View Single Post
  #2  
Old 12-03-2017, 03:52 AM
shivatar shivatar is offline
Master
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Olympia, Washington
Posts: 1,933
  shivatar's Avatar
Buddhists believe in it.

If I believe in it, I believe it the same way mid-life is an actual thing. Mid life is an arbitrary line in the sand drawn for understanding. there is no actual mid-life because nobody knows when they are going to die. Mid life for some could be 21, not mid 40's. I believe there is life and death, and consciousness in both, but I don't believe there are actual stages or different places, rather there is only different phases and levels of understanding.

If there is an after-life it would be like being young in death. If there is a pre-life it would be like being old. Both are stages of death separated by time, one in which I have little understanding and the other I have much.

As for karma I've come to understand karma exists. I don't have any greater understanding such as giving a time for certain good karmas to take effect, I just believe it's true. My personal life and existence has shown me that when I do good things I believe I am a good person. the karmic reward is instantaneous most of the time, it's getting to reveal, to see and experience that I am a good person despite thinking otherwise sometimes. Sometimes something good I did a long time ago comes around but there was always the instantaneous reward, and sometimes a long term reward, or a recurring long term reward (like heaven).

as for soul contracts no I don't believe it. I believe that would take the fun out of existence. I don't believe in individualized or highly accurate contracts but I do believe some universal contracts. Part of the bargain to have a material body, like we will experience emotions, we will experience consciousness and isolation. big basic stuff like that. nothing highly accurate like "you will be beaten and won't be able to defend yourself", "you will experience divorce", "you will experience homelessness and insanity". In my experience nothing in life could be so important that I would want to revisit it when I leave here. In my experience it's my being as a whole, the entire portrait that I'm painting that will be of value to me when I leave here. And that doesn't require knowledge of any of my past memories, it's an intuitive feeling.
__________________
I log once every couple of months, sometimes a couple times a week.
Reply With Quote