Lunsi — On Death論死篇

The world says that when a man dies he becomes a ghost, that he has knowledge, and that he can harm men. Try proving it by the kinds of things: a man who dies does not become a ghost, he has no knowledge, and he cannot harm men. How is this proved? It is proved by things.

Man is a thing, and a thing is a thing as well. When a thing dies it does not become a ghost; why should a man alone be able to become a ghost when he dies? If the world can tell that men and things cannot become ghosts, then becoming a ghost and not becoming a ghost is still hard to make plain; and if it cannot tell, then there is no way to know that they can become ghosts either. What a man lives by is the essential breath, and when he dies the essential breath is put out. What can make the essential breath is the blood and the vessels, and when a man dies the blood and the vessels run dry; running dry, the essential breath is put out; being put out, the body rots; rotting, it becomes ash and earth. With what, then, does he become a ghost? A man without ears and eyes knows nothing, and so the deaf and the blind are likened to grass and trees. When the essential breath leaves a man, how should that be merely the same as having no ears and eyes! What rots melts away and is gone, and being dim it is not seen, and so it is called ghost and spirit. Men see the shape of ghosts and spirits, and therefore it is not the essence of a dead man. Why so? Ghost and spirit are names for what is dim and not seen. When a man dies his spirit rises to Heaven and his bones go back to the earth, and so he is called gui. Gui is going back; shen is what is dim and without shape.

Some explain it thus. Ghost and spirit are names for yin and yang. The breath of yin goes against things and returns, and so it is called gui; the breath of yang leads things forth and gives them birth, and so it is called shen. Shen is stretching out. It stretches and stretches again without end, and ends and begins once more. A man lives by using the breath of shen, and at his death he goes back to the breath of shen. Yin and yang are called ghost and spirit, and a man who has died is called ghost and spirit as well. That breath gives birth to a man is like water becoming ice. Water freezes and becomes ice, breath freezes and becomes a man; ice melts and becomes water, a man dies and becomes shen again. That its name is shen is like ice melting and being named water anew. Men see that the names differ, and then they say that it has knowledge and can take shape and harm men; but this is to discuss man with no ground for it.

Men see a ghost as though in the shape of a living man, and because they see it as though in the shape of a living man we know that it is not the essence of a dead man. How is this shown? By filling a bag and a sack with grain and rice. When rice is in the bag and grain is in the sack, full and firm and strong, they can be stood up and seen. When a man looks at them from afar he knows that they are bags and sacks of grain and rice. Why so? Because the shape of the bag and the sack is such that what they hold can be made out. But if the bag is pierced and the rice comes out, and the sack gives way and the grain is spilled, then the bag and the sack hang limp, and though a man look at them from afar he sees them no more. That a man's spirit is stored within his body is like grain and rice being inside a bag and a sack. That at death the body rots and the essential breath scatters is like the bag and the sack being pierced and giving way and the grain and rice being spilled out. When the grain and rice are spilled out the bag and the sack have no shape any more; and when the essential breath is scattered and gone, how can there be a body again for men to see? When a bird or a beast dies its flesh is all used up, but its hide and hair are still there, and made up into a fur coat, so that men looking at it see something like the shape of a bird or a beast. And so the world has had men who put on a dog's fur coat and played the dog thief, and men did not notice; they borrowed the hide and hair of a dog, and so men did not think to doubt them. Now when a man dies and his hide and hair rot and give way, then though his essential breath were still there, how could his spirit borrow this shape again and walk about and be seen? That a dead man cannot borrow the shape of a living man to be seen is like a living man not being able to borrow the soul of a dead man to vanish. That the six kinds of beasts can change and take the shape of a man is because their shape is still alive and their essential breath is still there. If they die their shape rots away, and though they were as bold as tiger and rhinoceros they cannot change again. That Gongniu Ai of Lu fell sick and changed into a tiger was also because he was not yet dead. The world has had those who turned from a living shape into a living kind, but there has never been one who changed from a dead body into a living likeness.

Since Heaven and earth were opened out, and since the Human Sovereign, men have died as their span ran out. Those who died young in their middle years are counted by the hundred million.

Reckon the number of men now living and it is not so many as the dead; and if a man became a ghost as soon as he died, then upon the roads there would be a ghost at every step. A man about to die who sees ghosts ought to see hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands, filling the hall and crowding the courtyard and blocking up the lanes and the roads, and not merely see one man or two. When a man dies by the weapon, the world says that his blood becomes goblin fire. Blood is the essential breath of the time when he was alive. A man walking at night who sees goblin fire sees that it does not take the shape of a man, but is heaped up in confusion, like the look of firelight. Goblin fire is the blood of a dead man, and its shape is not like the blood of a living man. A ghost is the shape of a dead man, and its shape is not like the shape of a living man. When the essential breath leaves a man, for what reason should it take the likeness of a man's body? If what men see as ghosts all took the shape of dead men, then one might well suppose that dead men become ghosts; yet at times they take the shape of living men instead. A sick man sees a ghost and says that Jia is coming. Jia was not dead at that time, and the breath had taken the likeness of Jia's shape. If dead men became ghosts, for what reason does a sick man see the body of a living man?

