The Problem of Longevity and Death in Daoism
The stories known under the names Zhuang Zi and Lie Zi present the masters as mystics to whom the emptiness and silence are their homeland and again next time as wise men who confronted with the basic existential questions that vividly burn everyone are staying very much down to earth while confronting the disciples who grow dumb at their answers. This second side of Lie Zi - be it a real man of flesh and blood, or just a imaginary group of wise and unknown people who most probably at the time of their lives have not even known for one and the other - will be presented here on the basis of one of the stories, or better a dialogue, which is given in the text known as Lie Zi.1 I shall allow myself to construct also a commentary to the story in his style, not as an abstract philosophical tractatus, but as into our time (and into European world) moved image of a human being who is writhing with burden of existentials, which are not spared to anyone of us.