Death, Immortality & the Soul

There's a bit of discussion regarding death and what, if anything, happens after. I thought I'd post my brief thoughts here as well...

My belief is that Death is not really a loss, but a transformation, and that what we knew as the person moves on to participate in an endless ever-changing dance of manifestation, existence and de-manifestation that is the Tao....

All things emerge from emptiness
All things flourish and dance in endless variation
All things dissolve back into perfect emptiness

..I don't claim to know any better than the next person, but from observing nature we see things conceived, born, growing, dieing, decaying and becoming source material for new life. It seems to me that the desire for some form of personal survival is a natural feature of the ego.

Fundamentally there is no you and I, this and that - all are part of the same single thing - The Tao. The Tao is the thing that is immortal and as a part of it, so are we, but I see nothing in nature to convince me that anything of my personal identity would survive after death, and indeed what use is that identity without the physical person? Nature doesn't retain things out of sentiment.

I can't remember where I read it (somewhere online) but somebody wrote that you already know what death is like. You have been dead (i.e. non-existent) for billions of years before life existed on Earth, or before you were conceived, and death is exactly like that. That seems reasonable to me.

I've tried to synthesize my thoughts into a few brief paragraphs, using the beliefs entry on the Reform Taoism site as a starting point, and this is the best I've come up with so far...

I believe that mortal existence is just one of the infinite number of manifestations of the Tao. Will we be reunited with our loved ones after mortal death? There is no way to know, so I believe that we should focus on the living of life, and not on speculation on what happens after.

I believe that we must learn to overcome the human instinct to view mortal death as bad and as the "ultimate end", and to rest comfortably knowing that what happens to us after mortal death is also part of the eternal process of the Tao. If we can learn to live in harmony with the Tao during our mortal lives, we will be in harmony with the Tao at the time of our mortal death. If we can manage that, then everything else will fall into place; that is the nature of the Tao.