It is the nature of Heaven and earth that it can make fire anew but cannot make a fire that is out burn again; it can make men anew but cannot make a dead man be seen again. Could it make ashes into burning fire once more, then I should indeed rather doubt whether a dead man can take shape again. Weigh it by this, that a fire gone out cannot burn again, and it is plain that a dead man cannot become a ghost. Now what becomes a ghost, men call the spirit of a dead man. If in truth the ghost were the spirit of a dead man, then when men saw it they ought to see only a naked and bare shape, and there would be no seeing clothes and a girdle and garments worn. Why so? Clothes have no spirit, and when a man dies they rot along with his body. With what, then, could he put them on?

The spirit has blood and breath for its master, and blood and breath always cling to the body. Though the body rot, the spirit is still there, and to say that it can become a ghost is allowable. But clothes are silk and wadding and cloth and hemp: while he lived, blood and breath did not cling to them, and of themselves they have no blood and breath, so that when they wear out and rot that is the end of them, the same as with the body. How could they stay as they were and be the shape of clothes? Speaking from this, if the clothes of a ghost that is seen take the likeness of a man, then the body takes the likeness of a man too; and if it takes the likeness of a man, we know that it is not the spirit of a dead man.

Now if a dead man cannot become a ghost, then he knows nothing either. How is this proved? By his knowing nothing in the time before he was born. Before a man is born he is within the primal breath; once dead, he goes back to the primal breath. The primal breath is dim, and the breath of man is within it. Before a man is born he knows nothing, and at his death he goes back to the root where there is no knowing. How could he have knowledge? The reason a man is keen of ear and eye and wise is that he holds in him the breath of the five constants; and the reason the breath of the five constants is in a man is that the five organs are within his body. If the five organs are unhurt the man is wise; if the five organs are sick the man is dim; and being dim, he is a fool. When a man dies the five organs rot, and when they rot the five constants have nothing to lodge in: what was used to store wisdom has already given way, and what was used to make wisdom has already left. Shape waits upon breath to be made, and breath waits upon shape to know. In all the world there is no fire that burns alone; how should the world have an essence that knows alone, with no body?

A man's death is like his dreaming. Dreaming is next to swooning, and swooning is the like of death. When a man swoons and does not wake, he is dead. Weigh it thus: that a man swoons and wakes again and comes back from death is much like a dream. Then dreaming and swooning and death are one and the same thing. That a man in a dream cannot know what was done while he was awake is like a dead man not being able to know what he did while he was alive. That men talk and do things beside a sleeping man and the sleeping man cannot know it is like doing good and evil deeds before a dead man's coffin and the dead man not being able to know it again. Now in sleep the essential breath is still there and the body is still whole, and yet nothing is known. How much more when a dead man's spirit has melted away and gone and his body has rotted and given way!

When a man is beaten and hurt by another he goes to the officers to tell his suffering and speaks of it to men, and this is because he has knowledge. Sometimes a man is killed by another and it is not known who killed him, and sometimes his household does not know where his corpse is. If a dead man had knowledge he would surely rage that a man had killed him, and he ought to be able to speak beside the officer and tell him the name of the robber's chief, or else to go home and speak to his household and tell them where his corpse is. Now he cannot, and this is the proof that he has no knowledge. In the world the dead make a living man swoon and use his words, and the shaman beats the strings and brings down the soul of a dead man and speaks through the shaman's mouth; and all of this is boasting and wild talk. Know that it is not boasting and wild, and then it is the spirit of a thing that has taken that likeness. Some say, "He cannot speak."

Now if it is said that he cannot speak, then he cannot know either. Knowing uses breath, and speaking uses breath as well. Before a man dies his wisdom and his spirit are settled; when he is sick they are disordered, for the spirit is shaken. Now death is the worst of sickness. Sickness is the slight form of death, and still there is disorder in it; how much more in the worst of it! When the spirit is shaken, of itself it knows nothing; how much more when it is scattered!

A man's death is like a fire going out. When a fire goes out its glow does not shine, and when a man dies his knowing is not wise; the two ought to be one and the same thing. That those who discuss it still say the dead have knowledge is a delusion. When a man is sick and about to die, wherein does it differ from a fire about to go out? When a fire goes out its light melts away and the candle remains; when a man dies his essence is gone and his shape is left. To say that a dead man has knowledge is to say that a fire has gone out and there is light again. In the months of deep winter the cold breath has charge of affairs, and water freezes and becomes ice; and when spring is past and the breath is warm, the ice melts and becomes water. A man born between Heaven and earth is like ice. The breath of yin and yang freezes and becomes a man, and when his years end and his span is done he dies and turns back into breath. Now spring water cannot become ice again; how should a dead soul become shape again?

