hi

Just back from my first offical zen retreat this weekend at Throssel Howl Abbey in the UK.

All went well, silence, sitting, but blimey I was hungry, I'm used to a bit more than porridge and a couple of veggie soups a day :lol:

At a Q&A session with the monks I thought I'd bring up the reincarnation question just to get their 'official' response to it out of interest.

The response was basically:

It's best not to concern ourselves over it and just do our practise.

As Dogen says the belief is that on death the body diss-agregates including any un-resolved karma but there is no abiding self that carries on carrying your karma.

Other 'Buddhist traditions' that believe in literal re-incarnation (such as Tibetan) believe what they believe, who knows who is right so don't waste time thinking on it and concentrate on your own training.

I mentioned that people had been banned from a certain internet forum for saying the above which they obviously found faintly amusing judging by from their smile but made no comment.

Hoping to go on a longer one there later this year.

In gassho, Kev