To live and die once in the universe

Take another case, that of a terminally ill patient in a hospital. He is conscious but his days are short. His inochi is irreplaceable because he has lived a life full of ups and downs, is dying here at the hospital alone, and after his death he will never live again the same life in this world. He is sometimes seized with a strong fear of death, and attempts to give some meaning to his whole life in order to reconcile himself to it. His inochi is interrelated in that he remains alive with the help of medical equipment and the medical staff, and in the sense that his spirit is healed by the smile of a nurse, or that his condition makes his family happy or sad. He will die an irreplaceable and interrelated death.

To live and die is to lead one’s own life only once in space and time. To live and die is to lead one’s own life in the midst of infinite networks of inochi in the universe.

Here arise the following metaphysical questions. What is it that makes inochi irreplaceable? What is it that makes inochi interrelated?

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The Concept of Inochi, Part 2
(1991)
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