Zhuangzi presents death as a natural transformation within the ceaseless flow of change, rather than as a calamity or final negation. Life and death are likened to the alternation of the seasons or to different phases in a continuous process, governed by the Dao. What is conventionally called “life” and “death” are simply distinct moments in the same ongoing movement of transformation. From this vantage point, death is not an intrusion into the natural order but an expression of it, a shift in configuration rather than an absolute end.

Because of this, the sharp boundary usually drawn between life and death is treated as a product of limited, human-centered perspective. Zhuangzi suggests that the distinction is relative and, in a deeper sense, illusory: both states belong to the same underlying reality, much like waking and sleeping. The self that clings to life as a possession is itself only a temporary arrangement of energies, not a fixed and enduring entity. When that arrangement dissolves, it is not annihilation but a return of elements to broader patterns of the Dao.

This understanding grounds an attitude of equanimity toward mortality. Fear of death and excessive grief are seen as symptoms of attachment to transient forms and of ignorance regarding the larger process at work. The sage, by contrast, does not prefer life over death, but accepts both with the same calm, recognizing them as complementary aspects of a single order. Stories associated with Zhuangzi, such as his unconventional response to his wife’s death, dramatize this stance: to mourn as if something absolutely precious had been lost would be to misunderstand the nature of transformation.

Zhuangzi’s reflections thus point toward a freedom that arises when death is viewed as a return to the undifferentiated source from which all things emerge. Individual identity, no longer grasped as something separate and permanent, is seen as a passing configuration that eventually dissolves back into the Dao. To see death in this way is not to deny its poignancy, but to situate it within a vaster rhythm of arising and returning. Such insight allows a more spontaneous, unburdened way of living, in which anxiety about death loosens its grip and existence can unfold in harmony with the natural way.