Have you heard the joke about the Buddhist bumper sticker—Born again, and again, and again, and again… You can look at reincarnation as real or as a metaphor for life.
I do feel that I have had several real rebirths in my life. Some were sudden and shocking while others were so subtle as not to be noticed except in retrospect, but they all involved acceptance of my current reality, and starting over again from there—from acceptance.
The life of the Buddha was like that from the day he left the castle and saw that people were unhappy and in pain, and then that they were poor and diseased—it was sudden and sharp, and all he could do was accept, and become a new person around that knowledge—rebirth?
The reason Buddha is often shown as being fat and laughing is that he tried fasting, and self inflicted pain and found out that they aren’t the way. Think of it—I don’t have to torture myself anymore, there is no point in more pain—doesn’t it make you laugh!
Eckhart Tolle says, and I agree with him, that the Buddha’s great insight was the non-existence of the self, and that’s enough to make you laugh out loud The self is just a conceptual idea in the brain. Am I separate from the music I’m listening to, or the key board I’m typing on?
