Xuanpin

The handsome young man asked Yangzi, "What do you think of people who love life, especially their own life, and seek immortality?"

"There's no such thing as immortality."

"Is it possible to extend life, then?"

"Life-extension is nonsense too. Loving life doesn't mean you'll survive. Coveting life doesn't make you healthy. And what do you get for living so long? The five senses turn from pleasure to pain, the four limbs from fit to frail, a life's work from joy to sorrow. Out of touch with changing times, you've heard it before, seen it before, done it before. After a hundred years, you're sick and tired. Such a bitter reward."

The young man replied, "When you put it like that, dying young is better than getting old, so I might as well just take this knife and slit my own throat right now, fall into the fire and get it over with."

Yangzi replied, "That's not what I'm saying at all. You're alive, so surrender to life and embrace it. Want what it gives you so you're resigned to death. You're going to die, so surrender to death and embrace it. Let go when it takes you so you're relieved of your cares. There's nothing that doesn't give in, nothing that doesn't hold on. Why hurry or delay the comforting call?"