Zhuangzi approaches the fear of death by loosening the very conceptual knots that make death terrifying. Life and death are treated as phases in a larger process of transformation, comparable to the changing of the seasons. What is ordinarily called “death” is portrayed as a shift of form within the Dao, rather than a final annihilation. In this light, resisting death becomes as unreasonable as resenting autumn for following summer. By framing existence as an unbroken flow, he dissolves the rigid hierarchy that treats life as inherently good and death as inherently bad. Fear softens when death is seen as participation in a wider, ongoing movement rather than a personal catastrophe.

A central strategy in this vision is the relativizing of all fixed distinctions, including that between life and death. Zhuangzi suggests that human judgments about which state is “better” are limited and parochial, much like a dreamer trying to evaluate waking life from within a dream. The famous butterfly dream underscores this uncertainty about identity and state: if it is unclear whether one is a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man, the boundary between living and dying also becomes questionable. Life and death thus appear as two perspectives within a single, shifting reality, rather than two absolute and opposed realms. When the solidity of these categories is undermined, the emotional grip of death anxiety begins to loosen.

This philosophical stance is closely tied to an ethic of acceptance, spontaneity, and non-attachment. Fear of death is traced to clinging—to life, to possessions, to reputation, and above all to a fixed sense of self. Zhuangzi’s ideal is a way of being that responds to each moment with effortless accord to the Dao, without trying to control what cannot be controlled. Birth, death, and the timing of events are treated as matters of fate, to be received rather than resisted. Such acceptance is not passive resignation but a relaxed alignment with the natural order, in which death is simply one more transformation to be met with equanimity.

Regarding what lies beyond death, Zhuangzi remains notably reticent. He emphasizes the fundamental ignorance of human beings about any possible afterlife and treats elaborate doctrines of reward, punishment, or personal immortality as speculative projections of fear and desire. Rather than constructing a detailed picture of post-mortem existence, he redirects attention to how one lives now—freely, naturally, and without the burden of anxious calculation about what comes next. If there is any “after,” it is spoken of only in terms of returning to the undifferentiated source, the Dao, and even this is not elaborated as a concrete doctrine. The practical effect is to shift spiritual concern away from securing a future state and toward embodying a spacious, ungrasping freedom in the present.