo is gone, where did he go?
Charlie
Kozan Ichikyo, died February 12, 1360, at 77. A few days before his death, he called his pupils together, ordered them to bury him without ceremony, forbidding them to hold services in his memory.
Life is what happens while your busy making other plans...
John Lennon
True of both Eastern and Western philosophies...