After our final sitting of the evening, Ch’an Master Sheng-Yen was fond of telling students on retreat in Taiwan about the monk who put the Chinese character for “death” (si) on the dormitory ceiling.
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“His disciples were forced to confront the fact of their own future deaths,” Master Sheng-Yen told us. “It is a great spur to practice. Use your time here well. Practice hard!”
When Master Sheng-Yen died at age 79 in Taiwan last February, that memory immediately came to my mind. Death was not to be feared. It was the great teacher.
I hadn’t seem him for more than 15 years. But no one who has ever seriously studied with Master Sheng-Yen – regarded by many Chinese as the greatest Buddhist teacher of his generation – ever forgets his teachings.
Master Sheng-Yen’s own life undoubtedly informed his attitudes toward death. Frail and troubled by a weak heart, he was frequently ill when I studied with him 25 years ago.
He nevertheless pushed himself as hard as he pushed his students. He famously meditated alone in the Taiwan countryside for ten years. He earned a PhD in Buddhist studies from Rissho University in Japan. He founded the Dharma Drum Order of Ch’an Buddhism and established temples around the world. As a teacher, he maintained a grueling schedule for decades until shortly before his death: three months in Taiwan, three months in Queens, N.Y.
On retreats, he taught with a sense of urgency. One felt that urgency in the whack of his hsiang-ban (awakening stick) on the shoulder blades and in the exhortations to meditate longer and more diligently – often long into the night. Life is short. Who knows how long you will live? Awakening is possible now. Grab the opportunity!
And many students did. In that tinder-box of intense effort and exhortation, students had dramatic awakenings that changed their lives.
For all that, he had an infectious sense of humor, a way of cocking his head and raising his eyebrows at life’s absurdities. “Si-tu ru (my Chinese name), where in the world did you pop out of?” were his first words when I walked unannounced into his Taiwan temple after years away.
Since returning to the U.S., I have studied vipassana, or Insight meditation. It is kinder, gentler Buddhism: a gradual approach to waking up that stresses deepening mindfulness and an open heart. Both approaches are valid, perhaps even necessary. Sometimes we need a demanding father, other times an understanding mother.
Death is the common thread. We all die, including our teachers. Time is short.
Master Sheng-Yen, who like any good Zen master reveled in paradox, would probably add that death isn’t such a big deal, anyway.
