When Zhuangzi went to Ku,
he saw an empty skull, bleached indeed,
but still retaining its shape.
Tapping it with his horse-switch,
he asked it, saying,

‘Did you, Sir, in your greed of life,
fail in the lessons of reason, and come to this?

Or did you do so, in the service of a perishing state,
by the punishment of the axe?

Or was it through your evil conduct,
reflecting disgrace on your parents and on your wife and children?

Or was it through your hard endurances of cold and hunger?

Or was it that you had completed your term of life?’

Having given expression to these questions,
he took up the skull,
and made a pillow of it when he went to sleep.
At midnight the skull
appeared to him in a dream,
and said,

‘What you said to me was after the fashion of an orator.
All your words were about the entanglements of men in their lifetime.
There are none of those things after death.
Would you like to hear me, Sir, tell you about death?’
‘I should,’ said Zhuangzi,
and the skull resumed:

‘In death there are not (the distinctions of) ruler above and minister below.
There are none of the phenomena of the four seasons.
Tranquil and at ease, our years are those of heaven and earth.
No king in his court has greater enjoyment than we have.’

Zhuangzi did not believe it, and said,
‘If I could get the Ruler of our Destiny
to restore your body to life with its bones and flesh and skin,
and to give you back your father and mother,
your wife and children, and all your village acquaintances,
would you wish me to do so?’

The skull stared fixedly at him, knitted its brows, and said,
‘How should I cast away the enjoyment of my royal court,
and undertake again the toils of life among mankind?’

–Zhuangzi, Perfect Enjoyment, by Zhuang Zhou, trans. James Legge

This dialog, in a surreal scene Zhuangzi the Taoist sage picks up a skull found alongside the road.  An exposed human skull would stimulate anyone to thought.  He speculates to himself about the possibilities of life, about how this person might have had his rendezvous with the grim reaper.  What of someone overcome by avarice who overlooks the lessons of prudence, and in the pursuit for “more” comes to an untimely end?  Then he considers the fate of a soldier overtaken by the logic of war, in the service of a dying state.  As one does his “duty” who can know whether a state is perishing or no?  Not every sacrifice is noble.  Are some military deaths simply a tragic waste?  Next is the outcome that awaits those who pursue criminal conduct: disgrace upon the entire family.  And some simply endure the “slings and arrows” of poverty, born into an unfortunate country, or living in a derelict town or to a troubled family. until the end comes.  Finally, the departed represented by the skull perhaps simply finished his/her term of life.  One way or another death awaits everyone.

According to the story, after deciding to make use of the skull as a pillow, the skull appears to the sleeping Zhuangzi as an apparition.  The skull asks if Zhuangzi would like to hear about death.  The skull continues, reporting that the dead have none of the distinctions which the living make by virtue of language.  Without words and the connotations of value which are attached to words, the dead experience a maximum of relaxation and pleasure.  Experience is whole and entire, not chopped up by desire or avoidance.  No king in his court has greater enjoyment than we have.

Zhuangzi this question to the skull: If offered would you take a “do over”?

The answer comes: Once is enough.