Life is short and transient. The feeling that this evokes is called mujokan in Japanese. Rather than falling into the despair that is so prevalent in the present day, mujokan allows one to accept transience proactively as a sign of vibrant life. In this book Takeuchi Seiichi examines this view of life from the perspectives of philosophy, literature, art, and religion. He delves into the Japanese concepts of grief and pain, life and death, reaching to the very core of the Japanese spirit. This book presents a full record of Takeuchi’s valedictory lectures in commemoration of his retirement from the University of Tokyo.