Jack Kerouac Quotes

The Buddha over and over again spoke clearly and definitely on post-mortem states - as in his conversation with Vasetta.

Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. The concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality. Here the human personality is regarded as continuous and accessible to memory, so that, when one is incarnated or born, one is able, potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences, and that these existences were one's own, ie, they had the same ego form as the present life. As a rule, reincarnation means rebirth in a human body.

I shudder at the very thought of being born again into this world. Life to me . . . has been a monstrous, painful, agonizing affair, and the idea of repeating such an existence - even if better in a way - is horrifying to me. . . . I gratefully look forward to oblivion, but I must be sure of it.

And as long as you're subject to birth and death, you'll never attain enlightenment.

We've already been reincarnated about a million times, maybe. It doesn't make sense any other way.

For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.

As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens.

He also said we should carve in the year and place where I was born, but I said no. As a man dies many times before he's dead, so does he wend from birth to birth until, by grace, he comes alive at last.

Births and deaths are inevitable for man only during the state of ignorance in which he thinks he is the body and cannot exist without it. Only the man who will not seek the awakening of wisdom must suffer the nightmares and delusive dreams of births and deaths and the fanciful miseries and limitations attending them. (gt)

Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on Earth.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

I have been here before as a spirit - this is just my physical body, it is just an overcoat. And at death, you will take the overcoat off.

I don't really know if things go from one life to another. I don't know if there's another life after this. I don't want to know.

Buddhas move freely through birth and death, appearing and disappearing at will.

A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.

Then you must look for a new body. That's what we call reincarnation.

I don't believe in death.

I know that we live after death and again and again, not in the memory of our children, or as a mulch for trees and flowers, however poetic that may be, but looking passionately and egocentrically out of our eyes.

My only fear of death is reincarnation

The Orgasmic Death Gimmick is rather complicated. It could be called the whole birth-death cycle of action, persuading people that birth and death are realities.

I don't like the idea that I am going to come back as an ant or a sparrow if I don't get along in the great karma of life.

In contrast to reincarnation and karma, all other views seem petty and narrow

If you ask me, reincarnation is just another way to procrastinate.

Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept, but it is part of the history of human origin. It is proof of the mindstream's capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities. It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect.

Doesn't reincarnation strike you as just another form of procrastination?