溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
What Does Not Perish Even in Death?
If something remains when the body is gone, is it virtue, deeds, or words?
Highest is to establish virtue, next to establish deeds, next to leave words; these, though long ages pass, do not decay.
Shusun Bao's doctrine of three imperishables is the oldest Eastern answer to the question of what carries a person beyond death. Confucianism took it up, holding that though the body vanishes, virtue and name endure across generations, and making a lasting name a goal of life. Zhuangzi, by contrast, mocked this immortality of name as vain attachment, seeing the return to nature — setting down even the wish to leave a name — as true rest. Buddhism gave another answer: what remains is not a name but the traces of the deeds one has done (karma). Is what survives death virtue and name, nothing at all, or the traces of deeds? The question still divides the pursuit of the imperishable from the acceptance of impermanence.
We still waver between the desire to leave a mark and the sense of impermanence. Shusun Bao's question — what does not perish even in death — lives on over that wavering.
Two and a half millennia ago, asked what does not decay even in death, Shusun Bao names three things: to establish virtue, to establish deeds, to leave words.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Two and a half millennia ago, asked what does not decay even in death, Shusun Bao names three things: to establish virtue, to establish deeds, to leave words. Denying that mere descendants count as imperishable, he compressed what a person truly leaves into these three. I feel this ancient list is still exact. What remains after we depart is not property but who we were (virtue), what we did (deeds), and what we said (words). Of these three, which am I building with my life? Before December's question, I count what I will leave.
✍️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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