Perhaps describing some of the view from my path might clear up where I stand for anyone unclear... first, my basic metaphysical assumption:

Life is better when you’ve got a story to tell yourself, Life is more consistent when the story is true, and in times of stress, it pays to keep the story simple and easy to remember.

My story: “IT is Eternally Here and Now, I Am Me, and IT will ALWAYS be bigger than Me”

This is because storytelling is the human game. Everything I’m responsible for, which is really only my expectations and my intentions (and everything else from ideas to behavior follow logically from them) is part of my character. When my character came into being, I incarnated. Now what ever happened once it is certainly possible it could happen again. But I haven’t RE-incarnated, only incarnated. Why is that more than just a semantic point? Because so far we’ve only talked about my character, this one named Upaya. This is my one time playing THIS character, and when this character dies, it won’t come back, it will be retired to the annals of history... but what about the ACTOR, the “I” that feels like me? There will almost CERTAINLY be more characters it will play in the future. But just as I, Upaya, only became ME once my mental ship of Theseus collection of memories left the port, and I have no memory of other characters the actor has played in the past, in the future, the only way I’ll be able to retrieve Upaya’s memories will be from whatever he got recorded in history... from this we might see a better picture of incarnation or “reincarnation” start to emerge. As far as Karma, I’m actually not all that upset with our understanding of it in the west. The way we use it in conversation, even if corrupted from contemporary eastern philosophies, I think is actually closer to the true meaning... exactly because we take it sincerely enough to do thinks like “pay it forward” without blaming victims by saying things like “they must have had it coming”. Where it begins to take on more substance again is if you imagine yourself to be the one that will benefit from your charity in this life when the actor comes back to the better world it created while playing your character this time.

Now we’re getting closer to a more sophisticated understanding (so be careful, remember, I’m telling you what I sincerely believe, but I don’t take it “seriously”... I’m just spinning what I hope people might find to be useful yarn lol)... but there is one more distinction I wish to make... all this time I’ve been saying things like “future and past life”... but as I said, there is no connection in memory, and time is something that exists IN memories, we have no idea we should be applying the idea of sequence to these multiple lives. If I have no memory of other lives, it should be just as fair to say the actor will play a role 10,000 years in the past as it is to say 10,000 years in the future... and if we cannot make that distinction, then the actor could even come back as someone alive now... perhaps even you... perhaps your life is first then mine?

Now we always want to be careful of Pascal’s wager, and it strikes me as the height of foolishness to try to use it as a loophole to trick an Omni sentient being... but in this case, where ALL I know is that my spirit (not soul, spirit implies pattern, soul implies substance) incarnated once. And since I know NOTHING about how the system works, in so far as there is even the slightest chance I’ll come back as You, then I want to make sure that when I take my turn playing You, I want to make sure I’ll see my interactions with Upaya as productive and helpful, and I have no better place to be able to affect that than where I am right now.

Being that I currently am Upaya, I’m already in charge of my own joy and suffering, any suffering I choose to take I’m the one taking the choice on myself, so I can choose exactly how much I take on. With that said, if I know that taking on 1 unit of suffering myself will relieve 10 units of suffering from 10 other people, that is a 100:1 payout, why would I not? This is why I’m willing to call myself a fool to deflate the stakes, and try to side step confrontations, even if I feel something this character has learned could be an advantage to another character. The “suffering” from the degradation of my own character has a high payout, and thinking out my ideas with someone who can challenge me critically is fun, so it’s a win win for me.

I was born and raised in the west, and I don’t hide from who I am... that’s why I’m working on my own path and trying to find a new door from the western approach... This is how I’ve forged the way of the light troll lol. Now by spelling all this out, NOW I’m being too reductionist. What matters is the Tao, which what I just spelled out was MY way of proving it to myself, but there are PLENTY of other ways, and the way you get there isn’t really important at all. Christianity arrives at the same place, they have a LOT more story to go with it (which is personally my problem with it, in times of stress, you need to know what to do, not flip through a 750,000 word book for advice) but the whole point of the story goes back the the exact same point, even if it reasons it’s way there in a completely different manner, but it’s all about the Golden Rule, or treating people as you want to be treated. If you know that, and you get to a point where you can keep that as your Top Priority at ALL times, then the story or mental gymnastics you used to get into that mindset is no longer needed... that’s not to say you shouldn’t do it, going to church can be fun, and a sense of community is important... just don’t lose sleep because you haven’t memorized the entire 2000 year old book, that was deliberately over complicated to make the one important point stick.

Ourstory: “EVERYONE is Me speaking out of a different Ego…

... including You and I” lol