Zen and The Art of Death

Zen and the Art of Death
Author(s): Maja Milčinski

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), pp. 385-397
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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Zen and the Art of Death
Maja Milcinski
When reflecting on immortality, longevity, death, and suicide, or taking into

consideration some of the central concepts of the Sino-Japanese philosophical
tradition, such as impermanence (Chinese: wuchang; Japanese: mujo), we see
that the philosophical methods developed in the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradi-
tion might not be very suitable. On the other hand it is instructive to contrast
them with the similar themes developed in the Graeco-Judeo-Christian tradition,
since these problems present a challenge for a redefinition of philosophy, which
has traditionally regarded itself as a European (and in an even less acceptable
variation as a Western) phenomenon. As such the very borders of philosophical
discourse known in European history as philosophia are today being reconsid-
ered. Although the notion of philosophy (love of wisdom) is distinctly Greek in
origin, this does not mean that Asia failed to cultivate activities similar to that.
The absence of this notion in China and Japan does not necessarily imply a lack
of the cultivation of wisdom within their traditions. Could this mean that, para-
doxically, the "philo-" limits this complex activity primarily to rationally mas-
tered undertakings?
By rethinking the history of philosophy as a single narrative, one might
come closer to the movements related to the levels of consciousness that were
activated in philosophical undertakings in various Asian philosophical schools.
In this regard Japanese and Chinese Buddhist philosophical traditions might be
instructive since, through the various stages of their development, they have
attempted to put the inexpressible into words. The awareness of the insuffi-
ciency of words resulted in many original solutions. In the Song dynasty, for
instance, China produced a variety of diagrams (tu), by which philosophers and
practitioners represented their theories. These formulations, often arose on the
basis of meditation techniques and could not therefore be fully transmitted by
means of language alone. The illustration of the nine-step process (known in
The author wishes to express her gratitude to Julia Ching, Dorothy Ko, and Donald R.
Kelley for their comments and suggestions.
385
Copyright 1999 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.
386 Maja Milcinski
Japan as kuso) is one such representation, and it is taken here as a point of

departure for approaching the concept of impermanence and death in the Japa-
nese philosophical context.
One possible means of approaching the discussed topic is to contrast it with
the ways in which impermanence, particularly with the phenomenon of death as
one of its aspects, has been perceived in the European tradition. It would be
naive to generalize and stress the impression thatfear of death is much more
central and influential in the Euro-American life style than in the Asian one,
since it is rooted in human biological and subconscious mechanisms. This paper,
however, tries to point at the subtle difference which exists in the spiritual realm.
Europe and Impermanence
The European Middle Ages developed the so-called ars moriendi, the art of
dying. It was this tradition which produced sayings such as "My Lord, it is a
great art to die well, and one to be learned by men in health"' and the many
variations of the dance of death (danse macabre). This awareness of human
mortality was also spread by texts, of which the following inspired thought is
characteristic: "The one who has not learned how to die, will die against his will.
Learn how to die and you will know how to live, since nobody will learn how to
live, who has not learned how to die. He shall be y-cleped a wretch that cannot
live and dare not die."2 These undertakings, however, did not succeed in building
any kind of permanent discipline in Europeans connected with the idea ofimper-
manence and death. Rather, it left them caught up in the dizziness of everyday
life. The ars moriendi vanished from their consciousness and only became mani-
fest when actual circumstances provoked it, if indeed at all, since often at the
moment of impending death people are completely terrified in the light of the
prospect of losing their Ego. Although in Christianity there is a tradition of
seeing death as a new beginning, some Christians remain skeptical of this "new
beginning." Beginning of what? Is it an illusion of"heaven," a reflection of this
world without suffering and frustrations? In this respect the ars moriendi was
cultivating something else: impermanence, immersion into emptiness.
When Sigmund Freud was developing his theory of psychoanalysis at the
end of the last century, he stressed the primacy of the suppressed libido as the
complex which, in the form of various unacceptable emotional, sensorial, and
vegetative phenomena in the human consciousness, disturbs the harmonious life
of the people and the simultaneous development that should bring the individual
to independence. This has become a very well known part of Freud's work.
'The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying (London, 1651) and F. M. M. Comper (ed.), The
Book of the Craft of Dying (London, 1917).
2 The Book of the Craft of Dying, 127.
Zen and the Art of Death 387
Less well-known, however, are his theories about the death instinct
(Todestrieb), which he started to describe in 1920. In 1923 he explained its
function in the following way:
On the basis of theoretical considerations, supported by biology, we put

