Abstract
The foundational texts of the classical period of Confucianism and Daoism contain virtually no discussion of post-death existence or the nature of the afterlife. At the same time, these traditions devote significant attention to the ways death and loss impact our lives. Confucian texts such as the Analects of Confucius and the Xunzi, as well as the distinctive, profoundly influential writings of the Daoist Zhuangzi, contain teachings and stories about people facing their own deaths and dealing with the deaths of others. Both traditions offer guidance on living well in the face of mortality without recourse to notions of post-death existence. They do this by cultivating and sustaining connections and identification with larger realities beyond the individual. The Confucians emphasize human relationships, the realm of the familial (including ancestral), social, and political. Zhuangzi emphasizes the connection with the larger natural world, whereby we see the cycles of our own lives as part of the larger cycles of nature, and he points toward a path to losing one’s self through contemplative and skillful practices, ultimately leading to a sense of equanimity in the face of death. I argue that underlying the differences between Confucian and Daoist forms of connection and consolation is the contrast between the Confucian notion of a narratively constructed self, an achievement of memory and ritual, and Zhuangzi’s deconstruction of the narrative temporality that grounds Confucian notions of selfhood.
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Notes
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We see examples of Confucius himself wee** and lamenting the deaths of his beloved friends and disciples to the point where he is criticized for going beyond propriety. When his favorite disciple Yan Yuan died, his followers said, “You are showing undue sorrow.” Confucius replied, “Am I? Yet if not for him, for whom should I show undue sorrow?” (11.10).
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See, for example, 7.9 and 10.25.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Xunzi translations are taken from the translation by Burton Watson (1963).
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Psychologist Rosemary Gordon writes, “If the rites are successful, they provide a socially acceptable expression for grief and at the same time, by acting as a framework, they help a person to resist the disintegrating force of this grief” (Gordon 1978, p. 78).
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The tension and ambivalence experienced during the mourning process was a significant theme in the work of Freud, who cites a number of cases of patients refusing to accept the death of a loved one. He describes the process whereby the ego splits, with one part accepting death, and the other denying it. Freud describes a child’s reaction to his father’s sudden death: “I know father’s dead, but what I can’t understand is why he doesn’t come home to supper” (Freud 1989, p. 92). Likewise, Xunzi writes about the filial son who observes his lord or parent no longer breathing: “Wee** and trembling, he still cannot stop ho** that the dead will somehow come back to life; he has not yet ceased to treat the dead man as living” (Xunzi 1963, p. 99).
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There are a variety of pathologies that might emerge in the aftermath of the death of a loved one. One is known as “morbid grief reaction syndrome,” wherein mourning is delayed for a long period of time, months or even years after a loved one dies. Another is “pathological mourning” or “prolonged grief disorder,” which occurs when the grieving person is unable to let go of the deceased, attempting to preserve as exactly as possible the objects or residence of the deceased and to continue, without alteration, the behavior and activities that the mourner carried out before the death.
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We can also imagine cases where someone is emotionally ready to reenter the everyday world but is worried about appearances. For this reason as well, there is a ritually approved moment, often represented in contemporary Chinese culture by the second or final burial, in which one is “allowed” to terminate the formal mourning process. Death rituals involve two kinds of passages—the deceased moves from the realm of the living through a liminal state to the realm of the dead, a status change that must be culturally marked and accepted (there may be further passages at later times for the deceased, but this first one is fundamental), and at the same time, loved ones move from non-mourners to mourners to non-mourners once again. The second or “final” burial can be seen as a ritual that can mark the official end to the bereavement period, the final acceptance of the loss, and a commitment to terminate mourning.
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Given the complexities surrounding issues of authorship in Zhuangzi, I consider a view “Zhuangzian” if it is found in the Inner Chapters, and passages from elsewhere are used only if they are consistent with this view. Page numbers for Zhuangzi citations refer to the Victor Mair translation (Zhuangzi 1994) unless otherwise noted. When A.C. Graham’s translation (Zhuangzi 1989) is used, a “G” will precede the page number; if Burton Watson’s translation (Zhuangzi 1964) is used, a “W” will precede the page number.
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See Kjellberg and Ivanhoe (1996).
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For a discussion of the radical implications of this view of accepting transformation, see Yearley (1983).
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For an excellent discussion of wu wei, see Slingerland (2007).
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This sentiment is echoed by Cicero, who wrote, “Let us get rid of such old wives’ tales as the one that tells us it is tragic to die before one’s time. What ‘time’ is that, I would like to know? Nature is the one who has granted us the loan of our lives, without setting any schedule for repayment. What has one to complain of if she calls in the loan when she will?” (Potter 1988, p. 231). A contrary view is captured in the words of Zoe Akins, who observes in a Confucian fashion, “Nothing seems so tragic to one who is old as the death of one who is young, and this alone proves that life is a good thing” (Potter 1988, p. 227).
