The End of Life: Dead, Burned, Buried, Done

I often have to say "please accept my condolences," because in my work and life I constantly receive obituaries—someone is always telling me that a member of their family has "passed away."

At first, death provoked strong reactions in me: I would grieve, feel sorrow, and blame myself. As time passed, I was able to accept death, this law of nature, with calm.

I cannot help but take death lightly; if every death provoked a strong reaction in me, negative emotions would long since have crushed me.

An old friend of mine is now accompanying a friend through the last stretch of his life. A tumor on that friend's face, steadily growing and ulcerating, has given him a direct and deep impression of how the Grim Reaper step by step swallows up a person's life. He said to me, "Little Zhou, now I understand: you deal with cancer patients every day—it really isn't easy."

This friend of his is nearing the end of life, and no doctor has the power to save the life he is about to lose. The patient himself, however, has already looked past life and death and does not particularly fear the Reaper—I have seen this situation many times: people long tormented by illness seldom fail to take death lightly. When in pain they feel that living is worse than dying, and they do not find death frightening; they feel only that it is a release.

The opening of life may have many versions, but the ending of life has only one: dead, burned, buried, done. We country folk say that when a person dies the lamp goes out, and it is all over. The poet Du Fu wrote: "You and your kind will perish, body and name alike, yet the great rivers flow on, unspent, for evermore." Another poet, Tao Yuanming, wrote: "What is there to say of death? Our bodies are committed to the hills. Kin may yet shed a few tears, while others are already singing."

I have witnessed the passing of many impressive and unimpressive people. When they died their eyes were closed or open, but in the end, with the Reaper's help, they all finished every grievance and grudge of this human world.

Everything they had possessed in life and everything they had wanted to possess inevitably passed to others. And these others, who fancy themselves to own those things, are themselves on the road to death. So all possession looks, more or less, rather ridiculous; every fellow who gleefully thinks he owns a great deal is a fool.

When my own body is racked with pain, I too feel there is nothing to live for, and that dying would be no great terror. But once the bodily pain is gone, life becomes a little lovable again, and one feels that if one need not die, one ought not to hurry off. Since death is in any case our inevitable destination, let us not rush back just yet; wandering idly outside to while away the time is fine too.

When the great limit arrives, you cannot escape it even if you try; so you might as well not try to escape. A lingering, dragging death is like a slow knife cutting flesh—it wounds yourself and wounds your loved ones.

I envy those who die suddenly. Whether they pass away in bed of old age or perish in some accident, they are all worth envying. I do not regard death by accident as an "unnatural death"; someone who dies in an accident barely exists on the boundary between life and death.Before dying he does not know that death is at hand, and after dying he has no consciousness at all; he need not be filled with fear of death. How fortunate!

I hope one day to die like this—best of all from a heart attack, so that after death I retain a bit of dignity. Of course, if not from a heart attack, falling into a latrine and drowning would also do, except that my son might feel his father died without any dignity at all—if only he can, like me, dismiss such things as "face," then there is no problem at all.

In junior high my ideal was to become a general; I dreamed that one day I would command the winds and clouds, fall in battle, and be brought home wrapped in a horse's hide.

Now I am a pacifist who loathes war deeply, feeling that all wars, just or unjust, are evil—manufacturing enemies or imagined enemies and then ending lives with lives; such foul deeds only cruel and foolish humans could commit.

It is clear how thoroughly I was brainwashed by ideological and political education back in junior high.If a person reads and writes in order to cure his own foolishness,that is fine.Butif he reads and writes in order to be fooled by others, or, after reading and writing, is fooled by others through books and words, then I do not know how to judge it.

I still hope that the world can be at peace and that people can all die a natural death. After all, even ants cling to life when not racked by disease. Not fearing death does not necessarily mean one has no love of life; if I could avoid dying, I would not agree to die either. To throw away one's own life for no reason is the height of folly.

But observing death again and again has also made me lose interest in many of the things in life that are regarded as meaningful. Do not think that I am now striving for some cause; I am merely, while waiting for death, looking for a little amusement to while away the boredom and loneliness.

As for this self-amusement one day making me famous, that would be purely an accident I did not expect. It is like how I enjoy sex but do not enjoy my partner accidentally becoming pregnant and having a child. Being a father is joyful for a moment, but raising a child strips off a layer of skin—on this point I have experience and standing to speak.

In the ancients' words, this seeking of amusement is called "scantily relieving loneliness." Since it is only "scantily relieving loneliness," to push such a thing to the point of weariness defeats the very purpose.

There are many things in life that are quite enjoyable to do, and helping others relieve their suffering is one of them. But if you elevate this thing onto an altar of morality and kidnap a crowd of people into doing it, it immediately loses the charm it ought to have had.

This is probably what Laozi meant by "when the Dao is lost, there is virtue; when virtue is lost, there is benevolence." The so-called "benevolent heart of a healer" is really nonsense. Practicing medicine while holding the Dao-mind may be less harmful to others and to oneself. He who holds the Dao-mind follows nature; he who holds the benevolent mind forces and affects.

In a lifetime a person earns so much fame and fortune, so many tall hats—but when the great limit arrives, it is nothing but: dead, burned, buried, done.

As long as one has a clear understanding of this, one is not easily dazed by others' magic potion. If one really is dizzied by fame and fortune, then go attend a few more funerals and watch how another person's physical husk is burned and buried. Watch enough, and the fiery heart naturally cools down.