forward the hypothesis of a death instinct, the task of which is to lead
organic life back into the inanimate state; on the other hand, we sup-
posed that Eros, by bringing about a more and more far-reaching com-
bination of the particles into which living substance is dispersed, aims
at complicating life and at the same time, of course, at preserving it.3
Into this we might read the following philosophy: death is not just the result of
unfavorable circumstances by which the human organism together with con-
sciousness, its subjective correlative, is overcome, but it is also the preprogrammed
outcome of the process of decomposition which is inherent in the human being.
This mental and physical decomposition begins at birth, but in adulthood it is
covered by the manifestations of organism and spirituality, i.e., life. It becomes
more obvious in advanced age, and by the end of one's life it is predominant. The
subjective side of the force which drives this flow, acting predominantly on the
extra-conscious level, is the death instinct.
It is interesting that this aspect of psychoanalysis-Thanatos (as counter-
point to Eros) never became so well known. Freud himself did not return to it,
and neither did most of his students. One exception was Karl A. Menninger who
developed a theory of accident-proneness that centered on this instinct.
European analytical thought gave up Thanatos and kept it in the subcon-
scious. While eroticism and sexuality are no longer taboo subjects, death re-
mains ignored, kept in the subconscious and in the fog. As William Epsom wrote:
"Otherwise I feel very blank towards this subject, and think that though it may
be important and proper for anyone to bring it up, it is one that most people
should be prepared to be blank upon."4
Blank, in itselfa vague concept, can mean showing no attention, interest or
emotion; discontented.5 It carries the notion of avoidance and anxiety. In Euro-
pean thought the fact of mortality and impermanence remains frustrating and
traumatic, which does not help a person to face the inevitable but prolongs resis-
tance and repulsion as in Camus's Caligula: "A childishly simple, obvious, amost
silly truth, but one that's hard to come by and heavy to endure ... Men die; and
they are not happy."6
3 Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id, tr. Joan Riviere (New York, 1960), 38.
4 William Empson, "Ignorance of Death," The Oxford Book of Death, ed. D. J. Enright
(Oxford, 1983), 35-36.
5 Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York,
1989), s.v. blank: not written or printed on, void of interest, disconcerted.
6 Albert Camus, Caligula, tr. Stuart Gilbert (Harmondsworth, 1958), 140.
388 Maja Milcinski
In relation to human impermanence and death we might find in various Asian

philosophical traditions a very mature attitude, related to the pattern of medita-
tive and mystical dimensions in the cognitive process, which has always formed
a part of philosophical undertakings. In moder Europe, however, such an ap-
proach has often been labeled "unscientific" and unsuitable. By presenting the
Sino-Japanese ways in contrast with some of the theories grown from the Graeco-
Judaeo-Christian context, we may test two models of the philosophical and wider
spiritual reaction to human ephemerality. "Asian" and "European" are taken
here not as geographical terms but as two philosophical alternatives. Generally,
Asian philosophical traditions have considered meditative and mystical patterns
relevant, whereas the moder European philosophical tradition has been mostly
limited to a logically, discursive mode of reasoning.
Japan and Impermanence
European thought came very close to taking the step which places Thanatos
beside Eros not as a terrifying elimination of life but as the expected, inevitable,
and sometimes welcome counterpart. It is precisely this step, however, which led
to the notion of impermanence (wuchang, mujo) as a metaphysical notion, one
which supports the Buddhist idea that all material things are considered to have
come into existence through some cause and are subjected to the process of
creation, abidance, transformation, and extinction. This process, moreover, is
cyclical: all things are born and die over and over again. The cycle of rebirth can
be escaped only by eliminating all desire and thus attaining nirvana or enlight-
enment, the only stable, nontransient state. Such an attitude can also show us
how to understand works like The Tales oflse, and it also makes it possible to
find beauty in its vanishing and to accept the fact that the impermanence and
evanescence of all things makes everything even more beautiful.
The art, however, is not to cover one's eyes from the reality of death but to
enjoy the world as it is presented to us in all its aspects. This procedure is alien
to modem mainstream European philosophy and psychology, although it is some-
times found in lyrical writing and other arts.
At various stages of Japanese history it was felt necessary to educate people
in confronting the inevitability of corporeal death. Its counterparts to the fres-
coes of the Middle Ages in Europe are various treatises reminding human beings
of their mortality and images which are more naturalistic and therefore even
more persuasive than the frescoes of the pre-modern death dance in Europe,
where death takes the form of a skeleton. The Japanese images take a different
form and have a slightly different idea behind them. The fact that humanity is
sentenced to death and to impermanence is reflected in temple images which
show the entire process of decay of the human corpse, from death to final disin-
tegration. Believers are expected to respond in a prescribed way to the repulsive-

