Monday, March 1, 2010

Reincarnation: A Least-Energy Approach

A question has been posed: "Is Reincarnation easy?"

As human beings, our lives our complicated. Everywhere one might turn, humanity is breaking nature's norms. We float our bloated population on technology. We live in otherwise inhospitable climes. We alter our surroundings in really crazy ways. We fight wars. What the hell.

So is reincarnation easy? The likely answer is yes, with an important caveat. Reincarnation is most likely to yield one of two results:
1. Reincarnation as some other animal
2. Reincarnation as pure spirit (enlightenment)
A third, less likely result is being reincarnated as another human. Due to the incomparable number of other animals, this is highly unlikely. It is statistically reasonable to assume that those who end up as humans are almost entirely from non-human animal backgrounds., as this is simply the largest pool of spirits/selves/beings. The inverse of this is true by the same merit: we are also most likely to travel back to animality.

So how does this mean reincarnation is easy? Well, it means that for us, those reading this post, it is. We are humans, the most complicated-ass form of life to be. Up next for us is either the simple life of a baser creature, or the simple life of an enlightened spirit, both of which are often touted as models for the buddhist ideal of "simplicity."

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