Subtitles
i have often puzzled and puzzled 00:00:00
i have often puzzled and puzzled about what it must be like 00:00:04
[Music] 00:00:07
to go to sleep and never wake up 00:00:07
to be simply not there forever and ever 00:00:15
after all one has some intimation of this 00:00:22
by the interval that separates going to 00:00:25
sleep from waking 00:00:28
when we don't have any dreams but go to 00:00:30
sleep 00:00:32
and then suddenly we're there again and 00:00:34
in the interim 00:00:36
there was nothing 00:00:36
and if there was never any end to that interval if the waking up didn't happen 00:00:42
that's such a curious thought 00:00:47
and yet you know i believe that although that's rather gloomy 00:00:54
kind of consideration i found that's one 00:00:59
of the most creative thoughts 00:01:01
i ever thought in my life and i keep 00:01:04
going back to it 00:01:04
you know it's in line with a lot of the very fundamental questions that children 00:01:10
ask 00:01:12
when they say mommy who would i have been 00:01:18
if you had married someone else 00:01:18
these are the kind of questions that make us puzzle profoundly about our 00:01:26
existence 00:01:31
and one of the reasons why i think 00:01:34
thinking about 00:01:35
not being about total non-existence 00:01:39
is so creative is that 00:01:43
in comparison with that thought 00:01:47
the fact that we are seems 00:01:51
kind of queer incredibly odd 00:01:51
but you know in the western world i suppose we have two dominant ideas 00:02:01
about what happens to us when we die 00:02:08
does the old-fashioned idea 00:02:12
that after we die we go to another world 00:02:15
i say old-fashioned not to say it's out 00:02:17
of date we don't know what the answer to 00:02:19
this is 00:02:22
but that's the traditional answer of the 00:02:24
western world 00:02:25
when you die you go to another life 00:02:27
maybe heaven 00:02:28
maybe purgatory maybe hell who knows 00:02:32
i think nowadays though the more general 00:02:35
idea the more plausible idea to many 00:02:37
people 00:02:38
is that when we die we just cease to be 00:02:41
that's all there is to it but we're 00:02:44
inclined i think to have in our minds 00:02:46
a picture of this which indeed is 00:02:49
depressing 00:02:50
of being shut up in the dark for always 00:02:53
and always and always to be kind of 00:02:55
buried alive in a blackness 00:02:57
where we are blind deaf and dumb but 00:03:00
somehow still conscious but in the 00:03:04
eastern world 00:03:04
there are different ideas of this 00:03:07
the major eastern idea is what is generally known 00:03:15
as reincarnation 00:03:17
of going through life after life after life in an 00:03:22
endless series now 00:03:27
of course when any idea like that is 00:03:30
explained the first thing that we ask 00:03:33
is is it true 00:03:33
is there a process of rebirth 00:03:36
but you know as this idea is held by deeply thoughtful hindus and 00:03:45
buddhists 00:03:48
it isn't a belief in something which we 00:03:51
can't prove 00:03:52
it's really quite a self-evident notion 00:03:56
think of it in this world supposing i 00:03:58
make two statements 00:04:01
statement one after i die 00:04:06
i shall be reborn again as a baby 00:04:11
but i shall forget my former life 00:04:14
statement two after i 00:04:17
die a baby will be born 00:04:17
now i believe that those two statements are saying exactly the same thing 00:04:25
and we know that the second one is true 00:04:31
babies are always being born 00:04:32
conscious beings of all kinds are 00:04:34
constantly coming into existence 00:04:37
after others died but why would i think 00:04:41
that the two 00:04:43
statements are really the same statement 00:04:46
because after all 00:04:46
if you die and your memory comes to an end and you forget 00:04:52
who you were being reborn again is 00:04:57
exactly the equivalent 00:04:58
of somebody else being born because we 00:05:01
have no 00:05:02
consciousness of our continuity unless 00:05:04
we have memory 00:05:05
if the memory goes then we might just as 00:05:07
well be somebody else 00:05:10
but it seems to me that the fascinating 00:05:13
thing about this 00:05:14
