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108. When the Taoist sage Lai was on the verge of death, another sage asked him, "Great is the Maker of Things! What will become of you now? Where will he send you?" Lai replied, "A child who obeys his father and mother will go wherever they tell him to go -- east, west, south, north. Yin and yang, the elements of nature, are they not to a man like a father and mother? If I were not to obey them now that they have brought me to the point of death, how wayward I should be. They are not to be blamed. The great earth burdens me with a body, forces upon me the toil of life, eases me in old age, and calms me in death. If life is good, death is good also. If an ironsmith were casting metal and the metal were to jump up and say, 'Make me into the best of all swords!' the ironsmith would regard it as a bad omen. Now that my human form is decomposing, were I to say, 'I want to be a man! Nothing but a man!' the Maker of Things would think me most unworthy. Heaven and earth are a great forge and the Maker of Things is a master ironsmith. Can the place he is sending me to be the wrong place?" pp. 141-142 Graceful Exits How Great Beings Die 1997 Sushila Blackman