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May 16, 2025 54 mins

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Have you ever considered that the water you drink might contain molecules that once passed through a dinosaur? Or that the aluminum can in your recycling bin could become part of a building's siding? These everyday examples reveal a profound truth that lies at the heart of Buddhist philosophy: nothing truly dies—everything simply changes form.

The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast takes a deep dive into the concept of reincarnation, exploring it not as a mystical belief system but as an observable principle that surrounds us daily. From the cyclical nature of our weekly routines to the constant transformation of physical matter, hosts MyongAhn Sunim and Dr. Ruben Lambert illuminate how rebirth manifests in ways both mundane and profound.

The discussion travels through Buddhism's six realms of existence—heavenly beings, asuras (divine-but-conflicted entities), humans, animals, hungry ghosts consumed by insatiable desire, and hell beings experiencing intense suffering. Each realm represents different states of consciousness and karmic conditions that souls may experience across lifetimes. The hosts explain how our habitual patterns create magnetic pulls toward certain experiences, similar to how someone might unconsciously seek out the same types of relationships despite previous painful outcomes.

Perhaps most striking is their exploration of human existence's extraordinary rarity. Using the metaphor of a blind turtle surfacing once every thousand years and somehow putting its head through a single hole in wood floating on a vast ocean, they illustrate just how statistically miraculous each human birth truly is. This perspective offers a profound appreciation for our current form and the unique opportunity it provides for spiritual growth and transformation.

The conversation concludes with the fascinating observation that we experience forms of reincarnation within our own lifetimes—from amphibious-like beings in the womb to completely different bodies every decade of life. This accessible example provides a tangible way to understand the broader concept of rebirth across lifetimes.

Subscribe to The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast, check out their bonus track episodes for additional insights, and join this enlightening conversation that will transform how you view yourself and the cycles of existence that connect us all.

Support the show

Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com

Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back to yet another episode of the World's
Trezegne Podcast.
I'm Jan Gansin here with DrRuben Lambert and we are back
with episode, some kind of anumber.
We have recently introduced alot of thing, a little bonus

(00:36):
thing.
we're calling the bonus trackmm-hmm the first one is out, so
do check that out.
It's, uh, I think, something tothe tune of 15 minutes.
Uh, there will be of varyinglengths and topics, and um,

(01:02):
anyway, we've briefly introducedit and the first bonus track
episode.
It's sometimes little thingspop up, little nuggets of a
thing that are worth ramblingabout, rambling about Mental

(01:23):
rambles.
Yeah, and some of it, you know,maybe a little poetry reading.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I feel like it's.
It's those little piece ofpaper that have those little
notes that you just stash andthen you come across and you're
like, wow, that was a greattidbit that I must share right,
you your long lost, forgotten.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, insight that you re-encounter I have a
collection of those yeah, andsony was uh um thing right again
, right whatever desk, whateverdesk that that we kind of settle
in, whether here at you know,in our conference room, his, his
, his chair and his seat, and orwherever we're at the school,

(02:03):
or whatever you know he wouldhave a some desk somewhere or a
little spot and, uh, there arealways a little bits and pieces
of tissue, napkins and andlittle scraps of paper and
things that he would scribble,scrabble things, and they would

(02:23):
sit there for a while andsomething would pop back into
his mind, or a memory orremembrance of something.
Oh, I should, you know, this isa thing.
And so I would go there and sitin his chair and look at the
things and the things that werethere for what I thought was too

(02:43):
long, because then he would goand just throw it out simply
good.
Surf did its purpose, but so Iwould take those and file them
away, so collect yeah, I have afile of collect scraps.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Innocence, a scrap paper vacuum, sucking them up,
collecting it.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, they're, you know they come out out of.
You know the depths of the mind.
Not necessarily some topictriggers it or what have you, or
some realization, or yeah, sothe bonus track, in a sense it's

(03:28):
.
That's the kind of idea, andthen and little podcast tidbit
form.
So today's topic on the accountthat we didn't receive this
week any suggestions or anyquestions from the audiences, we

(03:53):
mentioned at some point in timethat reincarnation would be a
good thing to sort of touch upon, mm-hmm.
And so we are here.
We are Reincarnation.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I think I'll start with a little joke, because you
said reincarnation and it justreminded me of a cool time
period where you and I actuallywere making T-shirts.
You remember Cafe Press.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Cafe Press right.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Right, right.
And one of my favorite shirtswas the one that you designed.
It was a tombstone and on it itsaid I'll be back.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Right, right, right yes.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yes, I thought that was a cool shirt.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a good one.
Summer camp projects yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there's a.
I haven't done it here.
I think I guess we did at onepoint in time, at this location
that is, but we did in theprevious locations.
We had a little.
The lighter side, I think, waspart of our billboard, our cork

