First of all, a necessary clarification of some common ambiguities in our speech. What is the opposite of death? Is it life? Or is it birth? When we say that life is opposed to death, we mean that being alive is opposed to being dead. But when we say that birth is opposed to death, we mean that the process of being born is opposed to dying. The former pair of opposites has to do with states of being, whereas the latter pair has to do with events of becoming and ceasing-to-be.
Life, as the state of being alive, cannot be opposed to dying; dying is merely the process or event by which the state of being alive comes to an end. There is no opposition here. Similarly, the process of being born is not opposed to the state of being dead; they have rather little to do with each other. But being alive is opposed to being dead; and birth is opposed to dying.
This has all been observed by Abou Rijal in the series of aphorisms he recently published on his blog. On this basis, he makes a highly clarifying distinction between two types of advice: one, which might be found in Heidegger, which is to live as one who is dying; and another, more Zen-like in its tenor, which is to live as one who is already dead. Heidegger’s wisdom about being-towards-death is challenging enough to the numbed inhabitants of the late-capitalist matrix, who are obsessed with “living the life” and prefer to forget that they will die. Yet the second piece of advice is not only more challenging, but strikes us as simply absurd, because it appears to recommend the impossible: living as though one were dead—i.e. a coincidence of opposites: being alive and being dead.
What could such a piece of advice mean? Abou suggests something like the following:
In one sense, to say “live as though you were dead” is to say “live as though you were universal” … Death is the manner of being of the ontopolitan, to live “universally”, dead to one's particularity (which is not to say that particularity is somehow effaced—on the contrary, this death to it, is a death to its limits, and it this which allows it to blossom without impediment).
As I have written elsewhere, Kojève similarly suggests that a parent “dies” to himself in his particularity by passing on to his child, and thus preserving in his child, that which is universal about himself, namely his knowledge or his consciousness. This a parent does by means of educating the child. Death here refers to the death of one’s particularity in the preservation of one’s universality. Yet even Kojève here appears to be attending merely to the event of death, not to the state of being dead as itself a way of living, which is Abou’s point. To be already dead to one’s individuality, to one’s ego-self, is to no longer regard oneself as a separate entity subsisting apart from the whole, the universal. It is to be selfless.
The difference between this being-dead and the event of dying might also be compared to another contrast highlighted by an ancient Buddhist proverb (my paraphrase): There is no need to become the Buddha; skip the becoming, and simply be the Buddha. Similarly, one may advise a man mired in “everydayness” not simply to live as a “being-towards-death” a la Heidegger, living in anticipation of that fateful event at the endpoint of one’s life, but simply to be dead here and now. Live as a dead man, here and now. Be universal now. Don’t wait for the event of dying to happen in the future. Be selfless now. Get busy dyin’—nay, get busy being dead. Here and now, be the coincidence of opposites.
I would make an addition of my own to Abou’s aphorism—an inversion of it: When dead, be dead as though you are alive. That is, being alive is the only way to be dead.
Note that this is different from the typical formulation of the relationship between life and death that one might find in ordinary Christian eschatology. When a Christian claims that “there is life after death,” he means that after the event of death one may go on living, albeit in a transformed and glorified way. Alternatively, he might mean that those who are in the state of death may look forward to the event of coming to life again (resurrection). Either way, such a formulation carefully avoids running into a coincidence of opposites: it avoids any identification of life as the way to be dead, just as Heidegger’s “being-towards-death” avoids identifying death as the way to live, but merely exhorts us, the living, to look ahead towards the event of death.
My formulation, by contrast, seeks to make just such an identification: when dead, be dead as though you are fully alive. The state of being dead is the state of being alive. What can I possibly mean by such a statement? Meister Eckhart asserts that, insofar as God is Being, we creatures are nothing. But if instead we consider ourselves to be something, then God must be absolute Nothing. I who am something am also nothing. A similar relation may apply between the contraries of life and death. From the point of view of one who is living, God casts a shadow of death upon me. But conversely, from the point of view of one who is dead, God casts the light of life. Yet God is one: the shadow of death and the light of life are one, and God himself is both Life and Death. Not only does same God who negates me when I am alive resurrect me when I am dead, but in respect to God, I am both living and dead: insofar as God is Life, I am dead; insofar as God is Death, I am alive.
I return to God only by dying—not merely by physically dying, but by the total death to myself that is accomplished by absolute detachment. At the same time, by returning to God, I am coming to life—but not merely into my own life, which is death compared to God’s life. Rather, I am coming into God’s life, which is infinitely greater. Yet, again, it is precisely because I am coming into God’s life that I am dying with respect to my life. And thus, having died and now being dead, I am more fully and infinitely alive: I am dead as though I am fully alive.
What is the point of this contradictory meditation? Readers who have followed my writings on this blog may have noticed that I have come to imagine salvation, or heaven, as a kind of death. Not only a kind of death, but an absolute death: I die to myself in every way, so that not I but Christ may live in me. To enjoy eternal beatitude is, in a quite real sense, to be annihilated: No one can see me and live. So, though it is counterintuitive, it makes sense to me to conceive of absolute death as the very essence of salvation. Yet the Christian tradition also speaks of salvation as life, “eternal life.” Therefore, on some divine level, death and life must coincide as a unity opposites.
Similarly, I sometimes think of hell not as death but as life—insofar as life is suffering and mediocrity. Indeed, the damned are those who are afraid to lose their lives for Christ, so they obstinately cling on to life, and are permitted to “live forever” in their self-inflicted pain. In an opposite way to heaven, hell is also “eternal life.” But of course, the scriptures also speak of hell as a kind of death, in contrast to the life of God which the blessed enjoy. Therefore, likewise, on some creaturely and non-divine level, death and life must coincide as a unity of opposites.
The point of this all is not merely to confuse us, although it is certainly worth reflecting on how all our concepts, words, and even the meaning of real phenomena like death and life, are thrown into disarray as soon as the light of God is reflected on them. Compared to God, nothing makes sense. Or alternatively, if everything makes sense to us—if we think we’ve got everything figured out, life and death and every pair opposites neatly slotted into place—then God won’t make any sense to us.
However, there is another reason, more “practical” and “ascetical,” for this reflection. It has to do with the attitude we take towards life and death themselves—and especially towards death, which is typically the more feared of the two. If God is Death as well as Life, and if our return to God is as much a dying as a coming-to-life, it is imperative that learning how to die and how to be dead be a central part of our spiritual life. This requires utterly severing our desire for eternal life—salvation in God—from any attachment to this life: it means living this life as though we are already dead. Our desire for eternal life or immortality cannot be a desire for this life, only stretched to infinity. Our desire for God cannot be a desire for the glorification of our familiar old selves—“Me,” just better and holier. No. There must be no “me” about it. We must desire only God’s life and God’s eternal selfhood—and therefore our own death and negation. This alone can be what it means to desire eternal life.
Final point is tremendous
I've heard the claim that dead man walking originally comes from an Indian term for sage. I don't know the veracity of that but I think it's a fun story. Additionally I found ''"Dead Man Walking" that does date back to the 1800s. It was used to describe the eerie calmness before a storm hit.''