Who Are You?
There are many existential questions that we ask ourselves, such as “What’s my purpose in life?“ or “Is there any meaning in my life at all?,” but all of these ultimately boil down to a single question; “Who am I really?” Those who don’t give a s＊it about it may say “Bah! What a silly question! I am such and such …”. But does that answer come from a true realization of what self is, or a merely intellectual?
Today’s Koan is a set of three questions asked by a monk called Tosotsu. The first one goes like this:
“Where is your true nature, right now?”
Where is it? Try pointing at it using your finger. Where did the finger point at? And what do you see there? You will notice that every time you do this, the finger is pointing at what you don’t really think your true nature is, or is it? It is a fresh discovery that, first of all, if you try to find your true nature, it always fails.
Then, what’s the point of the above question? You are asked to answer the question that is fundamentally unanswerable, since, as hard as you try, you can’t find anything tangible that you could recognize as your true nature.
If successfully inquired, this question induces an extremely powerful conflict within the ones who received it, burning out all the unnecessary intellectual understanding in them. The result is landing on to the point of not-knowing, from which the true answer for the question arises.
The second one goes as below:
“At the moment of death, how do you transcend life and death?"
Who or what is it that dies, first of all? What is this “"you” that dies? This may be a good question to start with. Next, inquire into where life and death are here and now … right now, in this moment. We might as well skip that “death” we imagine will come sometime in the future (as this is certainly an intellectual understanding of death), and have a look at objects that are always at hand for our observational endeavor: bodily sensations. Pick one of them, and see them appear and disappear in a fairly quickly manner. Do this with a light attitude and with curiosity; don’t strain yourself too much on concentrating on them. Just have a look, observe … then, you might discover what transcending (the duality of) life and death truly is.
Here is the third one:
“Where do you go after you die?”
This is one of the problems that should have annoyed hundreds of thousands of people from ancient times. Where do we go after you die? This simple question can even make you sleepless, if seriously inquired! This time also, the first point to be noted is who the one that dies is. If you don’t know this, it is almost certain that you don’t know where it goes either. Then, back to the basics. See where sensations go after they disappear. Also inquire where they come from. This simple exercise can reveal a great deal about the fact regarding life and death.
How do you like Tosotsu’s questions? Whether you are a youngster or in your old age, the problem of life and death is pretty pressing. If you are lucky (!?) enough to be bothered with this matter, go for it, and that may be worth going for.