Philosophy of Dying: Confucius and Zhuang Zhou

Alexus McLeod is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of Connecticut.  In 2017 he penned an article: "What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About Dealing With Our Own Grief".  He references writings from Zhuang Zhou, the Daoist philosopher who lived during the 4th Century B.C.E.  One particular insightful incident occurred when a friend of his, Hui Shi, finds him joyfully beating on a drum following the death of his wife, and reprimands Zhuang Zhou for his behavior.  Zhuang's response?

"Zhuang Zhou replies that when his wife first died, he was as upset as anyone would be following such a loss. But then he reflected on the circumstances of her origins – how she came to be through changes in the elements that make up the cosmos. He was able to shift his vision from seeing things from the narrowly human perspective to seeing them from the larger perspective of the world itself. He realized that her death was just another of the changes of the myriad things constantly taking place in the world. Just as the seasons progress, human life generates and decays.  In reflecting on life in this way, Zhuang Zhou’s grief disappeared." 

Of course, grief doesn't go away so easily for so many of us, but Zhuang Zhou's perspective might be helpful to meditate on.  Dr. McLeod also mentions how the Chinese philosopher Confucius  (c. 551 B.C.E. - c. 479 B.C.E.) suggested a three-year mourning period after the death of one's parent -- quite extraordinary by modern standards.  But for Confucius, anything less would not be appropriate.  According to McLeod, there is also a communal and ancestral component to our grief that cannot be ignored:

"There is more to the Confucian response to death than grief. Our encounter with others inevitably changes us. Those closest to us, according to the early Confucians, particularly family members, play the greatest role in determining who we are. In that sense, we are representatives of particular communities than detached and autonomous individuals.

After all, many of our physical features and personalities originate from our ancestors. In addition, we learn many of our attitudes, preferences and characteristic ways of acting from our families, friends and neighbors – the creators of our culture. So, when we consider the question of what we are as individuals, the answer necessarily encompasses members of our closest community."

Words of Comfort: Interview with R. Craig Hogan, PhD

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've really enjoyed listening to Sandra Champlain's "We Don't Die" Radio.  One of her most recent interviews was with Dr. Craig Hogan.  Dr. Hogan is co-founder of the website Seekreality.com, along with author and attorney Roberta Grimes.  During the interview with Sandra, he claims that people who have died and crossed over to the afterlife take on the appearance of when they were in the prime of life (generally in their 20s to 30s), and that our deceased loved ones are much closer to us than we think they are (and that they want to engage with us!)  He also talks about how our purpose on Earth is to learn lessons, love others, and how using our lives to serve others less fortunate than ourselves can be one of the best things we can do to lessen our grief.  I personally found it a wonderfully reassuring and compassionate interview.  Again, my words don't do it justice.  I know I sound like a broken record, but again, watch the interview in its entirety -- I think it's well worth it!

Loss Through Music: George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass"

Former Beatles guitarist George Harrison wrote "All Things Must Pass" in January of 1969.  Originally planned to be on the Beatles' Let It Be album, the song didn't make the final cut.  There's debate over whether John Lennon and Paul McCartney didn't really like the song, or if George wasn't fully up to having his band mates perform with him on this particular track.  The song was later released in late 1970 over Harrison's highly-acclaimed album of the same name.

According to Wikipedia, author Elliot Huntley described the song as a "haunting hymn about the mortality of everything."  Some have speculated that Harrison was writing about the Beatles slow descent towards their break-up during that period, but others have noticed that Harrison's solo version of the song may have taken on an added dimension, after the death of his mother, Louise, in July 1970 at the age of 59.

Personal Musings: Brian D. Smith's Podcast & Amy Call's NDE

I was listening to the Grief 2 Growth Podcast -- I think it was a little over a month ago -- when I heard Brian, the host, speculate on how we humans have such a limited perspective on our own troubles and sorrows in life:

"Because when we’re going through life, these traumas seem insurmountable. They seem permanent. They seem like we’re not going to be able to endure them. So we would say why would I in my right mind, choose this type of trauma, this type of tragedy. And I heard this teaching, it was actually frankly, after my daughter Shayna had passed away....So the question then becomes why? Why would I choose to endure this type of trauma? Why do I choose to endure this type of pain?....I would never choose things like cancer, I would never choose things like death of a loved one, those types of things I would never choose. But then that’s just a matter of degree. And I think about people, I really think of us ourselves as kind of like toddlers in some very real ways we as even as adults, as we think we’re all grown up. And if you look at a toddler, and a toddler falls to the ground, so they skinned their knee. And as an adult, we look at them, we see them, they scream, and they moan. And they're like, it’s the end of the world, like they broke their leg, like they’re never gonna walk again. And we kind of smile at them. We ....empathize with their pain, but we know it’s going to be okay. Because it’s relative, we realize that that scrape on the leg is not that bad. But for a toddler, if that’s all they’ve ever known, they think this is terrible. Similarly, if we tell our young ones.... we’re going to go somewhere, we’re gonna go to the movies, but we’re not going to go today, we can’t go today, we’re gonna go tomorrow. For them tomorrow is just never gonna come. It’s the end of the world again. So it’s a matter of degrees and the way that we take things, I believe, when we’re in these bodies, we look at the tragedies in the world. And we look at things like the death of a loved one. And we say, No, this is too much. A good and loving God would never allow this to happen. I as an intelligent human being, would never choose for this to happen. But what if you had a higher perspective? What if you knew that this thing that happened to you is only temporary is only going to hurt for a little while. And what if you knew [that what happened] to you is going to make you a better person?" 

You can read the whole transcript of that episode and/or listen to it here. When I heard Brian explain this concept, it reminded me of reading something similar somewhere else, namely, Amy Call's recollection of her near-death experience.  You can read about her entire experience at the NDERF website here. (For those of you not familiar, NDERF is short for the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation).  I have found Amy's NDE one of the more insightful and profound I have read to date.  She relays a lot of thought-provoking information concerning Spirit Guides, people who die with addictions, people who commit suicide, and so forth.  The relevant excerpt from her experience:

"It was actually comical at moments. I could feel how the 'Elders' as I will call them (these are those who are Helpers on the Other Side who have Mastered themselves in many or all ways, and help work with us) see us and find so much humor in the way we do things. (Humor is so valued, there!!) It might seem brutally annoying to consider when we are in the midst of a great argument or drama that is playing out in our lives, that the Elders view these things very much like when a mother sees her two-year-old scream and cry and bop another child on the head with a stuffed animal. The mother doesn't want her child to fall apart, become hysterical and cry. She feels for her child, but at the same time, she sees a little bit of comedy in how seriously the child takes what is usually a trivial drama. She continues to love her child and thinks the world of it, hoping it will go on enjoying the day, living and learning."

After reading Brian's and Amy's words, I'm left to wonder: are so many of us, myself included, so mired and stuck in our grief that we've lost all sense of perspective?  Or maybe we've just forgotten what is so obvious over the course of our lives: things that seemed like an awfully big deal to us when we were younger don't carry much importance anymore.  Certainly there were issues in my personal life that used to cause me a great deal of sadness and disappointment -- now, I don't give them much thought anymore.  Maybe the same is true of our grief, albeit over a longer time span.  Maybe when we leave this earthly life behind, we will come to realize that the grief and sadness we carry with us now will fade away, because we will be fully present and tuned in to the opportunities of our new post-earthly lives.