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This list, and much of my understanding of the importance of various kinds of connections, draws on the work of Robert Jay Lifton in The Broken Connection, although I depart from his categories in a number of ways. See Lifton (1983).
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I add “familial” to Lifton’s “biological,” for we should include adopted children and other forms of non-biological family relationships. One could argue, however, that non-biological relations would belong in the third category, “human relatedness,” which would allow this to be a separate category for biological connections, which are deeply important for Confucians. If we extend this category, we could include larger structures that provide a sense of membership and belonging, such as tribes, ethnic groups, or even nations. The Confucians themselves see the ideal society as a family writ large, and use familial metaphors to describe the proper relationship between rulers and subjects.
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Throughout East Asia, the ancestral altar within the home serves as a visible reminder of our place in the extended family line. Chinese families will often consult the ancestors on important matters and inform them of significant passages or decisions. The practice of “feeding” the ancestors and giving them money and other useful objects (through ritual burning) symbolically conveys the sense that our ancestors’ “survival” depends on our remembering.
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All of the Confucian thinkers emphasize that while the body does not remain, the name (ming) does. Confucius said, “The gentleman hates not leaving behind a name when he is gone” (15.20). This is in stark contrast with Zhuangzi’s statement that “the sage has no name.” In addition, the tradition of which the deceased was a part, and which he has done his best to preserve and transmit, remains. Confucians saw themselves as the keepers of the humanizing tradition. Mencius said, “All a gentleman can do in starting an enterprise is to leave behind a tradition which can be carried on” (1B14).
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The child in a Confucian home was educated by memorizing the classics. The importance of history for Confucians demonstrates the role that cultural memory plays. As Confucius explicitly acknowledges, preservation and transmission are more important than innovation. Since, for Confucians, the ideal way resides in a past Golden Age, preserving the cultural memory is a sacred obligation. Furthermore, ritual is a way of inscribing memory on the body. The body is humanized through, crudely put, a type of “muscle memory” so that one moves, feels, and responds according to the Way that has been passed down. In other words, the expression of memory is itself a bodily phenomenon.
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See Ivanhoe (1993).
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The remarkable success of medical science in extending life has also enabled this denial of death. Patricia Anderson observes that until the nineteenth century, one-half of the people on the planet died before reaching the age of 8: “Everyone saw death happen frequently, and both the event and our sense of it were integrated into daily life…. Then suddenly, about 50 years ago in the West, a dramatic transformation occurred…. The average life span soared and we stopped seeing people die. For the first time in history, a human child could grow to full adulthood without experiencing the death of anyone close to him or her…. Death became a possibly curable disorder” (Anderson 1996, p. 5).
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Beginning in the 1950s, most Americans died in some kind of institutional setting rather than at home. The percentage dying in institutions rose throughout the twentieth century. Recent studies have shown that although 80% of Americans would prefer to die at home, only 20% actually do (Stanford University School of Medicine).
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A bill currently before the Washington State Legislature would legalize human composting, making it the first state in the nation to do so (Johnson 2019).
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One participant in a New York University study of death anxiety in cancer patients experienced “debilitating end-of-life anxiety from the moment he was diagnosed until the day he ingested psilocybin, extracted from hallucinogenic mushrooms while laying on a psychiatrist’s couch.” Gabrielle Agin-Liebes, the research manager for the NYU study, told The Atlantic that this patient “had one of the highest ratings on the anxiety scale that we had seen: 21 out of 30. To qualify for the study you only need an eight. The day after his first dosing session, he dropped to zero, and for 7 months he’s stayed there. Zero anxiety” (Agin-Liebes, in Morin 2014).
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Some of these arise from the difference in context in which the treatment of death is embedded in the texts. Given the Greek emphasis on the military hero (in the Iliad) and the wandering adventurer (in the Odyssey), there is a corresponding emphasis on virtues that are martial (including skill in battle and military leadership) and involve levels of craftiness and survival skills. Such an approach is not found as much in the Chinese texts, in which the mythological heroes are praised more for their skill with the brush or hoe than the sword and shield. Early Chinese mythology features cultural heroes far more than military heroes.
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Berkson, M. (2019). Death in Ancient Chinese Thought: What Confucians and Daoists Can Teach Us About Living and Dying Well. In: Knepper, T.D., Bregman, L., Gottschalk, M. (eds) Death and Dying. Comparative Philosophy of Religion, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19300-3_2
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