I’ve been thinking about this whole idea of children’s debt to their parents – the duty to care for them in old age, when they can no longer manage on their own. I’ve noticed that many people seem to think that by having grandchildren and raising them, they are somehow paying off the debt to their own parents. I really don’t get it… As if, in some metaphysical way, the energy they invest in their children and grandchildren spreads to the realm of the grandparents? That’s just nonsense. I don’t have children myself, and I believe we should take better care of the elderly than of children – because children have given you nothing, while your grandparents and parents gave you everything.
I also have this idea in my head that good and bad deeds influence your energy body, and you get angel wings or a beastly look (hooves, hairy legs, claws and fangs). And I swear I saw wings on ER medics. And I think that when a man with sins approaches such an angelic person, his demonic appearance manifests and can be seen… I just don’t understand why there are no angels in Asian cultures. There, saints (bodhisattvas) have multiple hands to help all in need, not wings. Maybe these hands are similar to wings..
Yesterday I realized that I think about solipsism very often. I think that I cling to the idea that life is one and that this historical passage is universal for all incarnations. I feel there’s nothing to be found in science except for space travel and the evolution of cyborgs. So that will be it for the next 40 years, if I survive… So yesterday I was listening to a lesson about the pre-historical period of humanity and found out that humans have millions of years of history, but Homo sapiens only about 40,000 years of history… I really can’t understand such huge numbers. I think that a person, even during a 30-year lifespan (as was before), could have invented seed growing and animal domestication within a single lifetime. Yet scientists say there were millions of years of evolution. In moments like this, I feel this information is like a bug on the prism of my solipsism, very close, like in The Matrix. And in this bug, all the people around me somehow believe it and don’t doubt it.
Before I discovered Hinduism, I thought that it was the Buddha who introduced the ideas of karma and reincarnation. However, he actually took them from Hinduism. The Buddha himself contributed his own insights – that the root of suffering lies in desires, and by escaping from desires, one becomes happy. But here’s my question: is that even possible through an act of will? I mean, if you try to force yourself to “stop wanting,” aren’t you just suppressing that energy and ending up wanting it even more?
So the ideas of reincarnation and karma are eternal… they have existed and will continue to exist for as long as humanity itself exists, while the ancient teachings are merely the written records that have survived to our time.
And Buddhists and Hindus do think about monotheism. And monotheists think about reincarnation and karma.
What I mean is that we need to separate the eternal Dhamma (reincarnation and karma), which is universal, and the ideas introduced by the Buddha, which are essentially his personal vision.
