Questions to Master Deshimaru

Question

So you don't believe in reincarnation?

Answer

Believe? It is not so important. It is not necessary to believe. To determine whether reincarnation exists or not is a subjective matter. My own ideas on the subject are not entirely negative, but I do not say that "I must believe in it." As far as reincarnation is concerned, nobody has come back from death to tell us about it. But it excites the imagination, and primitive religions had a great many ideas about it. In this area, you cannot decide whether one path or the other is the right one. You can believe or not believe. I have had many metaphysical experiences and I believe in the metaphysical world but you cannot reduce it to some trivial thing. The cosmos is infinite. People write about the metaphysical world but they can only touch upon minute aspects of it, whereas it is infinite. So we cannot talk about it. My experience and that of other people are not the same, and we cannot decide if it is this way or that. Making categories reduces things to trivial dimensions.