The Reincarnation Game

The idea of reincarnation, that living beings transmigrate from one life to another in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth, has been advanced by many diverse religious and philosophical traditions down through the ages. For many of these traditions the process of reincarnation is viewed negatively, as something to be either eradicated or transcended.

Personally, I have never been able to adopt the idea that living beings reincarnate. Moreover, I have not been able to adopt the belief that any type of existence whatsoever awaits those who relinquish their corporeal existence. Nevertheless, if reincarnation was in indeed a reality, I would certainly view it as something positive. The chance to experience life again, even though it be rife with suffering, would, to my mind, be preferable to the nothingness that I suspect awaits me at the end of my journey.

Recently, I decided to play a little game with myself and imagine that reincarnation was indeed a reality. I then asked myself if there was anything in my life that might be a mental or emotional carryover from a previous life. Below is what I came up with:

1) I have always had an extreme aversion to having things touch the anterior portion of my neck. While it is extremely uncomfortable to wear a tie, I can manage it for a short time. Turtleneck sweaters I can absolutely not endure. A simple touch of my throat area will generally cause me to cower. My wife has always joked that I must have been either hung or strangled in a previous life. Hmmmm, maybe I had.

2) Occasionally, perhaps three or four times a year at most, I will have an experience that is difficult to qualify. It is strictly a physical experience without any accompanying conceptuality. The sensation is localized within the upper chest and face, principally in the inner chest, mouth, throat and nasal areas. It is neither a pleasant nor unpleasant sensation. It lasts but a few seconds and then dissipates. I have not been able to ascertain a catalyst for the experience, but it seems to arise during moments of relative passivity - lying in bed, watching television, riding in a car. I have, with some concentrated effort, been able to induce this experience once or twice in my lifetime by merely thinking about it. I have come to think of this sensation as a memory of some type of kinesthetic experience from early childhood, perhaps a feeding experience during infancy. Perhaps this “memory” stems from an experience prior to my birth.

3) When I was very young I had a recurring dream. This particular dream would occur infrequently, maybe four or five times a year. When I stopped having the dream is not known, but I suspect that it had ceased to invade my sleep by my teens. The dream would commence with me and my family (not necessarily my real family) in our house’s living room just moments before sunset. We would all be engaged in some action that we knew would need to be ceased upon the setting of the sun, because if any noise was made after sunset, the horrible monster-man would come up from the cellar and drag the noise-making culprit down into the basement where he would toss him/her into the furnace. Needless to say, I was the one who invariably made some incredibly small sound and wound up tossed head first into the furnace. Now, I have always wondered about this dream. Why did I have it and why did it replay itself repeatedly throughout my youth? I have always just assumed that it was a common nightmare where a child’s fear of the basement was transformed into a Bogeyman dream. However, when I played my little reincarnation game, this dream was the first thing to enter my thoughts. It reminded me of the story of Anne Frank and how she and the others with her were discovered hiding in an upstairs attic and sent to a concentration camp. Now, I am in no way suggesting that I was Anne or any of the others who were hiding with her. But the linking of my dream to the story of Anne Frank got me thinking. Could this dream, with its theme of abduction and death by furnace, have been an intrusion of a past life memory into my dreams? Might I have been a Holocaust victim? It is interesting to speculate.

4) Recently, during certain moments of death contemplation, I will have the “feeling” that I have experienced a Bardo-type state before. I have no rational explanation for this.

5) When my youngest daughter was no more than two years old I asked her where she lived before she was born. She stated, without hesitation, “Japan.” Needless to say, I found her reply fascinating. I wondered where she picked up that word and how she knew that it was a place. Kids learn the darndest things. Or maybe she remembered it! Incidentally, she was born with a Mongolian spot on her tushy, which is especially prevalent among children of East Asian descent. (OK, technically this is not something in my life that suggests I may have lived before, but it does have some relevance to my discussion of reincarnation. Besides, my daughter will get a kick out of her cameo in my blog…except the part where I mention her tukhus [from the Yiddish תּחת tokhes, meaning butt]. )

So, what have I taken away from all of this? I’m not sure. It was an interesting exercise, but I’m not sure if it had any value other than being a mental workout. What about you…do you subscribe to the notion of reincarnation? If so, tell me about your past life(s). If not, what anomalous things in your life might be indications of a past life? Play the reincarnation game and leave your comments.

Cernunnos and his sexually deviant older brother, Pashupati.

Recently, Cernunnos and his ExtenZe enhanced penis have been getting some attention over at V.V.F. Here the author, with a tad bit of humor, bemoans what he/she perceives to be an unhealthy sexual undercurrent found among many Pagan/Wiccan communities. You can read the author’s two posts here and here.

In the first post, the author wonders why Cernunnos, who appears rather prudish on the Gundestrup Cauldron, should be denied his clothing in many modern portrayals.

The rather dapper Cernunnos

Now, I personally have never met Cernunnos, but I have had the opportunity to become acquainted with his sexually deviant older brother, Pushupati.

The ithyphalic Pashupati

Unfortunately, as so often happens between siblings attending school years apart, a younger sibling will be conflated with an older brother or sister. This may just be the case here. Perhaps the author’s concerns would be alleviated if those confused Pagans/Wiccans realized their mistake and became Shaivites.

