The Yin & Yang
This week I chose to do my reflections from The Sacred Art of Dying. Chapter 6 was about the Chinese attitudes toward death. The chapter was difficult to understand until our discussion in class. The first paragraph alone was enough to make you want to close the book and forget about it.
The beginning, the not yet beginning, the being. What is all that suppose to mean or represent. The statement made was decided to a paradox of sorts. Is it all about the beginning of all things? Is it a possible truth that can be translated into all beings.
Next we moved on to the yin and the yang. For every good there is a bad, for every light there is darkness, for every positive there is a negative. The yin is thought of as moon, the negative charge, the earth, the female. Whereas the yang is thought of as the sun, the positive charge, the heaven, the male. The yin and the yang are said to have a separate existence but at the same time harmoniously interfuses the other. I look at the yin and the yang as a "balance." Some people think of relationships as such, we harmoniously live together peacefully balanced by one another. He is my yang to my yin. He completes me. Chinese attitudes about death are that Life is the companion of death, death is the beginning of life. Respect life, the perfect man of Tao does not waste time being anxious about dying. ( The Sacred Art of Dying p. 85)
The above statement is a powerful one. Death is inevitable, when there is a birth the one thing we can be certain about is that one day there too will be a death. The one thing that this coarse has taught me through the weekly readings, and class room discussions is that death should not be feared. Death is a part of life and vise versa.
All cultures respect life and death in there own way, there is a belief of death is not the end of the spirit, but the beginning of a journey. A journey we can only count on our faith to lead us through. The physical body is no longer, but the spirit lives on. Maybe the spirit lives on through what they left behind, their teachings to those they loved, the beliefs they instilled in those left behind. I know from personal experience some of the things we do everyday reflect on the love that someone has shown to us throughout our lives. That being said, once we discussed the beginning of this chapter in class, "There is a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning......" Maybe that when we think of it as stated above, the physical body is the beginning, the spirit is not yet a beginning because it is still in the physical body...maybe, things that make you go oohhmm.
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