To bid eternal farewell to samsara (the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth) is the common objection of all those who want to become votaries of Buddhism. However some of them misinterpret samsara as a term synonymous with “immortality” and wrongly believe that attainment of Buddhahood is equal to becoming an immortal of the Taoist Faith. This is confounding Buddhism and Taoism. Sakyamuni attained enlightenment at thirty. From then on he preached Buddhist gospel for forty nine years. He demised when his life expired. According to Buddhism, the consecutive processes of genesis, abiding, dissolution, and lapse into emptiness form a universal pattern that governs the evolution in the universe. To such an evolution pattern nothing can stay immune. Origination presupposes annihilation. Every being presupposes its opposite. There is nothing immortal in the universe. Therefore Buddhism professes its opposition to all obsessions, including the obsession with longevity, not to say immortality, because obsession is bound to ruin the one who cherishes it. Even when in particular circumstances you need to get yourself committed to something, still I would advise that you “look before you leap”. Remember, do not articulate your committal before you are really clear about the consequence to arise therefrom.

In the patois of the Buddhist Chan Order, there is a frequently used phrase: “to dispose of life”. Some people have been misconstruing the phrase which does not at all mean that the life in question should be put an end to. The meaning of the phrase is that a practitioner ought to face up to the complexities of life, correctly interpret his life, and learn a lesson from it. According to Buddhism, the mundane life is overflowing with sufferings from beginning to end. One is suffering even when he thinks he is having mirth. Troubles and afflictions shadow a human being every minute of his life. The modicum of mirth, even when one were so blessed as to run into it, would usually stay with him much shorter than he expects. There is no such thing as an unending carnival where you can carouse endlessly. To lament its termination is to gratuitously commit yourself to self-torture. In “Nirvana Sutra”, Gautama Buddha says there are “eight modes of suffering” which are: 1) the suffering of being birth, 2) the suffering of ageing, 3) the suffering of illness, 4) the suffering of death, 5) the suffering of parting from whom and what one loves, 6) the suffering of encountering what one hates, 7) the suffering of not being able to obtain what one desires, and 8) the suffering of the burning urges of the skandhas. Therefore the mundane life is a pool of suffering. Is it really worth attaching to it with all your heart? In the patois of the Buddhist Chan Order, there is the saying: “Just leave death alone”. What does this mean? It does not at all mean that by leaving death alone one can acquire immortality. Nobody has been privileged to live forever. It is a plain fact that death daunts everybody. But Buddhism can relieve you of the fear of death, because it can awaken you to the truth that simply remaining passively in fear of death can lead you nowhere and also to the truth that death does not deserve the fright you need to feel for it. Once a practitioner has come to realize what the mundane life really is and discarded all the attachments to the mundane life, death would no longer loom so monstrous and gruesome. The stronger one’s attachment to the mundane life, the more timid he would be when he thinks of death. To sum up, the saying, “Just leave death alone”, implies that we must strive to liberate ourselves from the thralldom the notion of death has traditionally placed us in since time immemorial.