Well its morning now, my headache's gone so I dont mind explaining it.

The concept of rebirth is like... Not so much you die and you come back as a cow or whatever. Since there is no such thing as a self in buddhism, there is also no such thing as a kind of soul. So everything that makes you you is lost at death. BUT this universe is considered one big mechanism, like our bodies... We have organs, cells, bacteria, muscle tissue etc and they all work together as one, if one thing was removed from the system it would cease to work properly.

It's the same with the universe, we are just sort of on it as part of it, one of its components. When something dies, their "energy" (the energy that makes them alive, for example pulses in the nervous system or whatever conciousness is made of) dissipates into the universe. When something is conceived, the energy manifests to form life. Its like lighting an unlit candle with a lit candle. The newly lit candle is not the candle that was used to light it, but the candle that was used to light it is the cause of the newly lit candle. Get what I mean?

And yeah you really should stop worrying. If you're worried about losing your past you're just being selfish. People always say "Oh, thats terrible! We wont be? What use is that, all my hard work will be lost," of course when they do die they wont be there to realise how terrible it is.

btw Nos: To say that life is fundamentally a learning experience is demeaning it. Its like you're saying that life in between hardships or whatever when you learn something is not worth as much... This moment right now is just as important as any other... Think about it, that moment is completely unique and will never ever come around again.

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