Crossing: Notes on the Reincarnation of a Soul

At the age of fifty-two, Lin Yuan died. He floated above his body, watching his wife crying and fainting at the door of the morgue, and watching his son clenching his fists without saying a word. He wanted to hug them, but his hands penetrated the air. He was then dragged into the bardo, the gray area between life and death. There, he must face all the actions of his life: not from his own perspective, but from the perspective of everyone he has hurt and warmed. He saw how a casual cruel word could leave a hole in another person's heart, and how a casual kindness spread like ripples. He was thrown into six realms: the ignorance of the animal realm, the hunger and thirst of the hungry ghost realm, the pain of the hell realm, the anger of the asura realm, and the numbness of the heavenly realm - each realm is the manifestation of his mind, and each realm has people he knows. He finally understood: reincarnation is not punishment, but school. Every death is an exam, and every new student is the beginning of school. And karma is the transcript he wrote himself, and no one can delete it. He chose to return to the human world and drink the water of Wangchuan. My mother's braised pork, my wife's tears, my son's laughter—all were forgotten. In the delivery room, there was a cry. The baby opens his eyes and sees his mother. He doesn't remember her. But he comes with all the "credits" - character, talent, fears, desires. There was also an indescribable sense of déjà vu: it seemed that a long, long time ago, someone looked at him like this, smiling with tears in his eyes. About death, but about living. About reincarnation, but about love. About forgetting, but about the things we never really forget.