These pictures I found help demonstrate what I really found interesting in this reading. The whole idea of "Where were you before you were born?" also kind of answers the questions of where do I go when I die? I say this because in that chapter it uses a cloud as an example and explains how it was never made out of nothing but instead lots of things like the rain, wind and sun, that they transform to make something new. That something new will then continue to transform into other things such as the rain, grass, cow, milk and ice cream. Even though the cloud is no longer technically a cloud is a part of everything else and is living in everything else. Therefore it never technically dies and is never technically ever born just transformed. This can also be taken into consideration with atoms the basis of all things. In my bio class we were told to read two stories about atom x and atom y. In each of these stories the atom started off in a inanimate object (according to westeners) and went through multiple cycles both liviving animate and inanimate. For instance x was in a rouck that broke apart due to the erosion of rain and became soil that fed the grass. When the animals ate the grass they consumed x that was in it and when the hunter ate the animal he consumed x. When the hunter died x returned to the soil and fed a beaver whoes feces went into the water. X then traveled down stream into the ocean. X fed fich until he evaporated in the sun and became a cloud and fell down in the rain. The cycle can continue on and on like it did in the story of Y and how it was caught in the cycle of fertilizing a farmers plants until something came along and it wound up in a stream that was polluted and sat in muck until something else came along. The same goes for us and everyother thing out there whether we say its alive or dead. It's always alive in something. The atoms in everything will break down and transform into something else like the cloud did and in that case then we can never technically die or be born we are just tranforming.
At the same time this answered the question to "Am I yesturday's me?". This is because yes when you look into that picture of you ten years ago you are a different person but that person ten years ago is still a part of you. So in a sense you are that person you where ten years ago because that person is still a part of you. It helped make you who you are today. So even when you are 100 years old you can be a 1 year old, a 20 year old etc at the same time. It is because of this that we do not have to fear death, life, ageing etc. No matter what we are transforming into something new everyday, everysecond, every time time is moving past us. As long as we live in the now we continue transform, but everything that comes into and leaves the now becomes a part of us. From this as we look at everything we see it for what it is. It is the whole and the ten thousand things, it is our ancestors, loved ones, plants, rocks, wind, water, our nature. It exists in us and all around us. For we are apart of it just as much as it is apart of us.
Posts