ness of these pictures.
The process is illustrated as follows: after the body is put into the soil, it
becomes bloated and ugly within one or two days. It becomes blue-black and
ulcers erupt on the skin from which blood and pus start to ooze. Birds and other
animals start to bite and feed on the corpse, and what they leave becomes food
for worms. Soon nothing remains but dust, which eventually mixes with the soil.
A very valuable picture portraying this process is kept among the other
Rokudo pictures in Sh6jiraig6ji (Shiga). This is the picture of Ono no Komachi.
The act of visualizing the rotting corpse of this renowned beauty, who was able
to charm many men during her lifetime, became a kind of medicine, a cure for
men who were obsessed by female charms. It is still used for didactic purposes
for monks-to-be and has become one of the recurrent themes in contemporary
philosophical works, as well. The process is described thus:
Her body had turned to a yellowish color and was quite frightening. The
bridge of her nose had caved in, causing her nostrils to flare out. Be-
cause her lips had become wrinkled up like thin paper her upper and
lower teeth seemed to be biting sharply into one another. When he looked
at that face he felt both disgust and fear, and covered it up and fled the
room. The odor entered his mouth and nose and the stench was without
limit; he felt as though he had a lump in his throat.
From that time on he could think only of the remains of that face,
and a religious faith arose from deep in his heart.7
Ego Emptiness versus the Void
These two concepts could be defined as emptiness (in connection with Ego-
emptiness), deprived of any qualities, unimportant, destitute of qualities, with-
out significance, meaningless, hollow, and void, designating a completely un-
filled space with vague, undefined, or no borders. Both concepts are connected
with the theoretical undertakings reflecting on impermanence and death.
When approaching the question of human impermanence, the Chinese Chan
and the Japanese Zen models start with the mystical experience of the cosmic
void. The second phase is the endeavor to formulate the experience into words
and concepts which are used to describe this state to people who have not had a
chance to experience it directly themselves. Such experiments, however, remain
at the margin of its essence, on the level of metaphor. This is well expressed in
the first chapter of the classical Daoist text, Dao dejing: "As for the Way, the
7 M. W. Kelsey, "Didactics in Art" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1976), 346-47.
390 Maja Milcinski
Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way."8 The European Graeco-
Judaeo-Christian model first develops the idea of Ego-the individual conscious-
ness, which has its roots at the very beginning of the development of this tradi-
tion and which brought about the famous Cartesian "Cogito, ergo sum." It cre-
ated its tools (time and space), produced its own method (logically-discursive
discipline), and plugged into the endless cosmic void with the aim of defining it,
"scientifically," with words, as a whole, and in all its details. While this edifice
grows ever bigger, the solidity of the arguments which encompass Ego becomes
weaker and weaker.
Ego is "afraid" of being swallowed by the void but at the same time wants to
master it and therefore builds around its axis a structure made up of scientific
proofs and experiments with which it attempts to master the reality of life, and
thus to penetrate the void.
In its ideal development this process goes on to infinity and tries to encom-
pass all the void. In the immense, consciously and logically edified structure,
Ego considers itself throughout as a master and aspires to the position of the
Ultimate, a God. In the ideal case the entire cosmic, infinite void would be mas-
tered and Ego would really become a God. When the entire void is mastered,
there is no void that is not divine. There is no Ultimate, no God nor anything
which is non-God. What remains is again just the cosmic void, so this process,
whose starting point is "Ego-consciousness," results in "Ego-emptiness." Ego
travels all this way to be confronted at the end with its antithesis-the void.
So both ways finally lead back to the void-the European way slowly, since
it is afraid of the void and constantly defends itself with logic and God, and the
Sino-Japanese Buddhist way directly, since the void is familiar and primary to
it.
It would be wrong to view these two models as distinct spiritual edifices that
have grown and developed separately in Europe and Asia respectively, since
their parallel development can be traced in spiritual traditions throughout his-
tory and the world. Just as various Asian philosophical traditions developed
important logical schools, so has premoder Europe cultivated meditative-mys-
tical ways of approaching the truth. One of these two models is the dominant and
the other is its counterpole, its subtle shadow.
In the Sino-Japanese Buddhist tradition of void and silence, the searching
for and finding of ways to come closer to the ineffable, through words and im-
ages, is the essence of its meditative-mystical findings. The European tradition
had its mystics too, although it tried to conceal them under the cover of heresy
and encouraged its inspired artists to express their anticipations of the Absolute
and impermanence.
8 Lao-tzu, Te-tao ching, tr. Robert G. Henricks (New York, 1989), 53. In this paper the
Pinyin transcription for Chinese characters has been used. Henricks, as well as other transla-
tors (notes 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15) used the Wade-Giles system.
The thinking following the pattern offered by European philosophy leads

