溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Can One Yield to the Waves of the Great Change, Neither Glad Nor Afraid?
If life and death are only the waves of one Great Change, how does one arrive at the calm of yielding to those waves, neither glad nor afraid?
Yielding to the waves of the Great Change, I am neither glad nor afraid. When it is time to end, then end — no more do I fret alone.
This question split where the calm before death comes from. Tao Yuanming set down both currents thriving in his day — the Daoist arts of deathlessness that chased long life, and the Buddhism that spoke of paradise after death — and, continuing Zhuangzi's spirit, chose the plain road of receiving life and death as one Great Change. His calm of being neither glad nor afraid was not transcendence but yielding to nature. This runs of a piece with Zhuangzi's resting-in-destiny, which received death like the seasons, and Liezi's view of death as return. From the other side ran currents that sought to surpass the fear of death by promising immortality or paradise. Does the calm before death come from a promise of immortality, or from yielding to nature — Tao Yuanming stood most clearly on "yielding."
For us who easily tire between the heart that dreads the end and the heart that strains to live long, Tao Yuanming's voice — yield to the waves of the Great Change — opens a place to set down both fear and clinging together.
The recluse poet Tao Yuanming sets up Body, Shadow, and Spirit as three voices to debate life and death, and closes with the voice of Spirit thus — neither long for deathless life nor dread death, but simply yield to the waves of the Great …
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
The recluse poet Tao Yuanming sets up Body, Shadow, and Spirit as three voices to debate life and death, and closes with the voice of Spirit thus — neither long for deathless life nor dread death, but simply yield to the waves of the Great Change. When it is time to end, then end; do not pile up worry alone. This calm comes not from forcibly transcending death but from receiving life and death as one nature. I sense this quiet voice rises from a place where both fear and clinging have been set down together. I stand before this question too, asking whether I can set down, little by little, both the heart that dreads the end and the heart that strains to live long.
✍️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.
🔒 This answer is stored only on your device. It is never sent to a server.
This is not a museum of answers but a lineage of questions. All sources are public-domain texts; the lineage and reflection are 100% original ONGO content.
