[kranskregyan]

Dear Everyone
Happy new year and hope you had a good holiday season.

I have a question regarding a basic element of Buddhism that is troubling me.
I borrowed a book from the Buddhist society of Victoria the other day called 'No Ajahn Chah' - reflections.
In the book, Ajahn Chah is quoted as saying the following.

page 5-

You’d think that people could appreciate what it would be like to live in a person’s belly. How uncomfortable that would be! Just look at how merely staying in a hut for only one day is already hard to take. You shut all the doors and windows and you’re suffocating already. How would it be to live in a person’s belly for nine months? Yet you want to stick your head right in there, to put your neck in the noose once again.

I'm a bit confused about the above quote. I thought that when Buddhists talk about not being 'born again' it relates to not continuing to mentally project a self and continually live as though you are a person. That I can understand.

However, it seems that Theravada buddhists practice with the goal not to be physically born into a belly. That being born into a belly is akin to being born in a noose.

This seems like a very nihilistic view. Does it not?
I've also read quotes that say our chances of being born are like those of the turtle who rises to the surface of the ocean and sticks its head through a hole in some driftwood.

Is the ultimate Goal to be not born? So why then do Suttas like the Mangala sutta seem to promote family life?

Confused