On 'The Great Matter of Life and Death'

shou ji ji dai — The Great Matter of Life and Death.

On the origin

Found in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Pivotal Conditions / 行由品) as the Fifth Patriarch Hongren’s words to the assembly, “for people of the world, life and death is the great matter.” It also appears in the Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (vol. 5) and the Wudeng Huiyuan (vol. 2), in the section on Yongjia Xuanjue: when Yongjia comes before the Sixth Patriarch Huineng without observing the customary etiquette and is rebuked, he answers, “Life and death is the great matter; impermanence is swift.” (In the source text Yongjia, the chapter’s subject, is the one referred to as “the master.”) It is also the line struck on the han, the sounding-board that marks time in the monastery hall.

On the reading

Life and death — the one great matter a person is given to face. The time left to meet it does not pause, and moves quickly. In the meditation hall a wooden board sounds this line at dusk and dawn, marking how fast the hours go. It names the matter; it does not say it can be put off.

On the garment

The seal for this phrase was hand-carved in Tokyo by the artist Satake Hōsen. The front carries this phrase’s seal; the back and inside label carry the Hōsen seal (寳千), printed in vermilion.

The garment is Bella + Canvas 3001 (short sleeve) or Gildan 2400 (long sleeve). A vessel for the word, not the subject itself.

― hosen, tokyo