Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 50 — Out of Life, Into Death
He who knows how to live encounters no tiger or wild buffalo
Coming out is life; going in is death. Three in ten follow life; three in ten follow death; three in ten move from life toward death through restless craving. Only one in ten knows how to live: he encounters no tiger or wild buffalo, for in him there is no death-place to receive their horns.
Source context
- Theme
- life and death as interpenetrating thresholds — emergence into life as simultaneous entry into death's domain
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Daoist cosmologyChapter 50 presents birth as departure into life and entry into death as a single movement, with thirteen companions of life mirroring thirteen companions of death — a structural polarity native to Daoist teaching on the inseparability of sheng and si.
- Vedantic teaching on jīva and mṛtyuThe Upanishadic motif of the jīva moving between life-worlds (loka) and the realm of Yama shows cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 50's figure who, by holding to life fully, finds no ground for death to enter.
- Stoic philosophyThe Stoic identification of the sage who, by living according to logos, passes through mortal danger without vulnerability, shows cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's account of one who has 'no place for death to enter.'
Chapter 50
Men come forth and live; they enter (again) and die.
Of every ten three are ministers of life (to themselves); and three are ministers of death.
There are also three in every ten whose aim is to live, but whose movements tend to the land (or place) of death. And for what reason? Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life.
But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid buff coat or sharp weapon. The rhinoceros finds no place in him into which to thrust its horn, nor the tiger a place in which to fix its claws, nor the weapon a place to admit its point. And for what reason? Because there is in him no place of death.