Death?

March 25, 2011
Death is something that people may sometimes get caught up in. Whether they are thinking about it, obsessed with how they will die, and even when a loved one dies death seems to be everywhere. With certain religions, death and dying rituals may seem very odd to some people. Which certainly the Chinese attitudes towards death seem extremely odd to me. However I am also intrigued by their rituals and ways that they burry their dead and prepare for their own deaths. One thing that stuck out to me was that some Chinese individuals actually pray about their deaths. Now this in some way may seem normal in other religions such as Christians where praying for the future is not an odd thing to do such as praying for your husband or wife when you are only just a child.
In the Chinese culture, it seems weird to me certain ways they react with not only death but life in general. The ways that they view how to mourn death is not very normal to me. The way that they find appropriate manner in mourning is not crying like most cultures do, but it is a man who jumps up and down while a woman beats her chest. To me, this seems like it is celebrating their death. Maybe not celebrating a family or friends loss of the person but maybe the fact that they feel their loved one is now simply in a better place and they can move on to the next phases of life/death or also known as the never-ending cycles of transformation. This is where a persons life or spirit never actually dies, although the body dies, but the spirit lives on after it’s birth and moves on to different realms of the universe. “When Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences, he found Chuang Tzu sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. “you lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old,” said Hui Tzu. “It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing- this is going too far, isn’t it?” Chuang Tzu said, “You’re wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn’t grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there’s been another change and she’s dead. It’s just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter. “Now she’s going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don’t understand anything about fate. So I stopped.’”
Now in other cultures such as Christianity, the death of Jesus Christ is something that can both be so sad but a happy time as we celebrate Easter because although he was killed a horrible death, he rose again three days later. In some cases with no particular religion, sometimes a person who gets wrapped around in death feels that life does not have a purpose and there is no need for them to live, “Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” I like this quote because anyone who believes in anything powerful such as life, that belief will grow stronger and stronger until that small belief comes into something real.
With death also comes wonder of when a person may die. Some people take quiz’s online to see their “death date” and others pray about it and look for signs of when that might actually happen. However, I think it was spoken perfectly by Vladimir Nabokov, “What moment in the gradual decay does resurrection choose? What year? What day? Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape? Are some less lucky, or do all escape? A syllogism: other men die; but I am not another; therefore I’ll not die.”