(04:55):
board in the lobby or where haveyou, and I would stick up
little lighthearted things andone of the little cartoon
drawings was of two soda cansand they're talking to one
another and one says you know, Iheard, if you're good, you

(05:16):
could become siding.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
For aluminum siding right.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, recycled.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
And it was like recycling something or other.
So that was the the idea youhad another t-shirt.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's a little outdated, but cell phones back
in the day had limited amountsof minutes that you could use,
right?
And then this one company cameup with well, whatever you don't
use, you can roll it over tothe next month and you came up
with a shirt that said uh ryzenz-e-n.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
And it said now your minutes roll over into your next
life, like that was a magicalbreak, yeah, that was good and
remember those days it was likeyou had set a month of minutes
and you're kind of nail biting,and so you know I can't call you
until next week it was onlythree nights and weekends.
Three minutes and then theyincluded the nights and weekends
, and then it was the rolloverthing, and then they came out

(06:07):
with the holy grail of unlimited.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, thank God, somebody reincarnated those
plans and came up with somethingbetter.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
And we gasped at the unlimited yeah, yeah.
Evolution, change, change,reincarnation, recycling,
recycling, evolution, change,reincarnation, recycling,
progress.
This is the thing, right?
We must remember that thesethings aren't necessarily

(06:40):
present solely in this kind oflet's call it the religious
realm in terms of reincarnation.
The principle is, the Buddhadidn't invent any of this thing.
This is not a case of a creatorwho creates the world according
to their own likes and dislikesand their own ideas.

(07:03):
Their own likes and dislikesand their own ideas is a sort of
journalist, observes thereality of things.
Some of the reality is beyondwhat meets the eye and beyond
the regular sensory perception,but nonetheless he observes the
reality of things and simplyreports on it.

(07:25):
And if we consider the idea, ifwe sort of set aside for a
moment this idea of this typicalreincarnation as a, you know,
you die and then you, youreincarnate it elsewhere, mm-hmm

(07:45):
but if we look around, I meanit's we Friday again it's
everywhere.
You know, we reincarnated againthe whole week the signal of
within.
We're back to you know, fridayagain different week, different
month, different year, differentthis, but yet there's a.
There's so many differences anduniquenesses in it and yet at

(08:09):
the same time there's asimilarity, familiarity,
sameness.
All simultaneously same anddifferent, different, yet same,
and some things very different,some things not so much, some
things not at all.

(08:30):
And when we consider theconversation between the two
aluminum cans, it's the sameidea, right?
Aluminum is aluminum.
It changes form, changes shape.
That's the thing.
I'm no scientist, but there aresome laws of thermodynamics or

(08:52):
what have you that with thiswhole idea of energy is neither
created nor destroyed, it justchanges form.
And there is change, not deathbut change to all things Some.
which coffee is it that is thatpasses through the intestinal

(09:16):
tract?

Speaker 2 (09:16):
of a cat, you know some kind of?
Cat mangus kind of something orother, and it's this highly
coveted you know coffee that'sbasically but there's the
gorilla thing, tools that we hadto see every year when we took
the kids in summer camp to theBronx Zoo that I miss video,
right?
They taught all the childrenthat, yes, yes, eats the fruit,

(09:38):
eats the fruit, and it's theseeds and then intestines, and
then poop somewhere and it's,and it's like a tree is born.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yeah, and it's, and it's like a A new tree is born.
Yeah, and it's like a.
It's fertilizer, naturalfertilizer Right like you buy it
in the supermarket with a potand a little plant.
It's all included.
Yeah, food almost has a cycleof reincarnation.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Right, you eat food.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
You process it, it does.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
You poop it out and then it goes back into the we
use for fertilizer manure, right?
Sure, that went through thesystem of an animal, yeah.
Yeah, it's a cyclical thing andit gives you back food.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Again, it's a cyclical thing and, like we said
, there's a thing that remainsand there's a thing that changes
, mm-hmm, and and whether it'srecycling, whether it's the, I
don't know if we ever I signedit I had this, uh, when we had

(10:34):
the kids programs, I had this umproject that I stowed away,
that I created.
There was was a Ziploc bag andthe idea was there was a Ziploc
bag and you make a miniaturesnowman and you put in a Ziploc
bag and you paste that Ziplocbag to your windowpane and you

(10:57):
see it kind of melt and become athing and sort of on the
account of that, this whole ideaof the cycle of water and the
kind of reincarnation in a sensethere is.
It's water, right, it's wateror vapor or liquid or ice or
snow, and and it's all water andit's in one form and another
form, and when it's in the snowyform, you know, then you can

(11:20):
make a snowman out of it and ithas a shape and it has a kind of
you know characteristics of thecarrot nose and the and the
call buttons and the.
You know red scarf and a hatand tree branches, forearms and
all of that and you look at ithas like shape and form.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
There's a silhouette right.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
And then, yeah, there's a silhouette.
And then you look at it andinitially you know instantly, we
know ah a snowman.
But then you see a puddle ofand you look at it and initially
you know instantly, we know aha snowman.
But then you see a puddle ofwater and you don't think, ah a
snowman, right, but it's….