A Look at Two Salvations

Recently at The Magical Messiah the conceptual differences between the notions of salvation among Eastern religious traditions and Western religious traditions are identified. Though the post’s author sees a divergent conceptual outlook operating between the East and West, he nevertheless holds that the East and West arrives at or achieves the same religious goal. You can view the original post here. I would just like to give a few comments concerning this post below. In my post, I will limit my discussion primarily to issues I find troubling in relation to Buddhism.

At the outset, the author identifies the conceptual outlook of the Eastern traditions toward salvation as one's “attaining to correct knowledge of the true Self and that Self’s relationship to Reality”, whereas the conceptual outlook of the Western traditions towards salvation is articulated as “the realignment of the lower self, psyche, or soul with the higher Self or spirit.” In this, I think the author’s presentation of the conceptual outlook of the traditions is, in very general terms, an adequate model for exploring the contrasting viewpoints among the Eastern and Western traditions. However, caution is needed when lumping the various traditions together to form either of the two broad categories of “Eastern “ or “Western” traditions and their corresponding conceptual outlooks regarding salvation . Hinduism and Buddhism, at least from an orthodox point of view, offer very different presentations of the individual and salvation/liberation. Even within each of the traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism themselves quite disparate views on important issues related to the nature of reality, the individual, "no-self" (anatman) and salvation/liberation are entertained. For instance, are we to accept the Vedic religion to be a part of the Hindu tradition? If so, how are we to rectify its conception of salvation as the correct performance of ritual with the view presented above, namely – that salvation is the attainment of correct knowledge? What are we to make of the many practicing Buddhists for whom salvation through correct knowledge means little to nothing, but instead are concerned with ethical action and “salvation” through better rebirths?

While the above issues are important, they are of minor concern to me in relation to the actual presentation of the conceptual outlook of the Eastern traditions. My difficulties may only be semantic in nature. The author’s use of the terms “Self” and “true self” are troubling since Buddhism denies the existence of “self” (atman). A definition of “Self” or “true self” from the author’s perspective would be illuminating (I will have more to say about what I think the author intends by these words below).

The author continues to demonstrate the conceptual disparity between the Eastern and Western traditions by stating that the Eastern traditions deny “the reality of both the physical body and the psyche, while the Western schools affirm the existence of both of the same elements but sees flaws in them….” This is simply erroneous, at least with respect to Buddhism. In Buddhism the mind and body are not seen as unreal or illusory. What is illusory or unreal is a mistaken conception about them. Indeed, one of the earliest means to salvation/liberation was the technique of analyzing the constituent elements of existence in regard to the individual (skandha) and external phenomena (dharma). It was hoped that by doing so, the mediator would perceive that which is not among those things that do in fact exist, namely- “self” or atman. The early Abhidarma texts preserve a plethora of approaches for analyzing such phenomena. Furthermore, there is a cornucopia of Buddhist texts dealing with both psychological and epistemological models of the mind. In these texts the mental/psychic components are not seen as unreal or illusory. Instead, these components are contemplated in order to show the mediator exactly where illusion or ignorance originates in the mind, how it continues to reside in the mind and how it may be eradicated.

After detailing what he sees as the apparent conceptual disparities between East and West, the author presents what appears to be his major thesis, namely- that despite all conceptual differences or distinctions the Eastern and Western traditions achieve the same religious goal. They all end up at the same place. Now, what exactly is this religious goal that the author sees as being shared among the Eastern and Western traditions? According to the author, it is the identification with the Absolute. It is the identification with something (i.e., the Self) that is the antithesis of the transitory constituents of mind and body. Exactly what this something/Self is remains unclear. However, the author indicates that it is “beyond time, space and death.” It is in fact a “Changeless Reality.” This view of reality smells of monism and is functionally equivalent to the teachings of the Advaita Vedanta, an influential sub-school of the Vedānta school of Hindu philosophy at the time of the Buddha. According to Advaita Vedanta, the only reality is the Absolute, which is Brahman. Typically, this Brahman is designated by the term atman or “self” when it remains undiscovered among the illusory or transitory components of mind and body. Now it is just this “self” that is vehemently denied within early Buddhism by the anatman (“no-self”) doctrine (of course, the anatman doctrine was supplanted later on among certain Mahayana schools by the doctrine of sunyata or “emptiness” in order to deny the reality of other non-existents as well). Indeed, among the early Buddhists no-thing is found outside of the transitory components of body/matter and mind. Here salvation is the recognition of the nature of the transitory components of existence (dharma) alone. No-thing exists outside these transitory components.

Now, in all fairness to the author of Two Salvations, certain Buddhist schools have been interpreted by Western scholars to be monistic . The Yogacara school, certain Madhyamaka teachings, and certain forms of the Buddha-nature doctrine have been especially susceptible to such interpretations. Many contemporary scholars who are working with the primary texts, however, find fault with these interpretations. What is more, certain Buddhist schools have accused other Buddhists of being monists. Despite these facts, no Buddhist school will accept the idea that it adheres to a monistic philosophy.