[zlZ95pjt]

Reconciling these ideas with anatta and anicca just seems like an awful lot of work for relatively little practical reward. It seems to me from reading this and some other postings on BWB that reincarnation and anatta & anicca are two great tastes that do not, in fact, taste great together. Together they make no sense.

I mean, I am certain there are other people who have figured out how to hold these precepts in their heads at the same time. I'm having a hard time keeping anatta and anicca far enough away from the idea of reincarnation to entertain it for long, though. I keep asking myself questions like a child would ask. They say a child can ask questions wise men cannot answer, and this is one of those cases. These are the innocent little kid questions that hit me when I read this stuff:

"But what's the mind that persists? How long does it persist in this way? Can it persist forever if the person does not enlighten and free themselves and if it can persist forever without enlightenment then is anicca still true?"

It's been my experience that if a dogma can't survive the questioning of a child, it's gonna have a rough time with me. My questions aren't any easier. =P