A jealous husband and a wanton wife dwell in one room, and in their wantonness they lose all conduct, and rage and quarrel and go to law; and when the husband dies the wife marries again, and when the wife dies the man takes another. Prove it by their having knowledge, and they ought to rage greatly. Now the husband and the wife who have died are silent and without a sound, and those who marry again live at ease and meet no harm. This is the proof that there is no knowledge.

Confucius buried his mother at Fang, and after that the rain came down hard and the grave at Fang fell in. When Confucius heard of it he wept streaming tears and said, "In ancient times they did not mend graves."

And in the end he did not mend it again. If the dead had knowledge he would surely rage that men did not mend it. Had Confucius known this, he ought to have mended the grave at once, to gladden the soul and the spirit. Yet he did not mend it, for the sage saw clearly and knew that the dead have no knowledge.

Dry bones lie in the fields and at times there is a sound of crying out from them, and when men hear a sound of weeping at night they call it the voice of the dead; but this is wrong. How is it proved? The reason living men speak and cry out is that the breath is held fast within the mouth and the throat and shakes the tongue and opens and closes the mouth, and so words can be made. It is like blowing a flute or a reed pipe: if the flute and the pipe are broken and split, the breath passes over and is not held fast, and the hand has nothing to play upon, and so no sound is made. The tube of the flute and the pipe is like a man's mouth and throat, and the hand playing upon its holes is like a man moving his tongue. When a man dies and his mouth and throat rot and give way and his tongue moves no more, how can words be made! Yet that dry bones at times groan and cry is because there are among the bones of men those that can groan and cry of themselves; and some take it for the breath of autumn, and in this there is nothing to set it apart from the weeping of ghosts at night. The breath of autumn makes a strange thing of groaning and crying, and does so of itself, leaning at the side of dead bones; and men then say that the bones still have knowledge and groan and cry in the fields. Bodies laid bare in the grass and the marshes are counted by the thousand and the ten thousand, and the sound of groaning and crying would follow at every house and every step.

Now there are those who can make one who does not speak speak, but there has never been one who could make a man who spoke and then died speak again; nor can one who speaks be made to speak again. It is like a thing that is born taking green for its color, which is as though it were given to it; and when the thing dies the green leaves it, which is as though it were taken away. Give it, and the thing is green; take it away, and the green leaves; and once it has left, the green cannot be given it again, nor can the thing be green again of itself. Sound and color both run through in the same way, and both are received from Heaven, and the green upon green of a color is like the full and thick of a sound. The color of a dead thing cannot be green again; that the voice of a dead man alone can speak again of itself is a delusion.

The reason a man can speak is that he has strength of breath, and the fullness of his strength of breath is that he can eat and drink. When eating and drinking are cut down the strength of breath weakens; weakening, the voice grows hoarse; and when he is worn out and cannot eat, his mouth can speak no more. Now death is the worst of being worn out; how can he speak again? Some say, "A dead man savors the breath of the meats and the food, and so he can speak."

Now the essence of a dead man is the essence of a living man. Let a living man not eat and drink but only savor the breath of the meats and the food with his mouth, and in not more than three days he starves to death.

Some say, "The essence of a dead man is more spirit-like than the essence of a living man, and so it can savor breath and make a sound."

Now the essence of a living man is within his body, and when he dies it is outside his body. Wherein do death and life differ, and wherein does within the body differ from outside it? Take water and fill a great basin with it, and let the basin break and the water run upon the ground: can the water on the ground differ from the water in the basin? If the water on the ground does not differ from the water in the basin, for what reason should the essence outside the body differ from the essence within the body?

If a man who dies does not become a ghost, has no knowledge, and cannot speak, then he cannot harm men. How is this proved? Now a man uses breath in his rage and uses strength in harming men; and using strength, he waits upon sinew and bone to be strong, and being strong he can harm men. A raging man cries out beside another and pants the breath of his mouth into the other's face; but though he were as bold as Ben and Yu, breath does not harm men. Let him stretch out his hand and strike, and lift his foot and kick, and what he strikes and kicks is never unbroken. Now when a man dies his bones rot and the strength of his sinews is cut off, and he cannot lift hand or foot; so that though his essential breath were still there, it is like the time of crying out, when there is nothing to follow up and help. With what, then, can he harm men? What makes men and things able to harm men is that hand and arm grip a blade and that claw and tooth are hard and sharp. Now when a man dies his hand and arm rot and give way and can hold a blade no more, and his claws and teeth fall out and can bite and gnaw no more. How could he harm men? When a child is first born its hands and feet are complete; that its hand cannot strike and its foot cannot kick is because the breath has only just frozen into shape and is not yet hard and strong. Speaking from this, it is plain that the essential breath cannot be hard and strong. Breath becomes a body, and while the body is faint and weak it still cannot harm men; how much more in death, when the breath has left and the spirit is cut off. If the faint and weak still cannot harm men, shall cold bones be said to harm men? And if the breath of a dead man has not left him, how could it harm men!

