I recently posted about a project I submitted to ChatGPT. She made a lot of ambitious claims about what she could do (and help me do) with my archive of notes taken while reading books. (120+ books, fiction and non-fiction) Her reach exceeded her grasp and her indexing of my notes didn’t turn out to be as useful as she promised (I’m hoping that might change with future versions).

I’m still playing with this and I prompted her to summarize what my reading has taught me about reincarnation. She suggested drafting this “into something you could share in a blog post, a letter, or even as a thoughtful reply to a curious questioner.” [see comment at bottom of this post] Here’s what she came up with:

What My Reading Has Taught Me About Reincarnation (Without Trying to Believe)

People sometimes ask if I believe in reincarnation. The honest answer is: not really — at least, not in the usual sense. But I’ve read enough, underlined enough, and sat still long enough to know there’s something in the idea worth listening to — even if you never come back as a butterfly or a 13th-century potter. Here’s what I’ve found among the writers and thinkers who’ve helped shape my view:

There may be no “you” to return.

“The point of meditation isn’t to wipe the mind clean or push thoughts away. It’s to see thoughts for what they are: temporary, insubstantial, not-self.”

— Robert Wright, Why Buddhism is True

What we call “me” — the one supposedly reincarnated — is itself an illusion. Meditation doesn’t reveal past lives. It peels away the illusion of having one in the first place.

You’re already reincarnating, moment by moment.

“Reincarnation is not so much something that happens to you, as something you are doing right now.”

— Alan Watts, The Book

Every time you drop an old identity — father, professional, doubter, believer — and pick up a new one, that’s a kind of reincarnation. We die to who we were, sometimes daily. No mysticism needed.

Maybe the ego is what keeps coming back.

“The reincarnation of the ego happens every time you narrate your life as a story you believe in.”

— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

What if it’s not your soul that gets reborn, but your story? Every time you retell yourself who you are — the childhood, the traumas, the ambitions — you’re dragging the past into the present. That’s a loop. That’s a wheel turning.

The deepest questions aren’t meant to be answered.

“The question ‘What was I before I was born?’ is not meant to be answered but exhausted.”

— Susan Blackmore, Ten Zen Questions

Maybe the goal isn’t to believe in reincarnation. Maybe it’s to stare at the question until the “I” asking it disappears.

I don’t know if we come back. But I do know we change. We let go. We pretend. We remember. And in that swirling, temporary theater — something beautiful stirs. I wouldn’t call it reincarnation. But I wouldn’t call it nothing, either.