The Last Poem of Hoshin

Today we enter… The Last Poem of Hoshin.

Most people fear death.They brace. They beg. They go quietly.

But the one who sees clearly…dies the same way they lived —with presence.

This is the story of a man who bowed to his last breath…as if it were the sunrise.

---

Let the Story Unfold

Hoshin had studied Zen in China and became a master upon returning to Japan.

When he felt his death was near, he asked his students to gather.

“It is time for me to go,” he said. “Let me leave you with a final poem.”

He sat up straight. Took the brush. Wrote:

“I came from brilliancy And return to brilliancy. What is this?”

He paused.

Then added:

“This line is missing.”

He set down the brush…and died.

---

 

Sit With the Meaning

This story is so quiet…and yet so vast.

Hoshin knows he’s dying. But he’s not afraid. He’s not clinging. He’s present.

He gathers his students. Not to cry. Not to panic. But to teach.

He writes a final poem, a last offering of insight.

Let’s sit with it, line by line:

“I came from brilliancy…”—from light, from source, from the mystery before birth.

“…And return to brilliancy.”—not fading into darkness, but returning to the same sacred unknown.

Then he asks: “What is this?”—what is this mystery, this cycle, this arrival and return?

But then… he pauses. And writes: “This line is missing.”

This is the heart of the story. The line that would explain… is gone.

There is no answer. Because real Zen doesn’t explain death. It bows to it.

The missing line…is the teaching.

Not everything can be named. Not everything needs to be finished.

Hoshin doesn’t fear the silence. He enters it.

He shows us that dying isn’t an end —it’s a return.

And whatever “this” is, this life, this death, this mystery, it doesn’t need to be solved.

It needs to be lived. Fully. Then released.

---

Turn Inward With Your Parts

• Is there a part of you that fears change, endings, or letting go?

• What does that part imagine will happen if it cannot hold on tightly enough?•

• Is there another place inside you that feels the quiet truth of “life and death are like water flowing”?

• What softens inside when you imagine moving with change instead of bracing against it?

---

Let Expression Rise

This is where your parts are welcome to speak —in whatever form feels right today.

Let it be a moment of practice…a way to build your own inner skill for meeting yourself tenderly, truthfully.

Choose what calls you:

• IFS Journaling — Write what your part fears about endings. What does it resist? What does it hold?

• IFS Parts Art — Draw, craft, or shape what is flowing through you as your system feels into this message.

• Somatic IFS — Place your hand on the part of your body that tightens around change or the unknown. Stay with it gently. Just be with it.

And if none of these feel right…it’s perfectly okay to simply rest with the poem.

Let the silence do the holding.

---

Stay here with your parts as long as you like, and we’ll meet again in the next story.