Are Life and Death Like the Alternation of Day and Night?

first asked by Zhuangzi

기원전 4세기 (전국시대)

THE QUESTION ITSELF

If the passage from life to death is as natural as day turning to night, is there cause to fear death?

THE QUESTION · ORIGINAL

死生，命也，其有夜旦之常

📜 WHERE THE QUESTION WAS BORN

Death and life are the decreed order — like the constant alternation of night and day.

🌿The Lineage — How the Answers Split

Zhuangzi's view of life and death as the alternation of night and day was a Daoist wisdom accepting death as a natural joint of time. This is strikingly close to how Stoic philosophy, on the other side of the earth, saw death calmly as a return to nature. Yet not every tradition saw it so — Epicurus consoled by a different logic, that when death comes we are not, so there is nothing to fear, while the current of scripture saw death not as nature but as a last enemy to be overcome. Whether to accept death as time's natural night, or see it as something to resist, divides in several branches over Zhuangzi's day and night.

♾️ WHY IT STILL LIVES

In an age that strains to push death and endings away, this question — seeing life and death as the alternation of day and night — lights another road to peace with time's flow.

💡 TL;DR

Zhuangzi likens life and death to the alternation of night and day.

📝I, Too, Stand Before It

Zhuangzi likens life and death to the alternation of night and day. As day ends and night comes, and night ends and day comes, so life ending in death is a natural order that cannot be forced away. As we do not fear the night, so it may be with death. I sense this question does not bid us make light of death, but urges us to accept time's flow as nature. If between day and night there is a rhythm I cannot resist, how shall I make peace with it? Before the darkening hour, I sit with this question too.

— ONGO · Curator

✍️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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📖 Source: Zhuangzi, "The Great and Venerable Teacher". Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
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