How Belief in Reincarnation Fuels My Love for Life
A Personal Essay
A Personal Essay
I’m sitting on the top steps of the temple called Age 50, having just entered in January 2023, and it’s got me in a reflective and predictive mode. I’m asking myself two questions: “What has my life been so far?” And, to quote the coda from a favorite hard rock song of the late 1980s, “Where do we go now?”
I’ve heard from friends and the culture at large that many people become melancholy at this age, feeling like their lives didn’t live up to what they’d expected they would be. While I certainly have been through some serious mental and emotional challenges in my 40s — I think this is very natural and, in Jungian terms, part of the individuation process — I have never sunk for too long in the pools of regret.
My life is far, far from perfect and there are things I’d do differently, but I’ve come to realize that our missteps are our teachers and, well, if I don’t “get this life right,” I’m reasonably sure I’ll come back for another round. You see, I’ve felt reincarnation was just a fact of reality for much of my adult life.
Why Nature Suggests Reincarnation is Real
Even though I grew up in America in a liberal Christian household, it’s never been that hard for me to believe in reincarnation. It’s quite simple to me: Time works in cycles — from the minute to the hour to days to years to the movements of the planets — and at the end of the year, things like trees look like they’re dying only to “come back to life” the following spring.
In addition, every day we are awake and then we go to sleep — like a death at the end of the day — only to wake up anew the next day.
You see, I’ve always intuited that, at its core, this is a benevolent Universe and so it’s always struck me that such a place would not be so stingy as to tell us humans, “You get one crack at it and then you return to Nothingness, so make the most of it! Good luck!”
No, for me, it’s a pretty simple, obvious understanding and it’s made my life a lot more relaxed, giving me more of a sense of adventure and courage, figuring that if I do “mess up” this one, well, I’ll learn from it for the next time around.
So when I watched this fascinating conversation about reincarnation, it was fun to hear some of the same ideas expressed by Dr. Christopher Bache and Richard Rudd. Bache stressed that if we absorb the idea that our current life is not our only one and that we are part of a much longer, grander process of possibly thousands of lives, we take a lot of the pressure off ourselves and expand our sense of the possible.
A Practical Way My Belief in Reincarnation Has Served Me
Let me share a practical way this has worked for me. When I was in college, I began learning to play guitar. I didn’t have a natural aptitude for it but I enjoyed it as a way to transport myself out of the heavy places my mind often resided in my 20s. So I stuck with it. By the end of the decade, I was a capable campfire guitar player.
Then, at age 31, I moved to Japan. A few months after the move, I purchased a used, cheap guitar from someone who was going back to their home country. It was a real piece of junk. It hurt my fingers and sounded like crap. Combine this with the fact that I was a busy young father and husband with a new career in a new culture in which I hardly spoke the language and, well, I had lots of reasons to stop playing. So for almost 15 years, I never touched a guitar.
Fortunately in 2019, a friend who had fallen down the rabbit hole of pursuing music in his 40s, had a spare acoustic guitar that he was willing to give me. I simply had to take the train to the city where he lived, enjoy an evening listening to his band and other performers, and then return home with the guitar.
That was three years ago. Now, I’m pretty much back to where I was in 2005 when I stopped playing. This time, though, due to the Internet, there are many more resources at my fingertips, so I’ve been spending more time learning about music theory than I did before, and it’s much easier to learn scales, chords, and songs.
Still, my dream of strapping on a guitar, getting up on stage and leading a rock star’s life is far in the rearview mirror. So what keeps me playing?
Well, of course, there’s still the simple fact that I enjoy it. But that doesn’t require a belief in reincarnation, does it?
No, where that belief becomes fuel is that I sometimes tell myself that all of this practice will pay off in a future life. I mean, think about it: what explains a prodigy? How do you explain that small child who sits down and picks up a musical instrument in no time and begins to ooh and ahh his relatives before becoming a local sensation and then taking on the world? Without reincarnation, how do you explain that? Maybe one could say it’s in the genes or something, but why didn’t his sister or brother have those skills if that’s the case? Or why weren’t his mother and father skilled at this instrument?
This Article Is An Invitation For Reflection, Not a Command for Belief
Now, this article isn’t meant to convince you that reincarnation is a thing or not. If you’re a person who is open to being convinced, I recommend the video I referenced at the top (and, while I haven’t watched parts 2 and 3 of that series, I assume them as well). Also, as they talk about in the video, the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia in gathering stories of children all around the world who have proven memories of previous incarnations is pretty darn compelling evidence. See what you make of it and let me know.
Anyway, this article is instead simply another attempt to share an expansive Big Picture view of how my life looks to me now that I’m 50. I’ve no idea if age 50 marks the halfway point of my life. Three out of my four grandparents lived into their 90s, one made it to 103 and her sister made it to 101, so it seems my genes may offer me the chance to reach Temple 100. But still, I could get hit by a sushi truck tomorrow and that will be it! (No, where I live in Japan doesn’t really have trucks with chefs preparing sushi, though I’m sure there must be trucks filled with the ingredients for sushi!)
Like everyone else, I don’t know what the future will bring, nor what exactly I’m going to bring to it. All I know is I’m not looking back at the previous 50 with regret that I didn’t do enough and feel some sense of urgency because time is running out. That understanding alone is enough for me to feel that my belief in reincarnation has served me well.
Now, if you’ll allow me, I’ve got some riffs to practice. I’ll see you on 12/21/2121 from the top of the pyramid at Giza, where I’ll be rockin’ the free world, playing the guitar upside down with my toes while smilin’ for the cameras! I can’t wait!
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