Questions to Master Deshimaru

Question

This morning you said that the spirit of Master Yamada, who has just died, was in this dojo. What do you think about life after death?

Answer

It is a problem with which many people are preoccupied. To cover it thoroughly I should have to give a two hour lecture. What happens after death? This is a religious problem, and it is not necessary to think too much about it. People who don't want to die are always worried about it. In Buddhism you will find no commentary on after-death. "Here and now" is what is essential. Metaphysical issues cannot be settled one way or the other. Their premises can be neither confirmed nor disproved; nothing can be decided about them. What does the mind become after death? Nobody has come back to tell us. So we must not be too attached to death. That is the sense of Dogen's famous saying, "The firewood cannot see its ashes." Firewood stands for life and ashes for death. "The ashes cannot see the firewood." You can also compare life to the images forming on the television screen, death to the interruption of the images when you turn the set off. If we look, our vision is a subjective vision. If we turn the button, the image disappears.