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Kindle Notes & Highlights
It is important to note that the subtitle of this book is Life After Ego. Not without ego. If such a state were possible, it not only wouldn’t alleviate suffering, we wouldn’t know whose shoes to put on in the morning.
The Buddha did not believe in reincarnation (those who think he did do not understand the sutras). Dogen Zenji did not believe in reincarnation. Rebirth is not reincarnation. And Buddhism is not about believing in things.
The Buddha taught anatta - “not self.” Nothing reincarnates, because nothing incarnates to begin with. Nothing comes, nothing goes, everything changes.
What gives us our fear of death, and our desire for an afterlife, is our ego’s neurotic attachment to believing in its own existence.
The Zen teacher Wei Wu Wei was once asked “Why do we suffer?” He answered, “Because 99.9% of everything you think and everything you do is about yourself - and there isn’t one.” That’s why I keep telling you that you are your own imaginary friends. We create this fiction and we live for it. And we wonder why we suffer.
Where belief ends, wisdom begins. The sun shines, whether we believe in it or not. The rain falls, whether we believe in it or not. The wind blows, the moon is visible some nights and not others, birds fly, fish swim, creatures eat, drink, piss and shit - and it all happens regardless of what we believe.