us into a dead end, where Ego and so-called reality are facing each other, and
this encounter either calls for a desperate struggle or causes a paralyzing terror.
The dispute centered on this theme without a known solution can be repre-
sented by the image of Uroboros: a snake biting its own tail, a symbol widely
known in the world. It has a number of chiefly euphemistic meanings of which
in this context, the most suitable one might be samsdra, the infinite vicious circle
of activities encouraging one another, a stampede for wealth and longevity, which
is sooner or later revealed as an illusion. In the Chinese Chan and the Japanese Zen
the snake Uroboros is replaced by an open circle, which represents the acceptance
of the idea that the reality of life is an illusion. Here we cannot expect any forced
logic according to the pattern of philosophical conclusions but rather the path of
parables and metaphors as it was practiced by Chinese Daoists philosophers.
The Switch of Consciousness
The temple images are designed to remind people of the inevitable dissolu-
tion of Ego and its illusions. The Chinese Chan and the Japanese Zen feature
descriptions of the transition between life and death. These descriptions present
life and death as unimportant so that one may look upon and anticipate death
with equanimity. One of the ways of reaching this point is by diving into the
Void. This idea we also meet elsewhere, not always in explicit connection with
the dialogue about Ego-emptiness but perhaps instead in discussions about Dao,
Nothingness, the search for truth, or the meaning of life and death.
At the beginning of all these quests the illusion of a stable Ego that continues
on and on (Myself) presents an obstacle. Around this illusion a system of cat-
egorizing phenomena builds up, trapping a person in stereotyped evaluations
of things and events.
Masters who are aware of these dynamics warn that while trying to get
through this blind alley, we should not stick to an image of Nothingness or Emp-
tiness.9 To reach this switch is not easy, even in Japan where in philosophical
circles this theme is not rejected as logically unacceptable, as it often is in Eu-
rope. The concept of the Void is not disdained as incompatible with the basic
principles of European philosophy. Master Soko Morinaga Roshi describes his
personal crisis on this Way as follows:
I, myself however have to confess that at the very beginning of my