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Everything that made up that snowman… Is there.
Is there too.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, so this waterness of water and the
essence, the idea of the essenceand the expression of it and
the manifestation of it.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Wait.
And then we have what ArunSanam taught us, the story that
Nodjang Nam told him about waterand what you're drinking it's
dinosaur pee Dinosaur urine yes.
You're drinking dinosaur urine,right yeah?

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, it is.
You know.
So the Buddha, in a kind ofjournalistic fashion, reports on
what's going on and you have tothink about it.
And then there are the thingsyou know that we pass from one

(12:43):
existence and then reincarnateinto another.
There was, I don't know if youremember, when we were getting
our degrees in Buddhist studies.
There was a whole thing, and Idon't recall what the
particulars of it were, but thatthe term reincarnation was.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I was thinking about that this morning but, I,
couldn't remember the secondword.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Neither can I.
They were hung up on it.
It's not reincarnation, Iremember I just I was thinking
about that this morning.
Yeah, I couldn't remember thesecond word.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Well, they, neither can I.
There was something hung up onit.
It's not reincarnation.
It's not reincarnation, it'sit's reanimation or something
you can name it whatever youwant.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
It is what it is and this is, and this is the, the
kind of academicintellectualization of it right.
It's kind of academicintellectualization of it right.
It's Rebirth.
It was rebirth right Versusreincarnation.
Maybe that's what I was writing,something like that, on the
premise of that you know thenon-soul principle, and then
that, if there isn't, but thenwhat can reincarnate?

(13:38):
So there's a you know, it wasthis whole convoluted tongue in
cheek kind of thing I thought.
But anyway, so that expressionof reincarnation, let's say the
big wheel.
The big wheel because cyclical,in a sense, right.

(14:02):
But so this great, great wheel,this carousel, if you will, we
have within it the six realms ofpossibility of where one could
reincarnate into Om Mani, padmeHum.

(14:23):
Right, and for those of youlistening who don't know, this
is the six realms ofreincarnation Three are
considered higher realms, threeare considered lower realms, so
three are more favorable andthree less favorable.
And so what we have is we havethe heavenly realm you know the

(14:48):
usually everybody wants that one, everybody wants that.
Remember that song.
And we're going somewhere and asong comes on the radio and
there's a sort of blues thingand and the.
The lyrics I remember wereeverybody wants to go to heaven,
but nobody wants to die,nobody's lining up to be first,
and and you know, and it's, it'sthose.
You know, these nuggets of ofpeople say things and and and

(15:12):
things are so profound theycould come out of anywhere a
child, whatever, whatever, we'lltalk about it some other time.
But there's certainly that when, the, when the speaks, you know
, in between the words of theconscious mind.
But yeah, so we have theheavenly realms and we're not

(15:35):
going to dive into the detailsof the numbers, et cetera, et
cetera, because they're, youknow, within the Buddhist
cosmology, if you want to callit that.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
That could be another podcast, potentially right when
we go into that.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And there isn't a single realm, heavenly realm,
there are multitudes.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
There are many rooms in my father's house Right.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
And that's essentially that, right.
If the universe is the father'shouse, then there are many
rooms in it, and so, yeah, so wehave the heavenly realm.
Everybody is oogling, and so,yeah, so we have the heavenly
realm, everybody is ogling.
Then we have the Asura, andAsura are sort of divine, in a

(16:15):
sense.
They're, they're evolved right,but they have a very strong ego
.
They have a very strong ego.
They have a very strong ego, andthey're argumentative and
fighting, and you know, I, yeah,let's just go through them,
we'll organize this perhapssomehow, maybe it'll come out

(16:37):
organized in the end, but soyeah, so they're kind of evolved
and essentially spiritually,and you know they're a divine
being, if you will, or heavenlybeing, if you will, but they are
in fact rather angry at thingsand fightful.
And then we have the humanrealm, which is uh, which is

(17:03):
this uh grand university set up.
I feel like it's like Pennstation, all all flow into this
one central.
Yeah, we could say that it's.
You know, it's a, it's a, it'sa 50, 50 of of 50, kind of it's

