In Some Strange New Disguise

Wallace McRae with Paul Zarzyski : Reincarnation




A samurai once asked
Zen master Hakuin
where he would go
after he died.
Hakuin answered
"How am I
supposed to know?"
"How do you not know?
You're a Zen master!"
exclaimed the samurai.
"Yes, but not a dead one,"
Hakuin answered.





The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew. It passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal. It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead. Men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson