Tad Williams

10/18/09

Betsy Wollheim sent me this, and I love it....

From MAD magazine #43, 1958:

I Wandered Lonely as a Clod

I wandered lonely as a clod,
Just picking up old rags and bottles,
When onward on my way I plod,
I saw a host of axolotls;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man's blood freeze.
Some had handles, some were plain;
They came in blue, red pink, and green.
A few were orange in the main;
The damndest sight I've ever seen.
The females gave a sprightly glance;
The male ones all wore knee-length pants.
Now oft, when on the couch I lie,
The doctor asks me what I see.
They flash upon my inward eye
And make me laugh in fiendish glee.
I find my solace then in bottles,
And I forget them axolotls.

10/5/09

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Topic: Reincarnation & Rebirth
Displaying posts collected by Deb whose fantasy-loving, parentally practicing * imagination was tickled by this. And I love the whole idea of “further becoming,” I’ve been trying to frame this in relation to YA fiction for a while. For me it’s about the “further becoming” of those years.

*We’ve had to discuss some of this with the Son of the family, owing to past anxieties over death.

Post #1
Henry wrote
on June 29, 2009 at 9:12pm
Sometimes it’s difficult to explain the difference between these two terminologies. Can someone explain the differences and similarities in clear language?

Post #2
John wrote
on June 30, 2009 at 1:53am
Reincarnation = a soul lives on after the death of the body, and it eventually takes on another body, and so on, till it learns detachment from all worldly things.

Rebirth= only the consequences of our lives continue after the death of the body. Put another way, there is no permanent “self” that is distinct from the body; so when the body dies it dies too, dispersing back into its aggregates.

Reincarnation means that there is a “you” which lives on forever.

Rebirth means that once you’re dead, you’re dead. (That’s because there never really was a “you” -- there was only just a combination of elements that came together as “you” for a little while.) All that is “reborn” is the consequences (karma) into new forms.

But, that’s just my opinion.

Post #3
Dhammasara wrote
on June 30, 2009 at 9:44pm
Instead of debating over the terminology in English, we can simply use the Pali terms ‘puna bhava,’ which means ‘further becoming.’