Zen Koan – Hekiganroku – No. 29 – Zen Master Daizui’s “It Will Be Gone with the Other”

The Case

A monk asked zen master Daizui, "When the kalpa fire flares up and the great cosmos is destroyed, I wonder, will 'it' perish, or will it not perish?" Zui said, "It will perish." The monk said, "Then will it be gone with the other?" Zui said, "It will be gone with the other."

Engo's Introduction

The monk who appears here before Zen Master Daizui relates his question to a verse in scripture that talks about the end of the world. That "everything that has become passes away" was one of the strongest impressions of the young married Prince Buddha. A realization which he once expressed with the words: "Everything, disciples, is in flames, kindled by the fire of desires, of hatred, of delusion. It burns through birth, old age and death, through sorrow, misery and pain, through grief and despair."

In the same spirit, Buddha compared his decisive step from bourgeois security to "homelessness" with escaping from a burning building. The passage to which the monk alludes concerns the doctrine of the ETERNAL CIRCLE. In this tremendous cycle, four "Kalpas" (world times, eons) of unimaginably long duration alternate in unstoppable alternation. While our Old Testament limits the creation of the world to less than six thousand years. A single Indian kalpa lasts so long that an ordinary person cannot even express it in powers.

A metaphor is more vivid: a cube-shaped boulder protrudes from the ocean. Measuring four miles in length, width and height. Every hundred years an angelic creature comes flying and brushes the huge rock with its wing. When, one day in the future, the entire block of rock has been removed, then approximately one kalpa is over. A kalpa of complete emptiness is followed by an eon of emergence of incredible diversity, so that one speaks of ten, later of three thousand worlds.

World Time

After this Kalpa was formed and lasted for a long time, the third world time is that of the downfall and the myth clearly places particular emphasis on this Kalpa. it is the world time IN WHICH WE ALL ARE! Three enormous catastrophes occur in it (listen and be amazed). First the all-consuming fire of the eons burns, then a flood washes away what has been burned. Finally the storm of the eons of wind rises to sweep away the last remnants of life. Then the fourth aeon begins, that of the desolate void, from which a new world will emerge at some point.

The monk is gripped by this apocalyptic vision that could destroy everything, even enlightenment. (The Buddha had already decisively combated the belief of his Indian contemporaries in an immortal soul untouched by the fate of the body. As well as, on the other hand, nihilism, which wanted to deny any meaning and moral significance to human action. But over time, this austere sobriety had largely given way within Buddhism to the concession to offer the people consolation with immortality or rebirth of the soul). Monks, make a clear distinction in the following notice whether someone is at home or just a guest who heard about it.

Verse

Blocked by the double barrier,
The monk asked from the heart of the kalpa fire.
Wonderful the words, "It will be gone with the other."
Thousands of miles he wandered in vain, seeking a master.