Tag Archives: reincarnation

Evolution and Reincarnation

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Reincarnation is a fact. Certainly from the perspective of physics and biology. The universe is in some senses an enormous recyling engine.

Physically, atoms were generated by the multiple growth, death and regrowth of different star systems. The earth consists of the detritus and mixing from these. Life is literally made of stardust.

Biologically, life is based on carbon. This is less than 0.025% of the material of the earth’s crust, yet life has recycled usable carbon up to 10,000 times.

(Kipp, M.A. (2023) ‘Carbon cycling: How much life has ever existed on Earth?’, Current Biology, 33(21), pp. R1153–R1155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.041.
)

Think what this means. We are literally made of atoms that were once in plants, bacteria, other animals, dinosaurs even. We are the current expression of a constant process of reincarnation. Oh, and this recycling of carbon is increasing in rate – exponentially.

And of course we are most likely to share molecules with those near to us in space and time. Much of what we consider to be ourselves, biologically, is actually non-human. Within each person the human cells are outnumbered by non-human – fungi and bacteria that are part of us, sustaining us and in constant interplay with our human cells and those around us. We are exchanging molecules all of the time.

I like the idea that – physically – I am joined with those around me. My mother died 20 years ago, but some atoms that were within her are still within me and indeed my children.

The life of our mind and spirit is an expression or facet of physical life. And vice versa. Whatever the Buddhists say about spiritual reincarnation (and I have a hunch that they are on to something), it exists in the material world.

Self and Reincarnation

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I understand that the “illusion of self” is a central tenet of Buddhism? It seems to me that this (the self) is an appearance of stability and boundary that arises out of continuous flow. This is borrowed directly from David Bohm ( “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”). John Dewey put it like this ;“The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action” .

Why then, and on what basis do Buddhists conceive of re-incarnation. What is being re-incarnated? No soul, no self. What then keeps coming back? This seems to me to be a fundamental inconsistency which arises out of focus on boundary rather than wholeness.

Surely, if self is an illusion – then this is a release from self, itself?! Indeed a release from death. What is not there in the first place cannot presumably cease thereafter?

Teilhard de Chardin would have it that all of matter is evolving toward consciousness. Separately he has it that there will be an “Omega Point” where each realises that we are all-in-all to each other – and that all energy is Love and God.

In that case surely our “self” is an illusion. We are already part of what Martin Buber would call the “eternal Thou”. We only have to realise it. Put another way, for Buber our “I” does not exist except in relation to “Thou” – with a reality of “I-Thou” that opens us to our relationship with the “eternal Thou” (I think I have that right?). In that case our “self” doesn’t exist. Indeed ignoring the “Thou” only gets you to a kind of Freudian thinking – “I-It” materialism –  the self-reflective dead end of narcissism.

So. I am attracted to Buddhism, but don’t buy their take on reincarnation; or at least I don’t understand it. More work to be done!

Carpe Diem

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A day is like a lifetime

A lifetime like a day

But night contains the lifeline

That runs through death, decay

 

As darkness follows life

And night puts light to flight

So black is just the shoreline

Of new existence bright

 

From it’s grandest height

Life on its axis spins

With God’s benign design

The next new day begins

 

Our day is like a lifetime

Whose flight is like the may

evanescent paradigm

of life fill-fulled each day

 

 

 

 

 

Anatta and Reincarnation

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Let us, as a postulate, embrace the “illusion of self” that is central to Buddhism. There are  powerful intellectual supporters for that statement. David Hume and neuroscientists for example.

Why then, and on what basis, do Buddhists need to claim re-incarnation. What is being re-incarnated? No soul, no self – what then keeps coming back? This seems to me to be a fundamental inconsistency.

Surely, if our self is an illusion – then this is a release from self. Indeed a release from death. What is not there in the first place cannot presumably cease thereafter?

Teilhard de Chardin would have it that all of matter is evolving toward consciousness. Separately he has it that there will be an “Omega Point” where each realises that we are all-in-all to each other – and that all energy is Love and God.

In that case surely our “self” is an illusion. We are already part of what Martin Buber would call the “eternal Thou”. We only have to realise it. Put another way, for Buber our “I” does not exist except in relation to “Thou” – with a reality of “I-Thou” that opens us to our relationship with the “eternal Thou” (I think I have that right?). In that case our “self” doesn’t exist. Indeed ignoring the “Thou” only gets you to a kind of Freudian thinking – “I-It” materialism –  the self-reflective dead end of narcissism.

So. I am attracted to Buddhism, but don’t buy their take on reincarnation. Anatta yes, but only because we’re already all-in-all.

(This by the way is I believe a fundamentally Christian viewpoint).