(17:25):
a, it's a equal distribution ofjoy and suffering right, these
dualities and and things, and,and largely the idea is right,
learn some, learn you some right.
But it is also the world ofgreed and desire.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Want Jokke, jokke Right.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Because, if you think about it, everything that is
alive must by definition consumesomething.
Right, it must consume.
Or another way that we put itis everything is pulling.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Everything's pulling.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Everything's vacuuming us here, and we don't
necessarily by consume, we don'tonly mean food.
No, obviously somebody'sconsuming this podcast,
hopefully when we're done withit.
Also, you know, if you went outto a fine restaurant and by
fine doesn't necessarily meanexpensive and you found
something that was scrumptiousand delicious, wouldn't you

(18:25):
invite your other friends?
Sure, wouldn't you say hey,listen, I found this wonderful
I've consumed this deliciousmeal.
I think you'd like it.
So consumption of food andconsumption of the podcast too.
Tell others, hey, if you likeit, maybe others will like it,

(18:46):
maybe they'll get something outof it.
Spread the word, share, spreadthe word.
Indeed.
Yeah, everything's consumingour eyes and ears and nose and
every sense is just vacuumingthe world inside.
Yeah, and unbalanced andunbridled.

(19:09):
It is, then, the fundamentalsource of suffering.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
And pain, disappointment, et cetera, et
cetera.
So yeah, but here we are humanbeings, learn you some.
And then we have the animalrealms.
So you know, naturally Chuxeng,chuxeng, and may the animal

(19:38):
lovers of the audience not getall worked up about it.
But the animal realms areconsidered a sense lower than
the human realms, their capacityand, and you know, we see the
behaviors of animals so many nowon social media.

(20:01):
You know various species ofanimals.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Some you know dog helping a cat, cat helping a
mouse and and those kind of youknow cute things and and this
isn't to say that animals are orsomething you know- well, I
think if, if someone heard youlower and the first thing that

(20:25):
popped into their mind means oh,that means now you can mistreat
them, and that was a littleRorschach test where you
projected that onto thesituation.
It's a biological fact thatanimals' ability to engage in
complex cognitive thinking isless than humans.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
It doesn't mean we have any, unless you're a crow
or a pig or a dolphin.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
there are things that they can do up to a certain age
, but I don't see any animalsinventing a rocket ship or a
cell phone or anything like that, right?
Or learning five differentlanguages, you know, creating a
flux capacitor to make a timemachine or anything like that,
right?
They're just not doing that.
So that's just a fact.
You still have to, you know,live within the bounds of, let's

(21:12):
say, respecting living beings.
Sure, we don't abandon thatjust because someone knows less
than you.
Don't step all over them right,so we're not saying that.
We're just discussing thereality like a weatherman
reporting it.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
And I've recently, I think, perhaps a few Sundays ago
, or maybe it was a meditationclass, I forget.
Now I spoke on the idea of life, what is life?
And we do view everythingthrough our own individual lens,

(21:47):
right?
So if it's not doing what I'mdoing precisely exactly, if it's
not mimicking me, if it's notwhat my ego says it, then it's
not alive.
Um, and the definition of whatit means from the sort of
enlightened perspective, whatlife means, what is a life, is a

(22:10):
whole different thing.
St Francis of Assisi wasfamously fond of rocks and he
would kind of say, don't kickthem around and don't, you know,
they are our brothers and youknow, tend to them as one ought
to things around us.
So, yeah, we're absolutely notsaying that lower and and and

(22:32):
again, this is also not, uh,even even if you consider kind
of, this is just an imagery.
But you know, a demonic a thing, right, a demon.
And usually we've been, we'vebeen, we've been trained by the

(22:56):
Hollywood to, you know, you castit down and you smite it and
you destroy it, then you kill itin this kind of violent,
violent thing, um, the zen wayis not so exactly.
Compassion for all, care for all.
Uh, yeah, this, this, this is awhole other thing, but anyway,

(23:18):
so yeah, but here we are.
So we have the animal realms,and animals are limited in their
certain capacities that theypossess.
And then we have Agi, thehungry ghost realm, and sort of

(23:40):
is what it says.
But we have to be cautious toclassify hungry in that sort of
natural way as hungry forbreakfast.
Oh, it's the grumpy ones thathaven't had breakfast.
You know, if you haven't hadcoffee, you're a hungry ghost
because you're grumpy and you'reyou're hungry and so right,

(24:00):
it's um hungry ghosts.
Are those who have been so tothe bone, consumed by hunger?
In other words, by insatiablehunger, in other words by greed
uncontrolled?

Speaker 2 (24:18):
greed.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
And so hungry doesn't necessarily and only mean
hungry for food.
Hungry for love is hungry.
Hungry for fame is hungry.
Hungry for love is hungry.
Hungry for fame is hungry.
Hungry for money is hungry.
Hungry for companionship, foremotional states.
Hungry to be understood ishungry.
Hungry not to be misunderstoodor to be not understood, to be

(24:47):
understood and not understood.
Hunger for whatever Hungry,just insatiable hunger, right
that nothing fills it and thisbottomless pit of a thing and we
know people can become soconsumed, I mean what's that?

