No Birth, No Death
by Master Lee Feng San Shifu
Translated by Sophia Lui
Edited by Ric Meyers
I used to have a Shifu who was a highly skilled martial artist. One day he suddenly said: “My time has come!” At that moment, everyone panicked and kept telling him: ”Shifu, you haven’t said your last words yet!” While we were still wallowing in our sorrow, our Shifu suddenly came around and said: “I still have unfinished business to take care of.” Then he got up and went off to attend to his affairs. It was only two days later that he returned to his sitting position and finally passed away.
Since ancient times, there have been many adepts who are able to leave this plane of existence at will. In truth, they are also able to enter this plane at will. If one has the ability to completely let go, one also has the ability to take on. In this way, one can naturally enter and leave this plane at will. There are different channels of entering this plane. For example, through reincarnation — taking on another person’s body or even our own body. Of course, one can also enter into another dimension, and when the time is right, returns to this dimension again.
At this moment, we exist in a dimension that one can see with the naked eye. When a person has, through self-cultivation, reached a stage where they can completely let go of this dimension, it also means that they can completely let go of another dimension. So when a person completely lets go in another dimension, does that not signify that they return again to this dimension? And if they let go in this dimension, does that not also mean that they enter again into another dimension?
Therefore the ability of coming and going at will is essentially the ability to “let go.” If we are able to do that, then we can be truly liberated — and for us there will be no birth and no death.
I once asked my students: “Do you think that everything we experience in life is illusory or are they devoid of meaning?” Note that the Chinese words for illusory 虛空 and void 空虛 both contain the same two characters, but in reversed order. In this case, switching around the characters produces a rather different view of life. Nevertheless, I believe we all would prefer to think that life is illusory rather than devoid of meaning.
“Take on wholeheartedly and let go completely; come and go freely; no birth and no death.”— Lee Feng San Shifu