Before a hen's egg is hatched it is dissolved within the shell, and break it and look, and it is like the shape of water. When a good hen broods and crouches upon it the body is then made complete, and after it is made complete it can peck and kick. Now a man's death is like the time of being dissolved; and how should a dissolved breath harm men? The reason a man is bold and fierce and can harm men is his eating and drinking; when his eating and drinking are full and enough he is strong and sturdy and bold and fierce, and being strong and sturdy and bold and fierce he can harm men. When a man is sick and cannot eat and drink his body is lean and weak, and being lean and weak his wretchedness is deep, and so he comes to death. In the time of sickness and wretchedness, though his enemy be at his side he cannot scold him, and though a man steal his goods he cannot forbid it and take them back; and this is because he is lean and weak and wretched and poor. Now death is the worst of being lean and weak and wretched and poor; how could it harm men? A man has chickens and dogs among his stock, and when they are stolen by another, even a man who is timid and without power is never without rage, and at the height of his rage it comes to killing and destroying one another. In times of defeat and disorder men eat one another; and if their spirits had knowledge they ought to be able to harm men. The body is more precious than chickens and dogs, and one's own death weighs more than being robbed; yet there is rage over chickens and dogs and no grudge against the one who ate him. This is the proof that he cannot harm men. Before a cicada sheds its skin it is a fuyu, and once it has shed it leaves the body of the fuyu and becomes the shape of a cicada instead. Is a dead man's spirit leaving his body like a cicada leaving the fuyu! Then what has become a cicada cannot harm what has become a fuyu. Now if a cicada cannot harm a fuyu, how can the spirit of a dead man harm the body of a living man? The meaning of dreams is in doubt. Some say that in a dream the spirit stays of itself within the body and makes likenesses of good and ill fortune; some say that the spirit goes abroad and changes places with men and things. Now if it truly stays within the body, the spirit of the dead will do the same again. And if it truly goes abroad, a man dreams that he kills and wounds a man, and though in dreaming that he kills and wounds a man he be killed again by another, yet the next day he looks at that man's body and examines his own body, and there is no proof of a wound from weapon or blade. Now dreaming uses the spirit, and the spirit is the spirit of death.

If the spirit of dreaming cannot harm men, how should the spirit of death be able to do harm? When the fire is blazing the kettle boils over, and when the boiling stops the breath dies down, for the fire is its master. When the spirit rages, then it can harm men; when it does not rage it cannot harm men. When the fire is fierce in the stove the kettle seethes and the breath steams; when the essence rages within the breast the strength is full and the body is hot. Now when a man is about to die his body is cool and chill, and the chill grows cooler and deeper, and so at last he dies and is gone. At the time of dying the spirit does not rage. And after the body is gone it is like boiling water leaving the kettle; how should it harm men?

Things run through with men. When a man has the sickness of madness, if the thing behind it is known and put in order the sickness is healed. Now while a thing is not yet dead its spirit leans upon its body, and so it can change and have dealings with men; once it is dead its body falls in and rots and its spirit scatters and is gone, and having nothing to lean upon any more it cannot change. Now a man's spirit is like the spirit of a thing. While the thing lives its spirit makes sickness; at its death its spirit melts away and is gone. Men and things are the same, and when they die their spirit is put out as well; how should it be able to work harm and calamity! Suppose it be said that man is precious and that his spirit has something different in it: in the affairs that come about, a thing can change and a man cannot. This would be to make a man's spirit less than a thing's after all, and the spirit of a thing more wonderful than a man's.

Water and fire burn and drown. All that can harm men are things of the five elements. Metal wounds men, wood strikes men, earth presses men, water drowns men, fire burns men. When a man dies, does his spirit become a thing of the five elements? Then it harms men. Does it not? Then it cannot harm men. If it does not become a thing, then it becomes breath. What harms men among breaths is the breath of the great yang when it becomes poison. When a man dies, does his breath become poison? Then it harms men. Does it not? Then it cannot harm men.

Thus it has been argued that a man who dies does not become a ghost, has no knowledge, and cannot harm men. Then it is plain that the ghosts that are seen are not the essence of dead men, and that what harms men is not the work of their essence.