Speaker 2 (25:06):
What's the metaphor for it?
Right there, I think they havea long neck that looks like,
let's say, like a straw, andthen a very large.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
I would say watch out with the use of the word
metaphor well, just so peopleunderstand, conjure up an image
of what you're describing amouth of a amount of a, of a
sort of crocodile or hippo, athroat the size of a needle and
a belly the size of sort of cows.
Not, cows have multiplestomachs, it's a different.

(25:35):
But this huge distended bellyof hunger and things.
But I prefer the imagery.
I mean, this is one and theyare.
Well, we're going to get intosomething here now.
There are agi, there arevarious, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I just realized.
Yeah, that's okay yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
What are you going to do?
We didn't start the timer, soI'm going to have to make a beep
at some point in time.
So let's keep an eye on thetime.
I don't even know what time westarted.
This is going to be anexperiment.
I'd like to think, or I'd liketo explain it to people, in a

(26:22):
sense, of whether it's theDharma guardians or the Xinzhung
right.
And you know, you could say theBodhisattvas, you could say the
Buddhas, you could say whatever.
Think of it in parallel termsto our reality that we are
familiar with.
We have animals in this world.

(26:54):
Some have long necks and arespotted, like the giraffes, you
know, some are underwater, someare flying, some, you know, some
see, some see, some havemultiplied some don't have it
some don't see, some don't havean x, I'm right right, so it's
various species of beings, ofwhich all we call kind of living
beings, we could say, or animalrealm, or insects, whatever the

(27:17):
spiritual dimensions or thedimensions or the realms, the
worlds, the places where theseother beings live, we could
think of it in the same thing.
It's a parallel in a sense.
So there are then various typesor species of agui also.

(27:39):
What does that mean?
That they are satiated bydifferent things, the way that
in our world one animal eats onetype of food or one type of
fruit.
And it can't, you know it's notequipped to digest something
else, for example, or get sickif it does, or what have you Agi

(28:01):
?
The hungry ghosts and theirvarious species of them, them,
have the same idea, right?
So there are ones, and they,you know, there's some what we
would consider gross anddisgusting eating habits of agri

(28:21):
.
I mean, they are sad if weconsider about it, if we
consider it, you know, thequestion of their knowledge and
understanding of their condition, that's a whole other thing.
But there are ones that, in theleast disgusting format, can

(28:43):
eat food but food must beoffered to them.
Format, can eat food but foodmust be offered to them.
So it's, there is a restrictionand the restriction is that the
food must be specificallyoffered to them.
And again, this is, you know,when we think of it and we rifle
through our life experience andthen we say, well, I don't know

(29:03):
, this kind of seems far-fetched.
I mean, I remember clearly as achild, there were moments of
moments, let's call them.
There were moments of theabsence and hunger on the
account of the socioeconomicsituation of Poland at the time,

(29:27):
and a single parent householdand all that, all those things
you know, and you kind of as akid, you, you almost, you know,
like in the in the movies.
You're kind of glued to thewindow pane of a of a you know
bakery and you could nearly lickthe glass at a steaming piece
of food you know on the otherside of it.

(29:47):
So it's there, but you can'thave it unless it's given to you
or unless it's offered to you.
And in that case you know howdo you get it.
You have money and you buy it,and that's how you get it right.
And agui don't have money.

(30:09):
So the money in a sense is theprayer and the offerings that
are made by the living on behalfof the agi, the hungry ghosts,
that kind of thing.
And then that spectrum, youknow, then progressively
deteriorates.
There are agi who can onlysatiate their hunger by the

(30:29):
water that drips off the feet ofa pious sort of person or
usually it's presented as kindof monks but the water that
drips off the feet of a, let'ssay, of a moral person, of a

(30:50):
good person who has crossed abody of water.
So if you walked across a creekand your feet are dripping
water, those drips of water isthe only thing that could
satiate the hunger of a certainspecies of agi.
Water is the only thing thatcould satiate the hunger of a
certain species of agi.
And then there are ones thatpardon me graphic warning for

(31:11):
the listeners that feed on vomit, but they eat the vomit, they
vomit the vomit again becausewhatever.
And then it's a cyclical thing.
So there's torment, and when welook at our lives here, when one
gets caught up in an insatiablehunger I mean, consider

(31:34):
addiction and drugs yeah Right,you know people the initial, you
know use is, oh, that feelsgreat.
And then the use feels like, oh, that's all right, great.
And then the use feels like, oh, that's all right, and then the
use is that's, and then the useis I'm sick, so I must use.
And then the uses you, you know, you use, and then you don't

(31:55):
even have a chance to enjoy theuse because you already have to
start planning for when you'regonna, where you're gonna get
your next fix, because thecyclic, so it progressively
deteriorates into this cyclicalthing.
What's that guy?
Schmeagle, schmeagle, schmeagle, I mean Schmeagle.

