After a Near-Death Experience, Nothing Can Still Hold Me Down

What is a person's true experience at the instant of death? Many people have had near-death experiences, and this year I was fortunate to have one too. In the instant of my car accident on November 19, my mind went completely blank. My heart was extraordinarily calm, with not a single stray thought, no grief and no panic; I simply felt that everything had been let go.

I have seen my mother in her final moments, and I have also seen my father-in-law in his. Actually both elders were quite relaxed at the end; my father-in-law even passed away with a smile. I have also seen media reports saying that people who freeze to death wear a smile on their faces as they die.

When my mother was dying, my aunt wept and asked me, Nephew, what should we do now? I comforted her, saying that everyone must die; this is an unchangeable law of nature, and we must accept it. Before dying, a person does not know when they will die, and after death they do not know that they have died; death is only an instant. However painful that instant may be, it is very brief and need not be taken too seriously.

At that time I thought the instant of death might be painful, but my own experience tells me that when a person realizes they may die at any moment, they do not feel pain; rather, they feel an unprecedented relaxation. I miss that near-death instant; I thought that the best state I had ever been in my life was that instant.

I do not believe that living in this world is a painful thing. I enjoy much of the beauty of life, but even so I must admit that in real life we still have to endure much pressure and pain. Is there anyone in this world with no pain and pressure? I doubt it. Only at the near-death instant can a person lay down all pressure, no longer suffer for the past and no longer worry about the future, existing completely in the present moment. Such an instant is very beautiful.

My profession has put me in contact with a great many dying people, and I have witnessed the moment of death for many. I have also told many patients that their lives will end within a matter of hours, asked them to leave their last words to their family in good time, and asked their families to prepare. The ability to predict that a patient will die within three to five days is something many experienced clinicians possess. Most of the time, patients hear this very calmly, and their last wishes are remarkably simple; their final desires are not extravagant at all. Some only hope to drink one more mouthful of tofu pudding; some hope to see a certain person one more time; some only want to leave a single word of apology to someone important.

I often think: how wonderful it would be if everyone lived each day as though it were that near-death instant! This world would have far fewer disputes, and people would have far fewer desires and worries. Before death, we become aware that everything in this world is about to have nothing to do with us. The people we care about will gradually forget us and go on living without us. The things we worry about will proceed according to their own natural laws. In an instant, all the love, hate, and grievances in our hearts become meaningless, and everything can be left to take its natural course.

Such a special experience cannot be adequately conveyed to those who have not had it. Over this past month or more, I have often flash-backed to that instant. Many things that once tangled me up no longer do. I have begun to pay attention to my true feelings and needs—I am not someone who naturally focuses on my own true feelings and needs; from childhood I have easily thought of others and sacrificed myself as a result. Now I have put an end to anything that makes me feel bad. I have set everything to its completely natural state and no longer force anything. I am no longer impatient. I have never been an impatient, fame-and-fortune-hungry person, and now I am even less so than before.

I often say to myself: live as though I were already dead, and see how the world goes. As long as a person does not overestimate their own importance, they can live much more lightly. I have tried to strip away each stone that has long pressed on me, returning myself to myself and returning others to others. Then, on that basis, I have rebuilt my relationship with the outside world. This has given me a lightness and ease I had never known, and my world has grown ever sunnier as a result. I will still be responsible for the people around me who need my care, but if they have desires beyond the basic needs of survival, they should strive to fulfill those themselves; I will no longer satisfy them endlessly. That is fair.

Near death gives a person the ultimate fearlessness about loss. Once we are no longer afraid of losing our lives, what else attached to life is worth fearing to lose? Any gain that comes at the cost of betraying one's true feelings is not true gain. In the end, the things that remain with us and cannot be thrown away are what we truly own. Even these things we truly own are not really important; there is no need to take them so seriously. This is the ultimate letting go.

I am an atheist. In that near-death instant I saw no god, nor do I believe I have an afterlife. As a medical worker who has studied brain science, I know that many spiritual experiences are transient psychotic episodes accompanied by the sudden activation or deactivation of some region of the brain. With the progress of science, these phenomena can now be observed under brain MRI; so I will not become a theist even at death, unless one day my brain is smashed and I become a psychotic. But at that near-death moment I could still feel that it was very different from the ordinary.

Of course, I eventually returned to the human world, returned to the people who love me and whom I love, returned to the smoky, everyday world, and returned to my work. My personality has not changed dramatically; I still believe in humanitarianism, adhere to the principle that life comes first, still treat people with sincerity and calm, and remain as rational as possible; my attitude toward relatives, friends, and patients has not changed. It is just that deep down in myself, there is indeed a feeling that is different from before. Someone who has died once will not cling to everything the way someone who has never had a near-death experience does.

Because nearing death is the experience that most easily lets us see the truth of life, and because so often we live hard lives only because we have not thoroughly seen through the truth of life, we are still tangled up in illusory things. Only when we truly realize that everything of ours can turn to nothingness do we understand that what we truly need is even simpler than the ultimate simplicity we can imagine—because the ultimate human need is nothingness.