"Once we know our own death, pass through it, a tremendous realization arises that death is the greatest fiction.

"This realization is called 'the great death.' Everybody dies, but the small death; only very blessed ones have died the great death. It simply means they die with total awareness, seeing body and mind separating from their consciousness. But the consciousness, the flame of their being is eternal. It goes on moving into new forms and ultimately it moves into the formless.

"This small anecdote is about the great death. Zen is always special in its expression. Joshu calls it the great death because it is not death. The great death in reality is the great life.

"Only the small death is death.

"The difference is of consciousness and unconsciousness. You die unconsciously – this is the small death; you will have a small rebirth. Neither will you know your death nor will you know your birth. If you die meditatively, alert, aware, it is the great death – and great death is followed by great birth.

"Knowingly you die, and because knowingly you die…how can you die? Your knowing, your consciousness continues – knowingly you are born. There is no discontinuity between your death and your birth.

"Your realization of this ordinarily would be called 'the great life,' but there is some reason why Zen has chosen to call it 'the great death.' The reason is that the great death comes first; behind it is revealed the great life. Unless you open the door of the great death, you won't enter into the space of great life.

Joshu asked Tosu, 'What if a man of the great death comes back to life again?'

"Now another distinction has to be made which is not clear in the anecdote and is not commented upon by Setcho either. But without bringing in another distinction the experience remains incomplete; it is not entire.

"There is death. There is the great death And there is the greatest death. In death you die unconsciously. In the great death you die consciously, but you are born again. In the greatest death you only die; you are not reborn, you simply disappear into the immensity of existence – you disperse yourself in the wholeness of the cosmos."