(32:15):
I don't know the story of thehistory of it, and the movie
buffs and the religiouspersonnel of the set saga don't
throw rocks at me, but I wouldsay that Schmigel, schmigel,
schmidl.
Whatever Schmigel, I think it'sSchmigel.

(32:37):
Anyway, that Schmigel was aperson at one point in time, and
I don't know if that's a story,but just this is my own thing a
healthy, normal, size, normallooking the lord of the rings no
the lord there, the lord rings,yeah, so in in my, in my

(32:58):
version of the role in schmidl,is a person, a normal person
like you and I, that thendevelops this uh, infatuation
with this ring of his ring,right, right, my precious, his
precious right, and and, andwhere, where I think every other
word you know.

(33:18):
He's like how was your day, Iwas fine, whatever my precious,
and just snaps back to that hitfixation.
And the state in which Schmidlis presented in the movie is the
result of that greeddeteriorating and kind of
contorting and deforming himinto this creature that he now

(33:40):
is, right, hairless and big,gouging eyes, because looking
for the thing, and you know can,and kind of grotesque reduction
of a human being to a creatureof greed.
That is an agi who, who's beenreduced, yes, from a human form

(34:04):
into this creature thing.
Uh, betrayal is, is just norm,nothing higher than the holy god
of greed and the holy god ofring, you know that kind of
thing.
And so we have those and we arethen down to the lowest of the

(34:28):
realms, which is the hell realms, the least favorable, of which
there are a number Again it'snot only one.
There are different strokes fordifferent folks.
Hot hells, cold hells, you nameit, we got it.

(34:49):
And so those are the realms andthe premise is depending on the
karmic burden, we create amagnetic pull.
Again, this idea really is notthat difficult to grasp If you

(35:10):
consider habituation of thoughtand emotion and behavior.
How is a woman subject to abusefinally free herself from said?
And this is necessarily notonly women, men are in abusive

(35:34):
relationships as well, right?
So how does a person then in anabusive relationship, having
freed themselves of said abuser,go and find another
relationship that is exactly thesame personality that they are
engaged in?
They still have the scarring,the emotional scarring,

(35:58):
sometimes the physical scarringand the abuse still kind of
there.
But then they go and seek outof the whole, availability of
the whole, you know,availability of the various
personality types, and how is itthat they hone in?

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Behavioral profile as the last abuser Right.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
So it's as if they are possessed by their karmic
proclivities and theirtendencies.
It sort of pulls them andthey're kind of in the back seat
of it, being just pulled intothis relationship, yet again of
the same kind.
Not an easy task to unbindoneself.
This is this thing, this karmicmagnet that pulls the

(37:04):
confirmation bias and thesefamiliarity, and the devil known
is better than the devilunknown, and all of those things
that we have.
And then what you're going todo is whether you like it or not

(37:26):
Actually, it doesn't matterwhether you like it or not.
That's even the sadder thingthere.
You may like it or not like it,and I don't like it.
And yet, whether you like it ornot, it doesn't really matter.
You are magnetically drawn andpulled.
Unbeknownst to you, you willfind yourself in the same place
and then feel as if there's noway out and no escape, right.

(37:50):
And you have arrived there.
No one really abducted you anddrove you into a situation, into
a relationship, but you findyourself in this relationship,
pulled into it, pulled inmagically, magically right, and
it's sort of.
This idea of how the hell did Iend up here is completely

(38:13):
outside of the thought pattern,whether it's some magical horse
blinds that come, you know, veilthe eyes and the person doesn't
see the warning signs andwhatever, whatever.
But by and large there isn'tsufficient wakefulness in the
mind of what's happening hereand now, what's happening to me

(38:36):
as I'm being drawn, and so weget sucked in.
It's very easy to understandthis dynamic of being drawn into
a realm in this very life, andso we have the advantage of
having the physical form,because it takes from me to get

(38:58):
from here, from this room, tothe next room, it takes some
time.
I have to drag, there's someheaviness to the body and
there's air resistance.
So maybe I have 1700 timesability to change my mind, to
drag, there's some, you know,heaviness to the body and
there's, you know, airresistance.
So maybe I have 1700 timesability to change my mind.
But if I was untethered fromthis physical form and I thought
, ah, I want to be in the nextroom occurs to me immediately.
I am there, right.

