Samsara

I used the term reincarnation yesterday, but that's not entirely correct. The phenomenon has a poetic name: Samsara. (It happens when Sam meets Sara - rather romantic in a sense.)

Although reincarnation and samsara have the same Chinese translation (輪迴) and very similar meaning in modern Hinduism, there is a fundamental difference. The former describes the belief that after somebody's death, their soul lives again in a new body. The latter, however, in its original use, referred to the very fact that during the course of our worldly life, what we do determines the future destiny of ourselves - and the world that we are living.

Yes, you can have a purely philosophical interpretation; no superstition is needed. For example, if you calculate every penny to decide your action, people around would do the same to you - and you live in a world of calculation; if you resolve every problem by guns and bombs, you create a world of violence. We create something that we could not escape - Buddha called it the Wheel of Life, or The Six Realms (六道輪迴).

In traditional Buddhism, the six realms are (from bottome to top):

• hell
• preta (hungry ghost)
• animal
• asura
• human
• god

What you may not notice is, from the second to the sixth realms, they very much resemble the Maslow's hierarchy of basic human need, in the order of food, sex, money (also fame and jealousy), love, and sympathy.

PS. You may ask: What's left for the hell ?

My friend, that's the original sin.