Yet Untitled 102 - The delicious finiteness of limited sandwich-ness
Yet Untitled 102 - The delicious finiteness of limited sandwich-ness
Thoughts on Rebirth and Reincarnation
Dearest Yet Untitler,
Something rare happened with the last instalment - I got no likes or comments! I’m grateful - as it tells me that my audience is still discerning. Your honesty keeps me honest and striving! I did feel a stab 😂, but it was brief and I’ve added it to my collection of writerly scars!
I jest. Sometimes, the silence is welcome too. I take it as your permission for me to go off and do something not obviously pleasing sometimes. It’s a privilege I don’t take lightly, so, a genuine thank you for this 🙏🏼.
Today I want to talk (briefly) about a vast topic - REINCARNATION. It’s something that has piqued my curiosity for years and this week it’s been triggered by my deeper reading of Buddhism.
It also piqued the curiosity of a rock-band: The Indigo Girls, who melodiously threw their hands up at the conundrum of reincarnation and karmic debt in their song “Galileo”. Here’s the rather amusing music video.
I’ll come back to this song in a few paragraphs, but here’s - briefly - a few of the pertinent questions that come up for me on the subject:
Who or what is reborn? If it’s me, then why don’t I remember stuff from my previous birth?
I’m very grateful for H.W Schumann’s ‘The Historic Buddha’ that gave me greater clarity about how this idea of reincarnation developed from the Upanishadic tradition to the Buddhist tradition some 2500 years ago. It’s by no means a topic to be dealt with in a few paragraphs of a newsletter, but (briefly) the Buddha proposed that rather than a ‘self’ transmigrating between bodies, a non-self - a conditioned soul - passes onwards, carrying with it, as the Indigo Girls rightly bemoan, the conditioning of its karma - the impression of the life (and lives) it has lived.
As per Schumann, Buddha’s philosophy clearly states that all factors that make up an individual’s personality die when the individual dies, but a certain part of that life carries on. The image he gives to illustrate this is a sting of pearls - with every lifetime, every individuality being a pearl and the string being the ongoing chain of life - the non-self - connecting them all.
When I read this, I had a response that surprised me.
“Well VN, I have you only for this one lifetime. Let’s do this!”
When I felt a surprising sense of elation, I realised that my previous understanding of rebirth had burdened me somewhat. Should I call it the Dracula conundrum? The thought of having to endure yourself for centuries upon end; or for all time to come?
Jokes apart, I was very curious about my response to the Buddha’s nuanced view of rebirth and reincarnation. It stayed at the back of my mind for days as I tried to understand what made me feel…lighter?
Finiteness
Likely, I - Vasant - suddenly felt unburdened of ‘eternity’.
At the same time, I - Vasant - was freshly charged with a new urgency. Perhaps I felt that there was stuff to be done that only Vasant could do!
I - Vasant - was also filled with curiosity about where this underlying life - this non-self aspect carrying the impression of its deeds in this life and lives before - would go next; to what identity, to what context, to what mission? Exciting stuff!
I was also filled with a sense of compassion and protectiveness about the next identity who would house my continuing non-self. It wasn’t different for how I think about my twin girls - Ananya and Aahana, sincerely wanting to set them up well for their lives. In the same way - I suddenly felt like I had things to do, in setting up my next life in th best way I could. And I liked what the Buddha prescribed for the best setup ever - good deeds, good thoughts, good relationships.
Interestingly, I felt more invested when I worked with the knowledge that this next self would NOT be me with all my wants and preferences and peculiarities. There was no second-guessing anymore.
Finiteness II
What is it with finiteness that I suddenly found it such a relief? Was it some kind of escapism? I don’t think it was that. In fact I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.
I know because I started thinking about other finite things in my life and mentally noting my response to them.
Here are a few -
The finiteness of the last piece of sandwich
Especially if the toast is crunchy, I want that last bite to give me its full blast of cheesiness, crunchiness and sandwich-ness. This value of the last bite would not exist if sandwichness was unlimited.
The finiteness of the Sunday outing
In boarding school, we were allowed four Sundays out of campus with our parents. Once you stepped out the gates, you were on the clock - only so many hours to inhale that butter chicken, devour that Softie at Chick-Chocolate’s and shop for ‘tuck’ at Astley Hall.
We would go visit my local guardians - friends of my parents where Shubhi aunty would whip up some delectable ‘butter eggs’ for me. Butter eggs were simple scrambled eggs prepared with a wholesome addition of salted butter and a whole lotta love. I bet my life that their taste was enhanced because I only got to eat them four times or less in four months.
The finiteness of childhood
Ananya and Aahana are growing at supersonic speed. I look away for a second and some vestige of their ultra-cute childhood vanishes in a poof of smoke. Fortunately, I’m hyper aware of this so when I look and catch some aspect of their childhood still there and robust, I keep looking.
If it had been a permanent fixture, perhaps I wouldn’t have given so much of a damn.
The finiteness of my time with Dad
In our last years together, perhaps some aspect of my life was mystically aware that we don’t have all the time in the world. There were some parts of him that were closed, but I had desperately wanted to open them.
We had this one significant conversation towards the end of his life, which, I feel opened him in places that were previously closed. If we apply the Buddha’s teaching of the carrying forward of the conditioned non-self - then it was this openness that was carried forward and whoever dad’s non-self soul went in to inhabit, they are today more open, and perhaps happier wherever they are. That conversation I had with him was had under the duress of an unexplained urgency. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t question it. But I knew then and I know now that it was worth.
I’m sure there’s more to unpack and more sides to this topic to elucidate upon. But - golden words - I’ll stop here dearest Yet Untitler. Now don’t you go being your YU 101 self and leave me off without no response. Go on. Leave me a comment. You know you want to. Remember, this time we have here together too… is limited.
Thanks for listening.
Lots of love.
V