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Doushuai’s Three Barriers (MK73) (GG47)

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KOAN:

a. People go to wild places to search for their true nature. When you do this, where is your true nature?

b. When you have realized your true nature, you are free of birth and death. When you are dying, how can you be free?

c. After you die, where will you go?

—PZI Miscellaneous Koans Case 73, & Gateless Gate Case 47

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Dharma Theme June 9, 2023

Dharma Theme: Where Do We Go When We Die?

PZI Teachers

Koans
Doushuai’s Third Barrier (MK73c), Doushuai’s Three Barriers (MK73) (GG47), Huineng's Original Face (GG23), Luopu About To Die (BS41), Mazu's Purpose of Your Life, The Valley Spirit Never Dies (DDJ6), Where Do You Go When You Die?, Your Original Face before Your Parents Were Born (GG23)
Tags
ancestors, bardos, buddha nature, Daowu, death, Dharma Theme, Doushuai, dying, great matter, great questions, Huineng, last words, Linji, Luopu, Mazu, original face, poet Issa
Category
Dharma Theme, Text

Questions about death and the after-death are a part of the traditional Chan koan curriculum. Dignified by their antiquity, they are the primordial instance of that which cannot be negotiated with.

29 Words

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Article September 23, 2021

Where Do You Go, Oh Where Do You Go When You Die?

John Tarrant

Koans
Doushuai’s Three Barriers (MK73) (GG47), What Is Buddha?, Where Do You Go When You Die?
Tags
death, difficult times, dying, eternity, Guanyin, interwoven, Lion's Roar, poet Issa, sorrow, vastness
Category
Article, Text

Article by John Tarrant for Lion’s Roar magazine. A traditional Chan way to approach the question of death is to stroll, stumble, hurry, struggle, fall accidentally through the gates of samadhi—the deep concentration of meditation—and look around. When you really enter this moment, it has no end, no beginning; it is older than the universe that seems to contain it. Then it will inevitably occur to you: “I’ve always been here.” 

1661 Words