A Comparative Study Of Death Philosophy Between Epicurus And Zhuangzi

A man on earth has his beginning and his end.Death is what we all have to face.As the most mysterious natural phenomenon in the world,death,like a black hole,attracts countless philosophers to rack their brains and Epicurus and Zhuangzi are two of them.Epicurus was the most famous materialist philosopher of the Hellenistic period.He was a hedonist who believed that the "fundamental principle of a happy life" should be happiness and focus on the freedom of the soul.Epicurus’s philosophy of death was based precisely on the philosophy of hedonism.He believed that everything is composed of atoms,life is the condensation of atoms,and death is the separation of atoms,even the soul.Life and death,following the laws of atomic motion,have their inevitability.Death comes to us all,and the vague understanding of it fills people with fear.This has become an important influencing factor hindering people from achieving happiness.One must resort to philosophy to break the fear of death and attain the peace of the soul.According to Epicurus,death is marked by the dissipation of the atoms that make up the soul and the disappearance of sensations,which determines that death is something that has nothing to do with us.When there are still feelings,we do not die,and when we die,we have no feelings,so we have no way of knowing death.As an important representative of Taoism,Zhuangzi formed a unique philosophy of death on the basis of inheriting and developing Laozi’s thought.Proceeding from the"Tao",Zhuangzi believed that life and death followed the laws of nature and were natural and inevitable.Life is the condensation of Qi,and death is the dissipation of Qi.Life and death are the same as the changes of all things,so there is no need for a man to cling to the loss of his body.As for life and death,the former is accidental,and the latter is inevitable.Body and desires arise by chance and will return to peace with the inevitable death.Life and death are the one,and their essence is the Tao.Only by realizing that all things come from the"Tao" and return to the "Tao" can people break the fear of death and the attachment to the self.How to realize the "Tao"?Zhuangzi proposed the methods such as "heart fasting"(Xin Zhai),"sitting and forgetting"(Zuo Wang),and"seeing the oneness"(Jian Du).The philosophies of death of Epicurus and Zhuangzi have their similarities and respective characteristics.What they have in common is the core of their thoughts—death.Although they were thousands of miles away and lived in different eras,both of them advocated facing life and death calmly and pursuing the leisure of life.However,their philosophies of death arose from different cultural traditions.Their views on fatalism,the immortality of the soul,and relevance of death to us are very different.Therefore,by comparing the philosophies of death in the context of the two cultural traditions,we can not only gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of life and death,but also produce more valuable and meaningful wisdom of death which will guide us to overcome death anxiety and transcend death.