Question
Once again, you judge people without knowing them. What do you know about the slaps I have taken, about my age, since you speak to me like a kid? You are the daddy’s boy, Thibaut, not me. And I am the one who has been getting slapped in the face while going out to work ever since I found myself without parents and on the street at 16, doing every odd job there is to survive.
When I ask a question about death, of course I have already put myself on the line: it concerns me, and in the short term.
As for being nervous, as you say, and calling me little to put me down, you are wrong again: I am 50, I teach boxing in housing projects, and I learned to control my nerves a long time ago or I would have been dead ages ago.
I said: it makes me want to hit you. I did not say I would, and I never will. It is just to tell you what you stir up in me by passing ready-made judgments on people you have never seen. Perhaps also because, despite the hard life I have lived, I have never lost hope, and hearing your answer was a source of hope for me—you, a Zen master and representative of Buddha. Eric Lerins.
Is a master, specifically a Zen master, afraid of dying?
Intellectually, it is easy to say no.
But in concrete terms, when a master has a very serious illness,
for example, and knows he is going to die, is he completely
free of the fear of suffering, of going through intensely
painful physical ordeals and physical deterioration, and then of leaving and
dying?
I am thinking of two masters:
- Master Deshimaru, whom I did not know, who said, “It hurts.”
- Jesus Christ, who said, “Father, why have you forsaken me?”
Thank you.
Eric Lerins
Master Kosen’s answer
In answer to your question: there is no courage without fear, no awakening without illusion, no purity without dirt, no patience without impatience. And you are impatient, aggressive, and rude like a brat, even if you are 50.
What difference does it make to you how Zen masters die? They are not going to die in your place, and anyway they are like everyone else, or almost. So everyone is a Zen master, or almost, and everyone is going to croak, or almost.
As for your response: in this case, you are the one judging and insulting me because I have not answered your question within the week. You think you are so important and your question so interesting that I must give you my time and attention on the spot.
If you want a deadline and a guaranteed answer, you can pay, like with express delivery. I don’t ask anyone for anything, and I don’t owe anyone anything.
Kosen