Life and Death
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Life and death are inextricably intertwined, a fact noted by various religious and philosophical schools around the world. Life is an essential components in the dynamic of the world, but all life eventually dies. In broad terms, all life also comes from death, or from a lack-of-life, as if life were being created out of nothing. At some point in the past, it must indeed have been created out of lifeless material, and since that time life and death have alternated, the one creating or contributing to the creation of the next. The idea of the relationship between life and death is often expressed better in Eastern philosophy than in Western, which is less given to finding the unity in the world and more to differentiating between elements and behaviors. The question of immortality is an ancient one and is key in philosophy and religion. Man lives a span of years and then dies, and probably from the very beginning of the human race men and women have wondered if there is something beyond death. Ashley Montagu writes, "Man, we reasonably assume, is the only living creature who entertains the idea of immortality" (Montagu 1). Much of religion is concerned with the notion of the afterlife and with the behavior in this life that leads to a certain kind of afterlife. Many ancient peoples showed their belief in immortality through burial customs that sent the departed individual to the afterlife with many of his or her possessions, presumably so they could be used there as w
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e yang grows larger, it will soon have to yield to the yin in order to restore the balance. All of this is in keeping with the mutual dependence of yin and yang (Wu 160).
The word "yang" originally meant sunshine and light, while "yin" meant the absence of sunshine. The concepts were later developed to mean two cosmic principles or forces representing the respective opposites noted above. all the phenomena observed in the universe were produced through the interaction of these two primary principles, and the concept of yin-yang has remained prominent in Chinese cosmological speculation until recent times. An early reference can be found in the Kuo Yn or Discussion of the States, compiled in the fourth or third century B.C. This is a historical work that records that an earthquake occurred in the year 780 B.C. and that says of this event: "When the Yang is concealed and cannot come forth, and when the Yin is repressed and cannot issue forth, then there are earthquakes" (Fung 138).
In his Phaedo, Plato addresses the question of immortality directly and attempts to prove that immortality is a truth that has to be accepted by reasoning man. Plato's spokesman, Socrates, believes in the eternal life of the soul and guides the di
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1748
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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