On Death, Dasein, and Zen.

Thinking further on Heidegger's view of being-towards-death, it has almost Zen-like implications. Because to exist in neither denying, nor accepting (immanent) death, we must shrug. Death could be a non-subject, but nevertheless a subject from which we aquire meaning (as Dasein). It is not a subject of willful ignorance, since this would make it a subject (in that we must know of it, to ignore it, ala Sartre's Bad Faith), but a kind of shrugging, a non-reaction to it. But still an awareness, or anticipation, of course, but a much deeper level of awareness than the word implies, a form of intrinisic awareness.


Related Tags: death . dasein . bad faith . heidegger . sartre . zen . philosophy