![]() Zen koan: The death of dying means what?A Story by zennedpen![]() If death itself were to die, what would that mean to us? Would it mean that we would live on forever?![]() ![]() The old Zen master, Zerpethe Ripockske, was coming to the end of his long life. He was thinking about death, and he thought the odd thought to himself: "What is the death of death?" If I could solve this koan, he thought to himself, I would also have the answer to: "What is the life in life?" Then he somewhat pensively thought to himself: "Well, in truth, all of our life, we are dying, not living. We move towards death with every breath. Life is a process of dying slowly, not living longly." Then, he countered this idea with this new thought instead: "Our body/mind might think and feel this, but the real truth is that there is no dying, nor death, to our real self, our permanently existing soul." "Death only exists as a thought of our minds. Without the thought of death, death cannot live in life. Thought gives life to the idea of death." Finally, he thought this koan too: "The life of the dead is the dead of the life." "Ha, ha," He thought to himself then: "Now, that makes no sense to me at all, or does it?" Photo Credit: The photos used in this article were all sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
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Added on October 16, 2020 Last Updated on October 16, 2020 Tags: death, life, Zen, Zen master, Zen koan Author![]() zennedpenMelbourne, Victoria, AustraliaAboutOn line writer, on various writing sites, for the best part of nearly 20 years now. more..Writing
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