“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present.” That refrain pops up regularly in Cloud Atlas, the just-released major motion picture based on the best-selling novel by David Mitchell. To my recollection, the quotation doesn’t appear in the book itself, but the sentiment surely does, along with this follow-on: “And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.”
As a biologist intrigued by Buddhism, and who is exploring the parallels and convergences between this modern and largely Western science and that ancient and largely Eastern “wisdom tradition,” I find myself increasingly convinced that Kipling was wrong: The twain have met, and for the most part, they get along swimmingly.
Nonetheless, I and many other Buddhist sympathizers part company with traditional Buddhist beliefs when it comes to the doctrine of reincarnation. As we…
