In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche writes:
To learn how to die is to learn how to live. To learn how to live is to learn how to act not only in this life, but in the lives to come.
Not everyone will accept the idea of re-incarnation, but it is important to appreciate, as he says, that ‘everything is inextricably related: we come to realise that we are responsible for everything we do, say or think, indeed for the entire universe’.
“everything is inextricably related” seems to sum up a book I have just been reading that I highly recommend. It is called ‘English Pastoral: An Inheritance’ by James Rebanks. It is written about three generations of farmers in the Lake District and about their responses to changing methods and times. The language is beautifully descriptive as well as being sagely philosophical. I was reminded of my eight years on a sheep farm in Mid Wales where the problems were very similar in the 1970’s.
A great deal of farming comes down to the proper care and attention of other creatures which is also one of the benefits of thinking about reincarnation, I guess.
You have learnt well, Jimmie and shown many others how to live. J.