is that although a particular set of 00:05:18
memories damages 00:05:19
death is not the end of consciousness 00:05:24
in other words we are 00:05:27
deluded by a kind of fantasy if we think 00:05:30
of death 00:05:31
as endless darkness 00:05:31
endless nothingness is not only inconceivable but it's 00:05:39
logically 00:05:42
absolutely meaningless because we aren't 00:05:44
able to have any idea 00:05:46
much less sensation of nothing unless it 00:05:49
can be compared 00:05:50
with a sensation of something these two 00:05:53
things 00:05:54
go together and therefore i think what 00:05:57
is meant 00:05:58
is that the vacuum created by the 00:06:01
disappearance of a being by the 00:06:03
disappearance of his memory system 00:06:06
is simply filled by 00:06:09
another being who is i 00:06:13
just as you feel you are the funny thing 00:06:15
though about being i 00:06:17
about feeling that one is sort of a 00:06:19
center of the universe 00:06:21
is that you can only experience this eye 00:06:23
sensation in the singular 00:06:25
you can't experience being two or three 00:06:27
eyes all at the same time 00:06:27
now then it seems to me that this idea has three 00:06:35
very important consequences one is 00:06:40
that the disappearance of our memory 00:06:44
in death is not really something to be 00:06:47
regret of course 00:06:51
everybody wishes to hold forever to the 00:06:54
memories and to the people 00:06:56
and the situations that he particularly 00:06:58
loves 00:07:00
but surely if we think this room is that 00:07:03
what we actually want 00:07:06
do we really want to have those we love 00:07:10
however greatly we love them for always 00:07:12
and always and always and always isn't 00:07:16
it inconceivable that even in a very 00:07:18
distant future 00:07:20
we wouldn't get tired of it 00:07:20
and this indeed is the secret of the thing this is why the demon of 00:07:26
impermanence 00:07:29
is beneficial because it is forgetting 00:07:32
about things that renews their wonder 00:07:36
just think when you opened your eyes on 00:07:39
the world 00:07:40
for the first time as a child 00:07:43
how brilliant colors were what a jewel 00:07:46
the sun was 00:07:48
what marveled the stars how incredibly 00:07:51
alive the trees were 00:07:54
that's all because they were new to your 00:07:56
eyes 00:07:58
or in the same way you know how it is 00:07:59
you've been reading a mystery story 00:08:01
and uh you're looking around the house 00:08:03
you want something to read you pick up 00:08:05
an old mystery story 00:08:06
if you read it years and years ago and 00:08:08
you've forgotten all about the clock 00:08:10
it still excites you but if you remember 00:08:12
the plot it doesn't excite you 00:08:15
and so by the dispensation of forgetting 00:08:19
the world is constantly renewed 00:08:22
and we are able to see it again and 00:08:24
again and to love 00:08:26
again and again to have people to whom 00:08:29
we are 00:08:30
deeply attached and deeply formed 00:08:33
always with renewed intensity and 00:08:37
without the contrast 00:08:38
of having seen them before before before 00:08:42
before for always 00:08:43
always at all another consequence of 00:08:45
this 00:08:47
is a very curious realization 00:08:47
remember that question who would i be if my mother had married someone else 00:08:56
who if i were you we often said one might so easily have been you 00:09:04
i might so easily have been born in 00:09:09
china and india why 00:09:11
do i feel that the world is centered in 00:09:13
this place as distinct from some other 00:09:15
place you jolly well know the world is 00:09:17
centered where you are 00:09:17
and this gives one a very strange feeling 00:09:25
of the idea that other people jolly well 00:09:29
exist in the same sense you do 00:09:31
everybody's name is i that's what you 00:09:34
call yourself 00:09:37
so there will always be eyes in the 00:09:40
world 00:09:41
every eye is in a way the same eye 00:09:45
we all might be anyone else 00:09:48
and there is no escape it goes on and on 00:09:52
and on 00:09:53
so long as there is consciousness 00:09:55
anywhere that is i 00:09:55