Transmigration Quotes

“Does anyone believe in that? That souls can transmigrate?’
‘I do,’ says George. ‘I think souls can be in books, too.”
― Cath Crowley, Words in Deep Blue

“If someone skilled at studying moons, planets, stars and other celestial bodies such as galaxies, comets, asteroids and gamma-ray bursts were to analyse the Romani migration and settlement patterns, as they wandered India and Persia 1500 years ago, passing through Armenia in the early 9th century, trading spices, incense, rugs, fabrics, colouring agents and jewellery along the Great Silk Road, and then beginning to establish themselves in Europe, arriving in Transylvania in the 13th century, and then onto Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and England in the 14th century they may very well discover that their routes mirrored that of the stars”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Rather than act like a coward and live, it would be better to live in satisfaction and die."

~ Qu Qing Ju”
― Yue Xia Die Ying, 何为贤妻 To Be a Virtuous Wife

“One could certainly think of a man not in terms of a body but as a single vital current. And this would allow one to grasp the concept of existence as dynamic and on-going, rather than as static. Just as he had said, there was no difference between a single consciousness possessing various vital currents in succession, and a single vital current animating various consciousnesses in succession. For life and self-awareness would fuse into a whole. And if one were to then extrapolate this theory of the unity of life and self-awareness, the whole sea of life with its infinity of currents – the whole vast process of transmigration called Samsara in Sanskrit – would be possessed by a single consciousness.”
― Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

“If you will not let me live freely, why would I let you live in satisfaction?"

~ Qu Qing Ju”
― Yue Xia Die Ying, 何为贤妻 To Be a Virtuous Wife

“A journey begins with a good night's rest... or does it?”
― ForestRage, The Red Lands

“Imagine: shoals of fish, a pod of whales,
a swarm of bodies around glacial heights

in kaolin snow. The velocity of clear-sky
precipitation increases with the glint of
shadows.”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Ghost Tracks

“The granularity of bones in
a body. A forest with galaxies of moss.”
― Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Ghost Tracks

“the human soul is part of the great cosmic stream that flows through all creatures. It is a single force, one motion, but when a person is born into a physical body, when he comes into the world as an individual being, that soul has to separate from the rest, otherwise a person would not be able to live—the soul would drown in the One, and the person would go mad in just a few instants. That is why such a soul gets sealed, that is, seals are stamped upon it that will not let it mix with that unity but will allow it to operate in the finite, bounded world of matter.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob

“Did fate let women time-travel so she could learn the three morals and four virtues?"

~ Qu Qing Ju ”
― Yue Xia Die Ying, 何为贤妻 To Be a Virtuous Wife

“Transmigration (saṃsāra) means the repeated cycle of birth and death in this realm of delusion. Literally "flowing together," saṃsāra is an expression of living beings buffeted by waves and at the mercy of water, perhaps a powerful river whose current carries us from place to place. As we have seen, rebirth has five or six destinations. The Abhidharmakośa gives five—the inhabitants of hells, hungry spirits, animals, human beings, and devas. This is the Sarvāstivādin point of view; other schools gave six, the above five plus the asuras. In Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, the version favoring six paths gained popularity, and th expression "transmigration among the six paths" is well known throughout East Asia.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“The idea of transmigration hardly appears in the Hindu Ṛg Veda (12th–8th century B.C.E.), though by the time the new religious movements arose in the sixth to fifth centuries B.C.E., most of the important ones included a philosophy of transmigration, outstanding examples being Buddhism, Jainism, and the religion of the Ājīvikas. We also find the idea in Brahmanism in the new literature called the Upaniṣads.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“What we should note is that the Greeks believed that the soul transmigrated, while Buddhism denied the existence of a soul. In the Buddhist work Milinda's Questions (Milindapañha, compiled in the 1st century B.C.E.–1st century C.E.), the Greek King Menandros (Menander) questions the Buddhist Nāgasena about the seeming contradiction between the Buddhist ideas of rebirth and a non-self. The king asks how rebirth takes place without anything transmigration, and Nāgasena replies as follows:

"It is as if, sire, some person might light a lamp. Would it burn all night long?"
"Yes, revered sir, it might burn all night long."
"Is the flame of the first watch the same as the flame of the middle watch?"
"No, reverend sir."
"Is the flame of the middle watch the same as the flame of the third watch?"
"No, reverend sir."
"Is it then, sire, that the lamp in the first watch was one thing, the lamp in the middle watch another, and the lamp in the last watch still another?"
"O no, reverend sir, it was burning all through the night inn dependence on itself."
"Even so, sire, a continuity of dramas ["beings, existences, persons"] runs on; one uprises, another ceases; it runs on as though there was no before, no after; consequently neither the one [dhamma] nor another is reckoned as the last consciousness."

This passage states the belief of Buddhists that there is no continuous and eternal "I." While the lamp burns, the flame changes from moment to moment, yet it is as if it were the same flame. The flame of the first watch is the "I" of the present, and the flame of the middle watch is the "I" of the future.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Can new inspiration spring from Buddhist cosmology's ashes? Let us look first at the idea of transmigration. Many modern people view it as outmoded, but I believe that it has many points relevant to the world today. The body of a dead worm returns to the earth, and its constituents change and become grass. This grass is eaten and becomes part of a cow, and eventually people eat the cow. Then they, too, return to the earth and become worms. If we pursued a single atom of nitrogen, we would probably find that it circulated among Gosāla's 1,406,600 kinds of living beings. People are born, and people die. They experience a variety of emotions such as anger, love, and hate, and die with their minds unsettled. They are followed, in turn, by others beginning their lives of anger, love, and hate. Human life is thus full of delusions, which actually have no absolute existence. Transmigration is the intuitive expression of this meaningless round of birth and death.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Pessimism regards this world as imperfect, but it does not deny everything. In these terms, Indian Buddhism is certainly pessimistic, for it denies that the reality of this world is anything more than transmigratory existence. But it has one clear purpose, liberation, and it sets out along a defined road, religious training. Transmigration and liberation from transmigration: these are the two wheels of the chariot of Indian Buddhism, indispensable to its view of human life.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“As soon as you arouse aspiration for enlightenment, even if you transmigrate in the six realms and four forms of birth, transmigration itself will be your practice of enlightenment. Although you may have wasted time so far, you should vow immediately, before this present life ends: "Together with all sentient beings, may I hear the true dharma from this birth on throughout future births.”
― Dōgen, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master