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Laughter. Yes, laughter is the Zen attitude towards death and towards life too, because life and death are not separate. Whatsoever is your attitude towards life will be your attitude towards death, because death comes as the ultimate flowering of life. Life exists for death. Life exists through death. Without death there will be no life at all. Death is not the end but the culmination, the crescendo. Death is not the enemy it is the friend. It makes life possible.
Rajneesh
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Laughter signifies a balanced perspective on life and death, showing they are interconnected.

This quote by Rajneesh emphasizes the intrinsic relationship between life and death, suggesting that our approach to one mirrors our approach to the other. By accepting death as a natural part of life, we can appreciate life's beauty more fully and recognize that death is not an end, but rather an essential component of the life cycle that adds depth and meaning to our existence.

Themes

LaughterLifeDeathAttitudeZenPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a speech about coping with loss during a memorial service.

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We start making every child ambitious, and ambition means you cannot love; ambition is anti-love. Ambition needs fight, ambition needs struggle, ambition needs you to use others as a means.
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There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how to allow dance, if you know how to allow love - if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be - that is the only art of life.
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Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not "in love", one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
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