Hotei the Zen Master he was just on his deathbed, and he asked his disciples, ”Can somebody suggest to me a way to die which has never happened before? – because I don’t want to die in the ordinary and common way. For example, most people die lying in their bed.
”And,” Hotei said, ”that’s why I never lie in bed because that is the most dangerous place: ninety-nine percent of people die there! So I have been sleeping on the floor my whole life to avoid that place.
”But I would like to die in my own way, just the way I have lived my life in my own way: not caring at all what others say but simply living spontaneously, out of my own being, out of my own insight.
Whether I am condemned or whether I am disrespected – that I have never cared about. But I am worried – I need some suggestion from you.”
Somebody suggested, ”You could die standing.”
He said, ”The idea is good!”
Then one of the disciples said, ”But it is not very original, because I have heard of a great saint just like you who died standing. So it will not be very unique and original.”
Somebody suggested, ”Then the best way is, die standing on your head! We don’t think that anybody has done that before. It is going to be unique – never done before and perhaps never in the future.”
Hotei said, ”I like the idea!” Even at the point of death he stood on his head. And it is said that the disciples were at a loss to figure out what to do now. Because they knew what to do when a person dies in the bed, but what to do with the master who has died standing on his head?
Somebody said that his sister, who was older than him – she was a nun, just as he was a monk, and she lived nearby…. ”It is better to ask her; we should not do anything before asking somebody who is in a better position and is a better authority.” The elder sister was called.
She came up and she said, ”Hotei, you rascal! Your whole life you have been this way – but at least behave at the point of death! Get up and lie down on the bed!”
Naturally, when the elder sister says so…. Hotei jumped up, laughed, lay down on the bed and died!
Read More Zen Stories
