To Have a Good Birth as Well as a Good Death: The Chinese Traditional View of Life and Its Implications for Modernity

Abstract

“Anyone who has a good birth as well as a good death fulfills the humanity.” This is the ideal formulated by Xun Zi (313–238 B.C.), a well-known Chinese philosopher in the period of Warring States. He said; “Birth is the beginning of human life, while death is its end. If both take place perfectly then the one concerned has truly fulfilled the humanity and this is the ideal journey of life” (Xun Zi). This viewpoint has deep significance. It is relatively easy to suggest a good birth and a meaningful life, and it can be understood and accepted by people without much difficulty, but to suggest a good, meaningful death is something quite different. From the above perspective supported by Xun Zi, death and the way of death is a way of being human and the way to ideal life. Thus it not only admitted that death was the natural and inevitable end of human life but also affirmed the value of death.