Transcendence of Life and Death in Zhuangzi : Focusing on the Inner Chapters

Abstract

The Daoist text Zhuangzi, especially in the inner chapters, depicts sages as not having any sorrow or fear when they face death, thus being capable of peacefully accepting it. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine that matter as a state of mind reached through experience and the practice of "Tao" rather than mere philosophical theory. What Zhuangzi brings into question is the state of our consciousness, which creates an abstract world that deviates from the eternally changing natural world, and thus we grow too deeply attached to it. Zhuangzi therefore attempted to return his mind to the underlying natural world by calming his ordinary consciousness. The experience of meditation can result in a transformation of the practitioner's view of life and death and how time flows through our daily lives. Time, which flows linearly through from life to death, can be caused to disappear, and they instead sense that time flows in a circular motion around the central axis of "Tao." This then results in anybody that has reached the state of Tao being capable of accepting everything by assuming life and death to be a continuous natural cycle.