practice, I could not grasp the idea of the ungraspable. My education
was directed since early childhood towards an intellectually decided aim
and later to pursuing this aim with intellect and the will; therefore the
9 Hui-neng, Das Sutra des Sechsten Patriarchen: Das Leben und die Zen-Lehre des
chinesischen Meisters Hui-neng (638-713) (Munich, 1989), 95.
392 Maja Milcinski
first three years of the Zazen practice were filled with a strong desire
for enlightenment and for the will to endure all physical pains and the
feeling of exhaustion. However, in spite of all this, I did not reach en-
lightenment. Therefore I practised at noon and in the evenings, and at
"the time of repose" of the strict monastery order. And since I thought
that my fatigue was caused by the food, I stopped eating. The conse-
quences were even stronger pains and mental confusion. Sitting on the
pillow there was just a lump of pain, fatigue, and confusion. Although
I thought that this might lead to death, I could not stop.
Suddenly, one night, like a fog dispersing, the physical pains and
mental unclearess were gone. With bright clarity only sight and hear-
ing were left. There was no Ego (Self) which could see or hear, I do not
know how long it lasted before I came to my senses again, but when it
happened, there was just an immense joy in which I could not keep quiet
anymore. I did not think that it was enlightenment or a kind of religious
experience, but simply joy, which was pouring out of me. Such experi-
ences, although not reached by the same process, have recurred since.'0
This master's story is a description of the crises through which one has to go
to pass from the insights of Ego-emptiness to the dive into the void. It is signifi-
cant that between these two stages there is no complicated thought and logical
operation but rather a switch of consciousness, which the searcher feels as an
experience of enlightenment and which at the same time represents the step to
the next level of spiritual experience, the essence of which cannot be expressed
in words. Who is able to judge if this is the border of philosophy or if it is
precisely at this point that we enter the area of the unknown-an area which is
still looking for researchers and methods?
The purpose of this long reflection has been to demonstrate how one arrives
at the acceptance of human impermanence by diving into the void.
Generally, it is very difficult for people to grasp exactly these phenomena
and the connections between them. This is because they perceive them through
barriers constructed in advance, in a certain preformed frame that is essentially
defined by Ego. It is entirely different if one opens one's heart to everything that
happens and realizes the here and now without any second thoughts. When we
ponder and choose as we usually do, we are caught in the net of discursive
perception, making connections, and assimilating phenomena. As the Master
states it, the Truth is "a place," where there is no pondering."
0 Seng-ts'an, Die Meisselschrift vom Glauben an den Geist (Bern, 1991), 159.
' Dialog uber das Ausloschen der Anschauung, tr. Ursula Jarand (Frankfurt am Main, 1983),
157.
Yang Zhu's Doctrine as an Illustration
The works of Yang Zhu (Yang Zi) and the Daoists provide us with many
precious insights into the problems of impermanence and death which are very
close to some Chan and Zen concerns:
Life is the companion of death, death is the beginning of life. Who un-
derstands their workings? Man's life is a coming together of breath. If it
comes together, there is life; if it scatters, there is death. And if life and
death are companions to each other, then what is there for us to be
anxious about?12
In Yang Zhu (classified as the seventh chapter of The Book of Lie Zi) the
basic problems of existence in classical China are discussed. The story starts as
follows: "Meng tun-yang asked Yang Chu: 'Suppose that a man values his life
and takes care of his body; may he hope by such means to live for ever?' 'It is
impossible to live for ever.' "13
To ask a Daoist philosopher for advice on how to become immortal might
not have been, at the time when this was happening, naive or obviously absurd.
Welch stated that although the Daoist movement has always been a mixture of
heterogeneous elements among which were philosophy, everyday hygiene, church
duties, and especially alchemy, they never really became a compound.14 In the
realm of alchemist elements we can also include the stories about a mystical
island Pen Lai, which at the time was searched for by various expeditions. It was
believed that the people who lived there did not know death, because they pos-
sessed the elixir of life which had been discovered by alchemist sciences. It is
supposed that it was the otherwise poisonous compound of cinnabar and mer-
cury-sulphide.
Meng Sun Yang was not satisfied with the laconic answer of the master. The
story continues:
"May he hope to prolong his life?"

"It is impossible to prolong life. Valuing life cannot preserve it,
taking care of the body cannot do it good. Besides, what is the point of
prolonging life? Our passions, our likes and dislikes, are the same now
as they were of old. The safety and danger of our four limbs, the joy and
bitterness of worldly affairs, changes of fortune, good government and
discord, are the same now as they were of old. We have heard it al-
12 Chuang-tzu, The Inner Chapters, tr. A. C. Graham (London, 1986), 235.

13 The Book ofLieh-tzu, tr. A. C. Graham (New York, 1990), 147-48.
14 Holmes Welch, The Parting of the Way (Boston, 1957), 216.
394 Maja Milcinski
ready, seen it already, experienced it already. Even a hundred years is

