Rebirth Right Now
You can see rebirth directly; you don’t have to believe in a theory of rebirth. Rebirth is something that occurs in what you are doing all the time. Now, since there is no self, there is nothing to be reborn as a personal essence or soul, carrying through from one lifetime tothe next. However, desire is being reborn; it is constantly looking for something to absorb into or something to become.
If you are unhappy and depressed, you look for something that you can absorb into that will give you some happy feeling, or at least get you away from the unpleasantness of the moment. That’s rebirth. When you are frightened or uncertain, you have to try to do something to get away from it, to make yourself sure and safe. When you are bored, you have to do something to get out of that.
Just notice in your own life how you have become accustomed to certain habits. For example, when you go home at night, you go to the refrigerator and get something to eat. You’re reborn as you absorb into the pleasures of eating. Now when you’ve had enough of this birth – you’ve had three ham sandwiches, four McDonald’s hamburgers, and two pizzas – you can’t stand to be reborn into another pizza. Then you seek a new birth in the television set, because when you are bored you want to find some other place to be reborn again. So you get reborn into the things that are going on in the television set.
When the romantic scenes are going on in the film, you feel that you are absorbed into the romance itself. You’re feeling the joy of that kiss. When he deserts her for someone else, you’re feeling the pain and sorrow, the anger and resentment. Then you get satiated, weary of television, and you read a book. But you can only be interested in that for a while before you become bored again, so you turn on your stereo, which has speakers all around the room, and you blast yourself for a while. And then you have a drink with a cigarette, and you call your friend on the telephone.
You look into the mirror for a while, but soon you are bored again. You can’t stand the idea of being born again, and you say to yourself, ‘I just want not to exist.’ You don’t actually think this – it’s just a habit. So you go up to your room and crash out on your bed and annihilate yourself with sleep.
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