Dasui Fazhen

Dasui Fazhen was a master in the Yangqi line who is known for a famous koan exchange about the destruction of the universe. A monk asked him, "When the great conflagration occurs at the end of the kalpa and the whole cosmos is destroyed, is this destroyed or not?" Dasui said, "It is destroyed." The monk said, "Then it goes along with it?" Dasui said, "It goes along with it." This exchange became important koan material exploring the relationship between the absolute and the phenomenal, and whether awakened nature is affected by the destruction of the physical world.

The koan challenges the student to investigate whether there is something that survives the complete annihilation of all form—and whether the question itself is properly framed. Dasui's uncompromising answer—"It goes along with it"—refuses to offer the comfort of an eternal, unchanging ground, pointing instead to the radical inseparability of emptiness and form.