One movie you should definitely see in this life is My Reincarnation, by Jennifer Fox, opening this weekend in New York and Los Angeles to rave reviews in the New York Times. (I saw it at the recent New Zealand Film Festival.)
In the video above, from the Share Your Story feature on My Reincarnation’s website, Robert Thurman shares his understanding of reincarnation.
…It’s not like a religious belief in something mystical, it’s acceptance of causation. Acceptance of causation means that everything has a cause, and every cause has an effect. And therefore, there’s no something coming from nothing, and there’s no something going into nothing. That is an incoherent expression, something going into nothing. It’s not possible.
Modern physics recognizes it as the law of thermodynamics. No energy is ever created or destroyed. They talk about entropy, but that’s just people lying around lazily. So rebirth is actually the common sense, natural thing to expect, that consciousness will go on past the death of a physical body.
The belief that consciousness is just a byproduct of brain complexity, and the minute the brain is destroyed it becomes nothing, is an incoherent belief actually. And I consider it the worst kind of blind faith. Because there’s no evidence for nothing. Nobody ever discovered it, nobody ever reported on it. Technically it’s not a place something can go into, it’s not a foundation, it simply isn’t there, nothing. So therefore, you can’t be in it. And the continuum of consciousness which is a form of energy, a very subtle energy at its deepest level, it must continue.
The “Share Your Story” online campaign to engage people in the themes of the film is co-presented with the Tibet House US, the Tibet Fund, Interdependence Project and The International Dzogchen Community in North America.
The video below features highlights from the New York premeire at Cinema Village and after party at Tibet House US with Jennifer Fox, Khyentse Yeshe and Robert Thurman.
Highlights from the NYC Premiere of MY REINCARNATION! from Zohe Films on Vimeo.
I love Jennifer’s words about making the film:
I’m lucky to be able to make films because it’s such an incredible way to be in the world. That I can do something in the world, but also learn as I’m doing it, and that’s what this film is about. Clearly I’m a student, observing my teachers, trying to interact and trying also to express what I think is very important.
- Related articles of note:
- First Person on IndieWIRE: “My Reincarnation” Director on Her 20 Years in the Making Spiritual Doc
- Jennifer Fox’s Reincarnation as an Artist Entrepreneur including 5 lessons Jennifer learned from the campaign by Jon Reiss
- Review of My Reincarnation at Wildmind Buddhist Meditation