(39:18):
So not even there's, not eventhe delay that affords me, you
know, know.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Time to think, time to process, to rethink it, maybe
change directions.
Boom you're in.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
And so these ideas are not as far-fetched as we
sometimes think them to be.
If we just well, frankly, if wejust think a little bit about it
and if we consider our livesand the way that things are,
they are, absolutely make sensebecause we see it in day-to-day

(39:53):
life.
And so this is the one elementof this reincarnation, the grand
wheel of reincarnation from onelife to another, in a sense.
By the way, it's worthmentioning and necessary to
mention, just how uniquelyfantastic, unimaginably so,

(40:19):
despite the situation and thecondition and whatever that
human life is.
I know this is sometimes metwith some contention and say you
know, well, there are peoplewho suffer unimaginably in their

(40:43):
life and we are by no meanssuggesting that that ought to be
dismissed.
But there are sufferings beyondthe unimaginable sufferings,
and they are so because they areunimaginable, because we have

(41:06):
not, we've forgotten theexperience we certainly have,
chances are, we've been throughthe various realms and again and
again, and we've forgotten thisthing of those, because there's
a reset button, in a sense,when we come into this world the

(41:27):
trauma of the birth.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
And so so an alternate control, delete
happens and all the memories aregone.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, and then they are restored when we drop the
physical form.
Mm-hmm, Right, it's an ahamoment and so, yes, and so we
have this imagery and I don'trecall if we mentioned it here
on a podcast but this uniquenessof the human form and just how

(41:56):
precious and unique I mean forone, we are a minority in this
world.
If you consider all the livingbeings, animals and birds and
fish and creepy crawlies and allof this, we are just utter
sheer sort of minority.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, we probably took like a 12 foot by 12 foot,
cut out of the dirt underneathus and dug it all up and went
straight down.
There are more than the amountof living things down there,
probably more than thepopulation is concerned, more
than the whole population of theearth.
No population of the earth, nopopulation of.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
Earth.
Yeah, you know so, and you know.
This is not even getting intothe nitty-gritty of what is life
period.
But and so this imagery of ablind turtle oh yes, right
Swimming in the vast ocean, onthe surface of which there

(42:50):
floats a plank, and in the plankthere's a single hole.
And so you have the turtleblind, you have the plank with a
single hole in it on thesurface of this great, great
world ocean, and this turtlecomes up for air every something

(43:13):
, to the turn of like 1,000years.
It takes one nice deep breathit's probably learned that in
one of our meditation classesand then dives again and then
does not come up because ithasn't the need to come up for
another thousand years.
Now, if you consider I don'tknow, maybe there's some
mathematicians in our listeninggroup if you consider the ratio

(43:38):
and you know, in the possibilityand the chance for that turtle
to come up for that singlebreath that happens every
thousand years, and as it comesup, for it to stick its head
through the single hole in thatsingle plank of wood floating on
the vastness of the ocean, thatis how difficult it is to
become a human.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
I think Kyung Ho had the opposite example.
Kyung Ho is one of the greatKoreans and masters.
He said imagine all the dirt inthe world that represents human
beings losing their fortune andlosing the human form and then
being able to become a humanagain would be the amount of

(44:23):
dirt under a person's fingernail.
So that little tiny bitcompared to all the dirt in the
whole wide world.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, yeah.
So you are a unique and afantastic thing, despite of what
the circumstances of one's lifeare and, furthermore,

(44:51):
furthermore, just how preciousone is on account of that
uniqueness is unspeakable.
There's only one of you in thisworld, whoever you are,
wherever you are, no one is liketwins.
We have twins in our sangha and, it's interesting, they're
twins.

(45:12):
Each individual person is aperson of their own, uniquely
shaped by their experiences, bytheir life.
Whatever their beauty is theirown, individual, own, individual
, own.
And so we have this great.

(45:32):
Back to this great cyclicalthing.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, I want to highlight an example that Wayne
Dyer gave.
He gave like a practicalexample, because then there's
the great cycle of reincarnation.
Right where you go, you knowyou lose this body, you lose
this form, and then you gainanother form, whether it's a
form in one of the other realmsor returning back here to earth.
And there's some people outthere I have to drop another

(45:55):
joke, that's yours, so credit meon to them.
There are some people who arelistening to this right now and
saying that's a bunch of hogwash.
I just don't buy into that, andfor those people, we'll have
this discussion in our nextlives about that.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
That's a classic of mine.
You can sit with that If youdon't subscribe to Notional
Brain Connection don't worryabout it, we'll talk about it in
your next life We'll talk aboutit.
And so Wayne Dyer, he did apresentation on a stage and he
had a picture of himself every10 years.
And then this is the point thathe made.

(46:29):
He said okay, well, you knowit's hard for you to grasp
losing this body, gettinganother body, but we did this
within this lifetime.
Here's my soul incarnated intothis body.
And he showed a picture ofhimself as a baby and that had a
certain shape and form andcertain cognitive abilities.
And then, 10 years later,completely different, a whole

(46:52):
brand new body.
And then 10 years and 10 yearsand so forth and so forth.
So one can say we'vereincarnated into different
bodies just within this lifetime.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
I would go one step back further, still right, and
we are within this lifetime.
I would go one step backfurther, still right, and we are
within this lifetime.
An amphibious being.
We were, yes, suspended in themother's womb.
Yep, swimming, we're kind offrog, we're swimming Frog thing.

