What is the Zen attitude towards death?

What is the zen attitude towards death?

He is saying 'Now I am off to hell.' He is joking. Only a Zen master can joke at the last moment. Only a Zen master can have the guts to say 'Now I am off to hell.' In fact, Zen people say that wherever a master is, there is heaven. If he is in hell, hell will be heaven. Heaven is his climate, he carries it with himself. 'Then, shutting his eyes, and still sitting, he died.' So silently, so poetically, so radically. And the third story. When the master, Tenno, was dying, he called to his room the monk in charge of food and clothing in the temple. When the monk sat down by the bed, Tenno asked, 'Do you understand?' Now, he has not said anything and he asks, 'Do you understand?' 'No,' the monk was puzzled and said. Tenno laughed, and said, 'Do you understand?' The…

What is exactly your attitude about death?

Kamalesh, a mystic who was being led to the gallows saw a big crowd running on before him. "Don't be in such a hurry," he said to them. "I can assure you, nothing will happen without me." That's my attitude towards death: it is the greatest joke there is. Death has never happened, cannot happen in the very nature of things, because life is eternal. Life cannot end; it is not a thing, it is a process. It is not something that begins and ends; it has no beginning and no end. You have always been here in different forms, and you will be here in different forms, or, ultimately, formless. That's how a buddha lives in existence: he becomes formlessness. He disappears from the gross forms totally. Death is not there, it is a lie -- but it appears very real. It only appears very real, it is not.…

Someone asked Osho's views on death and dying.

There is nothing as sure as death. Where there is life, there is bound to be death. He who bears not this fact in mind, wastes life, whereas he who knows this truth, obtains that which is immortal. I do not feel depressed at anybody's death, because there is no need to feel anything about it. However, it is a matter of sorrow, no doubt, if I see a life wasted. We have not to grieve after a dead body, but over a wasted life. You know, King Janak was called 'videh', i.e., without or beyond the body. Once, a young minister of his asked him, 'Your Excellency! How can you be considered without a body, when you do have a physical body? The king smiled but said nothing. After a few days, however, the king invited the minister for lunch. Such an invitation from the king himself was a…

Question: OSHO, CAN MAN LAUGH EVEN IN THE FACE OF DEATH? Narendra, IT DEPENDS. There are people who cannot laugh even when life is showering all its joy on them; they remain serious, dull, dead. Flowers go on showering on them; they don't look at those flowers, they don't feel grateful. They have completely forgotten the language of gratitude. They have forgotten to laugh. But a man who is alert and aware, a man who is a man in the real sense -- integrated, centered, grounded -- will laugh in the face of death. Mansoor laughed when he was being killed. He laughed so loudly that the people who were killing him could not contain their curiosity. They asked, "Mansoor, what is the matter? Are you mad or something? Why are you laughing?" He said "I am laughing because you are killing somebody else.

Bassui wrote the following letter to one of his disciples who was about to die: "the essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither colour nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains. "I know you are very ill. Like a good zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: what is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake

There is nothing to be worried about. You will disappear like a snowflake in pure air. You are not going to die, you are only going to disappear. Yes, you will not be found in the individual form. The form will disappear into the formless -- the snowflake into the pure air. But you will be there and more so. When the river disappears into the ocean, it is not dying -- it is becoming the ocean, it is spreading, it is becoming bigger, huge, enormous, infinite. Death, if you cling to life, will look like death. If you don't cling to life, death will look like a transformation, a freedom. You are freed from the imprisonment of form, you become formless. Then there is great joy. A man who can die like a snowflake disappearing in the pure air is blessed. There is great ecstasy, great silence and peace,…