Recently, in my exploration of Buddhism, reincarnation, and karma, I've been realising how influential how influential these are in learning about Eastern religion, culture, and philosophy.

For some reason, my YouTube algorithm has recently suggested several aquatic-themed content — things like leopard seals, sperm whales, and Greenland sharks. And the Greenland shark is something that I've known about for a long time, but only more recently have I started to learn about their existence and how deep they live in the ocean. We're talking a few kilometres, even miles deep. And I believe it's called the Bathypelagic zone, something like that. It's the point where no light reaches that far down. So they're in absolute pitch darkness.

And they live right down there. They can't see anything anyway because most of them have parasites in their eyes — worms and these things that feed on their eyes. So they can't see any way. And most of them live with these worms just dangling out of their pale-looking eyes as they swim along. And they feed on dead carcasses falling to the ocean's bottom. Their bodies are full of strong chemicals that make them smell like urine, which fishermen know — ones that have caught them. And these allow them to survive at such great depths in the ocean.

And to be honest, it seems like a pretty miserable existence. Not much going on down there. Extremely cold, extremely dark. And like that wasn’t bad enough, most of them live well up to 400 years.

This got me thinking a lot about reincarnation, whether we do come back to life, whether the mental continuum stops, whether it continues, and where it goes, and whether you believe in reincarnation or not. Maybe you believe in heaven and hell. Some people see your type of reincarnation as a form of heaven and hell. But the more I looked at this, read about it, and watched videos about the Greenland shark, the more I realised their existence seems like hell.

And I do know for sure that if I am reincarnated, I certainly don't want to come back as a Greenland shark. And even if there is a slight chance of that happening, that is not something that I'm willing to bank on.

Whether your stance is on karma, I see karma as cause and effect, essentially the butterfly effect. One thing happens, and another thing happens as a result of that. But even if there is a slight chance, whether you believe in reincarnation or not, of coming back as a Greenland shark, as I said, it's something that I don't want to take a chance with.

I recently returned from a Buddhist meditation retreat, where one of the teachers was a scholar-practitioner who worked on translating the Pali Canon. He said that the Buddha did not comment on whether there is a next life, which is not something I've looked at myself. But he said that if there is another life after this one, then your best bet is to practice the Dharma—mindfulness, patience, compassion, and cultivate wisdom.

He also said that even if there isn’t life after this one, your best bet is to practice Dharma—patience, mindfulness, compassion, and cultivate wisdom, which seems like a relatively safe bet in all instances.

And if you get nothing else out of it, hopefully, you won’t come back as a Greenland shark.