Coming Is the Season, Going Is the Way

answered by Zhuangzi, The Secret of Caring for Life

기원전 4세기경

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

The Ballad of Narayama (1983)

dir. Shohei Imamura · Japan

Following the village's old custom, an elder climbs the mountain toward the end of life when the appointed time comes. It asks whether accepting death without refusal is a giving-up, or a deep affirmation of nature's course.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Is accepting death as the natural course, without refusing it, resignation — or a deep affirmation of life?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

適來，夫子時也；適去，夫子順也

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

His coming was because it was his time; his going was because he followed the natural course.

💡 TL;DR

Zhuangzi said coming is the season and going is the way.

📝The Classic Answers

Zhuangzi said coming is the season and going is the way. I do not read this as forcing a false calm before death. If life came because its time arrived, then death too is only a natural continuation of a time fulfilled — nothing to resist, no opponent to defeat. On the face of one who accepts their own end as the natural course lies not resignation but a deep assent to the whole of life. Rather than pushing the end away in fear alone, I choose to learn to quietly accept that it is one body with life.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If some change or ending frightens you, reframe it — not an enemy to defeat, but a current passing as its time comes.

📖 Classic Source: Zhuangzi, The Secret of Caring for Life. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.