enough to satiate us; could we endure the bitterness of still longer life?"
Meng Sun Yang continued:
"If it is so, and swift destruction is better than prolonged life, you can get
what you want by treading on blades and spearpoints, rushing into fire
and boiling water."
Yang Zi answered:
"No. While you are alive, resign yourself and let life run its course;
satisfy your desires and wait for death. When it is time to die, resign
yourself and let death run its course; go right to your destruction, which
is extinction. Be resigned to everything, let everything run its course;
why need you delay it or speed it on its way?"5
It is worth analyzing these final words: the point of this final wisdom is that
anybody who is attempting to retain one's essence and dignity has to accept
one's own impermanence without restraining the earthly pleasures while there is
time for them. To combine these two approaches one has to take leave of one's
life when one is still living. Yang Zi, however, does not mean that one should
commit suicide while still young but rather something close to Meister Eckhart's
Abgescheidenheit (or Abgeschiedenheit), translated as detachment, which might
be explained with the sense of separation, objectivity, self-reliance, or equanim-
ity.16 Some would describe this as a complete standstill, to rest in oneself, to be
with oneself in the soul, withdrawn from people and the world. However, this
state is not the same as that practiced by a stoic who has withdrawn from life
and is keeping oneself far from the reach of any emotion, joy or suffering. The
detached person, according to Meister Eckhart, is the way Jesus Christ was able
to live his passion in complete detachment. He was able to live, suffer and re-
joice while remaining detached (German: ledig) from everyday outer reality.
The concept of impermanence in Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen teaches us
that in the perspective of death, it is important to accept the endless cycle of life,
the one that has been so clearly described by Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian
philosopher and poet (1861-1941): "And because I love this life, I know I shall
love death as well. The child cries out when from the right breast the mother
takes it away, in the very next moment to find in the left one its consolation."'7
'5 The Book of Lieh-tzu, 147-48.

16 Meister Eckhart, "On Detachment," Sermons and Treatises, tr. M. O'C. Walshe (Rockport,
1987), III, 117-29.
'7 Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (London, 1913), 87.
As Meng Sun Yang has taught, when death approaches one has to perceive it as
unimportant, as well, and give in. We can borrow the illustration of this phase
in human life from the final days of Socrates as described in Plato's Phaedo.
When Socrates was accused by the traditional, conservative stream in Athens
in 399 BC, it is obvious from his defense that his attitude was to let himself be
killed and thereby fulfill his last mission. Death was the door into the Essen-
tial-the Real-all that for which he was striving in his life. However, he did
deny suicide and kept to the notions of the Orphics and Pythagoreans, that
people should be like guardians in life and never leave the place until we are
dismissed. His attitude was that one should not kill oneself until God notifies
one, which was the situation that he himself was in. It is time to die-that was
also what his inner voice (daimonion) had been telling him.
As to Yang Zi, who had been trying to describe the situation when the death
was approaching Meng Sun Yang, one could also understand it in the way in
which Socrates, under the influence of hemlock, was expecting his death and yet
kept teaching, sometimes also in a very ironic way as when he told the pragma-
tist Crito: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius, will you remember to pay the
debt?"'8 Why should he have any debts toward the god of medicine Asclepius
and his subordinates? Because they found such a practical method of euthana-
sia?
Conclusion
The above patterns of approaching impermanence and death are, although

distanced in time and space, very similar in certain basic conceptions. The Sino-
Japanese Buddhist and European idea of impermanence and death overlap to
some extent, particularly with the didactic elements regarding the human body,
from conception to decay. But in the spiritual aspects of the phenomenon, these
two ideas differ. The Sino-Japanese model of the open circle is different: the
phenomenon from which one takes leave at the time of death is an illusion. The
reality which surrounds us is an illusion, and Ego, with which we identify our-
selves, is an illusion as well. Nevertheless, the essence of the Sino-Japanese
model is not a simple denial of objects and reality presented to us by our con-
sciousness. This means that in surpassing what we understand as reality and
Ego in everyday life, a flood of words and clever neologisms cannot be of any
assistance. The Chinese Chan and the Japanese Zen models teach that the essen-
tial condition for this is a switch from the logically discursive thinking to the
meditative mystical experience. But the paradox is that the illusion of our every-
day existence, is at the same time an important medium in this switch, a practice
ground where we learn to surpass our ego, its conclusions and desires. This is
18 I. Edman (ed.), The Works ofPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett (New York, 1956), 189.
396 Maja Milcinski
undoubtedly very different from Heidegger's accepted being-unto-death (Sein

