Death in Classical Daoist Thought
Bernard Down explains how two ancient Chinese philosophers explored new perspectives on matters of life and death. From Philosophy Now magazine
How is this not just another general description spiritual contraption that, for all practical purposes, tells us little or nothing substantive about either the life we live or the death that awaits us. In fact, from my frame of mind, it comes closer to psycho-babble than anything that can be used in describing human interactions given my own own main interest in death: connecting the dots existentially between the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave and the fate of “I” on the other side.
What of the Dao here?
Okay, so let’s take this conclusion [however you construe its meaning] out into the world of conflicting goods and put it to the test. But that’s the point, isn’t it: never to have to. It’s all “impersonal”. It’s all encompassed in a “state of mind” that ties everything together for you as long as it is never really more than a psychological state that makes you feel at one with…everything? Which, for all practical purposes, may as well be nothing nothing at all.
Like everyone else the Daoists have bodies to feed and to sustain. They will probably have bills to pay and obligations to meet. They will no doubt have jobs and interactions with others in which there is always the possibility of coming into conflict with them in regard to particular moral and political agendas that clash. But as long as they seek to be “caring” and be a “good man”, Heaven will invariably side with them?
And “unlike God” how exactly does the Dao go about actually participating in the lives that we live? Where does the Dao end and “I” begin when confronted with a particular set of circumstances.
Are there any Daoists here able to go there?