Life after life

BBC TV adaptation of novel "Life after life" by Kate Atkinson. Watch now on BBC iPlayer. Image source: ©BBC

Recently I watched the BBC TV adaptation of the novel “Life after life” by Kate Atkinson. It follows the story of Ursula Todd, a woman in the first half of the 20th century who experiences an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

The story posts a question, “what if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?” In some ways this is very similar to the concept of Buddhist’s belief in reincarnation. Our souls come back again and again until we have learned all our life lessons.

In this life as we know it, we don’t have the luxury to reborn and live the same life again and again. So, there is no way to know if we are getting it right, but we can only try our best to live a life fully. As the story depicted, life is fragile. There is no guarantee of how long we have on this planet. Spending our time revisiting “what went wrong” or worrying about “getting it right” in the future only takes us away from what is important: the here and now.

However, if we think about this in Mindfulness terms, this circular pattern of life exists in its simplest form: our breath. With each in breath is a new beginning, each out breath is letting go. As we breathe, it is not about getting it right, nor is there such thing as a “good or bad” breath. It is simply focusing on what the breath is right here, right now, moment by moment. It is through this simple attitude of allowing and observing, we will begin to notice that no one breath is the same and if we expand this to our wider world, everything is constantly in flux. Whether it brings joy or happiness, or sadness and frustrations, it will always exist in this circular pattern like the Ouroboros.

In other words, who is to say that we are not living “life after life” right now? If so, how will you live this life and the next? Will you live with worries about the past or future or will you greet it all with an open mind and open heart?

Written by Rina Cheung for Mindful Beti Journals ©All Rights Reserved