(47:24):
Essentially yes we're kind offrog thing, essentially, yes,
you know, and then we are borninto this, uh, you know, air
breathing, uh, being, and so so,in a very physical form, we, we
, we are already two lives andtwo, two realms of existence
within the single life, you know.
And and then, like you saidthere, these, these stages of,
of, of progressive evolution andchange and evolution.

(47:50):
It's a thing evolves over thecourse of various lengths of
time and offspring evolves inone way to adapt and accommodate
and etc.
Etc.
Etc.
It's still a thing of the same,you know, its name may still be

(48:17):
the same and and itscharacteristics are varying and
so.
So that's a reincarnation.
Also, I think what we'll do isI will do this it feels in my

(48:49):
bone marrow that we're probablyan hour or close to it now, and
we?
this is definitely a topic thatwe need to return back to well,
that's, I think we'll do a part.
Internal reincarnation right wedidn't really so let's do,
let's do that so I do want toleave with.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
I do want to give one story that I do love, from one
of my favorite presenters.
His name is Joseph Campbell,and he gives this story in the
Power of the Myth, and in thisstory he talks about Indra, king
of the gods, remember that.
And then he gives a story whereIndra became king of the gods

(49:24):
and then he created thisheavenly palace with all of the
goods right Golden toilet seats,all the food that you can
desire, musicians in the courtplaying your favorite lullabies.
And then one day this old monkwalks into his court with ragged
clothes and an umbrella itseemed that was like, I guess,
broken in his hand.
And as the door opened behindhim him, there was a long list

(49:47):
of ants, a long line of ants,I'm sorry, just coming into the
court.
And then andrew becomes angryno, I think it's a.
I think I think right, yeah,he's got hands, he's got a, he's
got a hairy chest and he plucksyeah, he gets angry, I think
indra gets angry.
He's like get out of here, oldman, something like that.
But then, and when the dooropens I remember the in the

(50:11):
there was a visualization, along line of ants coming in.
Anyway to the point my favoritepoint does, and then and then
indra's getting very angry andupset, wants to kick out the old
man and is upset that all these, he let all these ants inside
of his majestic palace.
And then this is the point thatthat always stuck with me and

(50:33):
then the old wise man I think itwas an old monk says you know
what those are?
Those were indras before you.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
they get, they work through the ranks of spiritual
accomplishment, they get to bethe god of gods, and then they
get a big head and grow an egoand blow it and back down to
step zero.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, you could see that same cycle again within a
lifetime.
Here in this earth, right now,you could see people that grow
in some resource and fame andmoney and power, and then
there's this change that occursand they no longer remember that
they got there because of you.

(51:16):
Know hard work one, but it'speople.
Money doesn't have wings.
People bring you money rightand then all of a sudden now you
don't value people anymore, andthen there could be the
slippery slope right down to thebottom so let's do next podcast
reincarnation, reincarnation,reincarnated, reincarnation

(51:40):
reincarnated yes okay, so we'llstop here.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
I mean, we haven't mentioned, maybe we'll mention
next episode Stevenson, ianStevenson and the various
sources.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
That's what I would think that type of stuff.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
So, yeah, that's that .
Thank you for tuning in.
We will be reincarnating againin the same place.
Well, a different place.
Everything's already changed sodrastically since I've sat down

(52:17):
in this chair.
We will be back next week witha part 2 of the reincarnation
discussion and chit chatmeanwhile with a part two of the
reincarnation discussion andchit-chat Meanwhile.
Do, if you will send usquestions, topic requests,
comments.
It's always lovely to hear backfrom you.

(52:41):
See, if there's anythingspecific that struck a tune with
you or that you know hopefullythere's a big cartoon
exclamation mark above your heador a question mark, even better
yet and if there's somethingthat is of interest to you, what
would you like to hear usdeform and mangle and talk about

(53:09):
and and and and?
Yeah, drop us a line.
Uh, of course there's alsoopportunity and and we are
grateful for that the financialsupport of the podcast.
Um, that helps cover the, thecost of the hosting platform and

(53:30):
the website.
That's a run and, you know,maybe, if there's, when we get
to a point where there's someleftover, we could start paying
the bills for this equipmentthat we have here Spontaneously
purchased.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
But yes, so until then, take care of yourselves
and each other.
I'm Milen Sinim.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
From my heart to yours.
I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
Please subscribe and like andif you like what you hear, pass
it on to somebody else.
Help us spread the word.
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