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he has learned in moving from master to master everything that Zen teaching is. So if you listen only to his words, it is very difficult for you to find that he is not enlightened. Unless you are enlightened, you will not be able to see the flaws, the small gaps, which are bound to be there because it is not his own experience; it is simply clippings from other masters that he has collected -- collected with tremendous intelligence. He almost deceived the Imperial Power. They honored him as the "Buddha Sun," as the "Sun of Enlightenment."
EMPEROR HSIAO TSUNG BESTOWED THE TITLE "CH'AN MASTER OF GREAT WISDOM" FROM WHICH THE NAME TA HUI COMES.
Ta Hui means the "Great Master of Wisdom."
Only at the last moment it seems he attained enlightenment, just before he died, but then he did not say anything except a small verse. So I have called him "The Great Teacher" -- and he was certainly a great teacher. He influenced millions of people; he was a great leader in the sense that anybody who came in contact with him was immediately intellectually convinced. But he had no presence, and he had no inner silence. It seems that only at the last moment he attained the goal, he completed the journey.
IT WAS ELEVEN SIXTY-THREE, ON THE NINTH DAY OF THE EIGHTH MONTH, AFTER SHOWING SIGNS OF ILLNESS, WHEN TA HUI TOLD THE CONGREGATION OF MONKS, NUNS, AND LAY PEOPLE, "TOMORROW I AM GOING."
That is the first indication that he knows when he is going to die. The second...towards the pre-dawn hours, his attendant asked ta hui for a verse. That is an old tradition in China: when a great master dies, as his last statement, his last gift to the world, people ask him to write a verse.
IN A SERIOUS VOICE TA HUI SAID, "WITHOUT A VERSE, I COULD NOT DIE." HE TOOK UP THE BRUSH, AND WROTE:
BIRTH IS THUS
DEATH IS THUS
VERSE OR NO VERSE
WHAT'S THE FUSS?
This is the whole idea of Gautam Buddha's philosophy of suchness condensed. Birth is thus... thusness or suchness mean exactly the same. There is no reason to think why it is: it is there.
BIRTH IS THUS
DEATH IS THUS....
There is no reason why you are
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