It is hard for humans to conceptualize what we refer to as a soul.
Numerous religions have versions of a spiritual higher aspect called a soul, or called the atman (the smaller self that is actually a ray of the higher Self) in Hinduism. Buddhism does not see a central "self" existing all by itself independently, but rather a coming together of many parts and aspects that constitute our experiencing of "us". But it does believe in a form of reincarnation. This is somewhat difficult when all the sutras speak of ultimately "no-self", (anatman).
It is seen in some schools rather as a "thought stream", that we (or aspects of us) re-enter in some way after being a "streamlet" that left it in the past. Like a river, all is dependent on all else, but there are still streamlets, creeks, rivers and the oceans, all interconnected.
The increasing solidity of the findings of American physicist Dr. Stuart Hameroff and mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose about the nature of extremely small microtubules in the neurons of the CNS and brain, and the possibility of quantum events occurring there is showing room for the more interconnected view of "souls", but with a wider perspective.
In this concept a Universal Quantum Field (UQF) is foundational to the nature of the whole universe and its appearance and functioning. It would seem to be indicated by the strange and proven phenomenon of non-locality (I won't explain that here), where all is appearing at a very deep level to be connected to, and effected by and given back effect to the rest. This is outside of time and space, and likely is in a state called by scientists, a living, vibrating, shifting reactive superposition of varying states, that are manifested locally by interacting events, including conscious events.
How 'this' effects 'that' and how much is unable to be finally determined, but all effects everything else, in unseen very small or sometimes more evident larger ways. And it is the nature of quantum events and states that they are 'registered" forever, so to speak. They become part of the living ongoing UQF. The universe at Planck level and beyond is, in effect, setting and resetting all the time with new information. Into all of this comes the events of our life, from before our being born, throughout out life and after we die. This is what I call scientific reincarnation and the basis of the great seeing of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is part.
Can you tell when you were born? At conception? At birth or during pregnancy? When were your genes born and formed, for they too ('two') were needed by cells as they split and began to form a unique you after conception. When did "you" start? Are you not a direct result of your ancestors from time immemorial? If one of your ancestors died, you, the unique you, would not be here at all. All those millennia stretching back to the first shimmerings in a heated volcanic pond somewhere - was that when you began? Or was it before that, for we needed a livable earth to be born then and do now?
Where is the start of your stream? Some say we as individuals seen as separate totally from everything else, have never been born (like that). And if so we will never die, because we are forever part of that Great Ocean from which streams infinite come out from and return to and bring back to it all the information and imprinting we have received and given. This is surely the greatest of reincarnations.
Fuente: irelease.org
