Q: Describe the Afterlife for Taoism
A simple answer: A Person is eternal in their own life.
Death illustrated from the Chuang-Tzu:
“Since life and death are each other’s companions, why worry about them? All beings are one.”
Diving Deeper into the Afterlife
In Taoism death is neither feared nor desired instead a person enjoys living.
A few basic concepts which define the nature of Afterlife for Taoism:
- In one sense: afterlife doesn’t exist in terms of a Taoist belief system. It’s in life that we are eternal in Taoism. The afterlife is within life itself. We are of the Tao when living and upon death are the Tao again. Death is the point where your essence is not you, non being… Yet it’s always you as we are always of the Tao, But your expression of your life is within life.
- We touch upon echoes of existence. So for example:
- When you die, you still live, in the memories of others.
- When you die, your essence reincarnates into a new form.
- When you die, you bounce back into your own life and have the opportunity to experience another variation of your life.
- When you die, you rejoin the universe and are one with God if you believe in God.
- When you die, you discover so many truths exist
One way some people think of this is as: Afterlife in Taoism becomes what you hold as being true. If you hold onto a single truth then this statement is fine within Taoism. Yet if you hold onto only a single truth, you are only holding one color of the rainbow of possibilities.
- Many variations exist within Taoism.Taoism is quite open in this question and as Taoists we like it that way.In some of the religious branches of Taoism, we have immortal deities. Quite a few stories exist where some Taoist is chasing after various forms of immortality. This isn’t an afterlife as much as a pastime I suppose.
- Many Taoists don’t even worry about afterlife, it’s a non issue. I love my friend Donna’s answer from Changing Places when she said to me:
“The Tao is simply logical. There’s no mysticism or need for invisible sky gods or some weird belief that you’re important enough to be reincarnated – you simply return to the Tao when you die. And you’re already there anyway, so what’s the big deal?”
And that’s a great Taoist answer about Afterlife.
To quote from the Chuang-Tzu again:
“The true men of old did not know what it was to love life or to hate death. They did not rejoice in birth, nor strive to put off dissolution. Unconcerned they came and unconcerned they went. That was all. They did not forget whence it was they had sprung, neither did they seek to inquire their return thither. Cheerfully they accepted life, waiting patiently for their restoration (the end). This is what is called not to lead the heart astray from Tao, and not to supplement the natural by human means. Such a one may be called a true man. Such men are free in mind and calm in demeanor.”
Or more simply: Live and be yourself. Afterlife is not even a concern to a true Taoist in the Chuang-Tzu.
To me this is so very simple as it just is. I did die once and as a result embrace all those answers as truth from my experience. To explain, isn’t as easy since it’s not a concept based upon the fire of life which all our references in language are based upon. So as a result you get all these contradictory statements trying to explain afterlife, which is simply just life itself…
So the best answer for a Taoist is:
- To make a life what you want it to be now. The rest will follow.
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