I did get messed up by some anxiety and have these thoughts rolling through my head so I’ll leave it at cosmic horror warning.
spoiler
I’m not religious but I have thoughts about experiencing consciousness and what it is. I say that consciousness is independent of memory because we forget, clearly dependent on our physical body, etc. generally I do say that we don’t know consciousness so maybe it can be reconstructed (in the can’t rule out the possibility way)
So I can see scenarios were my conscious could pop into existence without my memories after I die (as I’m writing this I realized that’s nothing to fear).
I am trying to adopt healthier mindset of looking at everything in life as a quest, new things are a call to action, and that it’s okay if everything I do amounts to little in x number of years (worked out okay for ozymandias, right?).
Im probably just rambling because my life has got boring and monotonous along with actual fear of American politics.
IIRC, you can still come back as a “lesser” creature next time. Monks and ascetics exist because they’re trying to go up to whatever is above human. I’ve forgotten the details. Nirvana or some kind of god-like state of existence, or reunification with some higher power. This might vary depending on the specific religion.
Of course, there are people who believe that assuming humans are a higher form of life is an arrogant assumption in the first place, which would render all of that null.
Buddhist here. The goal of Buddhism is to escape the cycle of rebirth. Monks and ascetics are generally trying to go out (to nibbana, “extinguishment”) rather than up (to rebirth in one of the heavenly realms), which tends to be a goal of laypeople. Though it depends to some extent on which branch of Buddhism. Even after reaching a heavenly realm and having a godlike existence, eventually (after a very long time) they will die and fall back into a lower realm with more suffering, which is why escaping the cycle is the ultimate goal.
In Buddhism we don’t consider humans a higher form of life than animals or those in the hell realm. All living beings are seen equally, as we all suffer and we all want to be free from suffering. Regarding E. coli, I think most Buddhists would say you can only be reborn into a body with a sufficient nervous system for the brain to support the mind processes required for experience, so bacteria are probably too simple.
But saying “you” are reborn isn’t quite right as there is no self which goes through this process, just the causal process itself links the past and present life.