zum Tode) filled with tension, or from coming to terms with the absurdity of
life in the fashion of Camus's Sisyphus.
The Chinese Chan and the Japanese Zen open circle, presented in the paper
by quotations from Chinese and Japanese philosophers, can best be illustrated
by the insight of Vivekananda: "When death approaches, Bhakta will accept it
with a smile. 'I am honored that all come to me, all are welcome.' "19 The afore-
mentioned switch from the logically discursive way of thinking to the meditative
mystical experience, which often in Sino-Japanese philosophical traditions forms
part of the philosophical undertakings, might represent a considerable, perhaps
even insurmountable, obstacle to somebody who wishes to remain faithful to the
style of philosophy developed and dominant in European tradition. But the pre-
paratory steps which have enabled this switch and which are still trying to facili-
tate it must be remembered. With this I refer to the works of European medieval
mystics, who were not favored by the Church and were relegated to the fringes
of philosophy, and modem studies such as those exploring or continuing the
exploration of the European scientific pattern developed on the borders between
psychological and philosophical methods.
Among these C. Albrecht's study, Psychology of Mystical Awareness,20 al-
though already a classic today, is still very instructive. Albrecht follows the
phenomenological systematics as developed by Karl Jaspers in his widely quoted
work General Psychopathology. He comes to the conclusion that awareness has
several levels and that the state of deep thinking (Versenkung), must first be
achieved on the path towards the mystical experience, followed by the sunken
state (Versunkenheit), which is also spiritual concentration, thus preserving or
even increasing lucidity or spiritual clarity. Albrechts's idea of the mystical ex-
perience, which is central to various philosophical schools in the Sino-Japanese
realm, especially when discussing the topics like impermanence and death, can
become true when on this level of awareness, something coming appears (das
Ankommende), something foreign to the ego, from somewhere else, with the
universal ability to experience, something numinous, sought after and feared by
the human spirit (das Umfassende). Albrecht's involved discourse can be sim-
plified, as follows: if mysticism is freed from certain misleading distortions, it
can truly give us an authentic experience which does not allow any doubts and is
therefore a healthy, normal, and natural insight and conclusion.
The discussed quotes from the Sino-Japanese philosophical realm, particu-
larly the Dao dejing with its inability to express the supreme Way as well as the
undescribable experience of the enlightenment, lead us closer to the theoreti-
cians that claim: "Notions of the all-encompassing power of language and word
19 Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti Yoga (Paris, 1938), 93.

20 Carl Albrecht, Psychologie des mystischen Bewusstseins (Mainz, 1976).
have been ubiquitous in the history and philosophy of religions. So, too, has
been a recognition of the inability of language and word to give full expression
to the realities that constitute and engage human beings and the world in which
they live."2 The basic philosophical problems and notions like impermanence,
together with the phenomenon of death as one of its manifestations as they were
posed and answered in the Sino-Japanese philosophical realm, bring us to the
conclusion that they can only be dealt with when combining the two discussed
methods, the logically discursive style of Uroboros with the meditative mystical
style of the open circle.
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
21 F. E. Reynolds, Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion (New

York, 1993), IX.

Zen and The Art of Death

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Zen and the Art of Death

Author(s): Maja Milčinski

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

When reflecting on immortality, longevity, death, and suicide, or taking into

Copyright 1999 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.

Japan as kuso) is one such representation, and it is taken here as a point of

Europe and Impermanence

On the basis of theoretical considerations, supported by biology, we put

In relation to human impermanence and death we might find in various Asian

Japan and Impermanence

tegration. Believers are expected to respond in a prescribed way to the repulsive-

Ego Emptiness versus the Void

7 M. W. Kelsey, "Didactics in Art" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1976), 346-47.

The thinking following the pattern offered by European philosophy leads

The Switch of Consciousness

I, myself however have to confess that at the very beginning of my

Yang Zhu's Doctrine as an Illustration

"May he hope to prolong his life?"

12 Chuang-tzu, The Inner Chapters, tr. A. C. Graham (London, 1986), 235.

ready, seen it already, experienced it already. Even a hundred years is

Meng Sun Yang continued:

'5 The Book of Lieh-tzu, 147-48.

The above patterns of approaching impermanence and death are, although

undoubtedly very different from Heidegger's accepted being-unto-death (Sein

19 Swami Vivekananda, Bhakti Yoga (Paris, 1938), 93.

21 F. E. Reynolds, Ineffability: The Failure of Words in Philosophy and Religion (New

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