MEDITATIONS: TAO TE CHING CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
if you believe in the literal impossibility of death
you will not fear dying
and life will always be available to you
if you fear death
you will become fearful of life
and
complicated situations
perverse thinking
bizarre events
dishonest behavior and
deceitful people
will bind your hands and be at your throat
the ancient child asks
who are the bodymind killers
complicated situations
perverse thinking
bizarre events
dishonest behavior
deceitful people
these things drain away your life force
causing accidents and injury
to every one around you
no matter how able and resilient you may be
—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey
Fear of death is necessarily a rejection of life. It is a turning off the Path, a dissenting to the conditions of existence. It can be no other way: risk is inherent in any action of value. This, too, is necessarily true. If one stands to gain through good fortune, he likewise stands to fail through competition, ill fortune, negligence, or malicious interference. And if success is guaranteed, that which is achieved, once acquired immediately becomes a possibility. One who possesses nothing has little to lose. One who possesses everything suffers abundant chances to be robbed.
To fear death is to bring on the “bodymind killers.” no matter how competent, strong, intelligent, or enduring one may be, if he is not courageous enough to apply his ability without hesitating at the crucial moment, then he might as well be frail, befuddled, and useless—or worse. He who fears death, or even failure for that matter, is vulnerable to mental and social degeneracy. He flirts with becoming an agent of resentment and revenge. Arrogance calls to him, he who is capable, who knows he is capable, yet is barred from success because of his own cowardice. Without the humility to recognize the source of his weakness (himself), our capable individual is all too tempted to blame others and his situation. From this attitude do conundrums birth themselves.
How, then, does one rid himself of the fear of death? Here, I must depart from the wisdom that the Tao Te Ching offers, though before I do, I will try my best to interpret it:
If you believe in the literal impossibility of death
you will not fear dying (Lao-tzu).
True, though such a claim as made above seems absurd on the face of it—not because it contradicts itself (it doesn’t), but because all men know of the reality of death. Therefore, I can only assume that these opening lines are not as explicit as they appear at first glance. Taking the advice already given in earlier chapters, we might re-imagine our conception of death. Doing so, requires dissolving our preconceptions, but that step alone is sufficient to destroy the source of our terror (without our preconceived notions of death, what is there to fear?) Going further, we might reconstruction our conception of death as being no longer present and assenting to the conditions of the moment. In a Taoist context, this makes sense. Assenting to life means assenting to death when our time ultimately comes, but until that time we are engaged in the moment. Death would be to disengage, for that time and that experience are lost, and ultimately we tend toward dissent (thinking that life ought to be different, more to our opinion).
That is one way in which the fear of death might be abolished. There are many others, such as the practiced contemplation and acceptance of death found in Bushido. However, it is likely that whatever system of ethics or religious dogma that you, dear reader, subscribe to contains its own method. I see no reason why any one would be inferior to another. What is important is that we self-overcome. For to give in to our natural aversion to death will only facilitate a more terrible end and a less fulfilled life—one void but for regret of things left undone.
Lao-tzu. “Chapter Seventy-Four”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.136
