溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
If Death Is Certain for the Born, Should It Be Mourned?
If death is certain for all that is born and birth certain for the dead, ought we to grieve so deeply over a death that cannot be avoided?
For the born, death is certain; for the dead, birth is certain. Over the unavoidable you should not grieve.
This question split how to see grief before the certainty of death. The Krishna of the "Gita" bade one not mourn the unavoidable, since death is fixed for all that is born, and the Stoics of far-off Rome stood beside him, holding that death is nature's way and that grief resisting it only troubles the mind. Yet an opposite lineage ran deep. The Confucians set a three-year mourning for a parent's death, holding that deep and lasting grief is the very expression of love and filial duty. Before a death that cannot be avoided, is grief a disturbance to be governed, or the just price love must pay — this question still divides calm acceptance from honest mourning.
In an age that strains to postpone and hide death, the Gita's calm gaze — that death is fixed for all that is born — sets the weight of loss on another scale and makes a place for the heart to breathe.
When Arjuna, standing on the battlefield, collapses before the death of those he loves, Krishna points to the certainty of death: to the born, death is fixed, and to the dead, birth again — so it is vain to grieve over what cannot be avoide…
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
When Arjuna, standing on the battlefield, collapses before the death of those he loves, Krishna points to the certainty of death: to the born, death is fixed, and to the dead, birth again — so it is vain to grieve over what cannot be avoided. I sense this saying does not deny the grief of death but reweighs it, for however hard one mourns the unavoidable, one's mourning does not keep it from coming. Whatever the answer's truth, this calm gaze makes a place to breathe for a heart before loss. I stand before this question too, quietly retracing how calmly I can meet what cannot be avoided.
✍️Your Answer
The lineage of the ancients ends here. Now it is your turn before the question. There is no right answer — only how you, today, would answer.
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