溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
What Does It Mean to Die Yet Not Perish?
If something does not perish though the body dies, of what is that not-perishing made?
One who dies yet does not perish — that is true long life.
Laozi's saying that "to die yet not perish is true longevity" laid the Daoist answer to what remains beyond death. Rather than chasing the body's deathless long life, Daoism held that the grain of a life at one with the Way continues after death. This differed from the Confucian doctrine of remaining through name and deed, and from the Buddhist teaching of the self's dissolution. Where Confucians would establish virtue and name to remain, and Buddhists scatter into no-self, Laozi sets a life upon the Way's natural flow and remains along with that flow. Is what survives death a name, the grain of the Way, or nothing? The question still divides establishing immortality from entrusting oneself to the great flow.
In an age absorbed with extending lifespan, Laozi's question — that to die yet not perish is true longevity — makes us ask back the very meaning of living long.
Laozi overturns the meaning of long life: true longevity is not to breathe long but to die yet not perish.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Laozi overturns the meaning of long life: true longevity is not to breathe long but to die yet not perish. He speaks of an endurance on a different plane than the body's lifespan. One who lived by the Way — though the body crumbles, what they attained, the grain they left, does not vanish. I feel this paradox touches a deep place of what we leave. To live long is not a matter of time's length but of something that remains after death. What of mine could remain longer than the body? Nearing December's end, I weigh the identity of what will not perish.
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