How often do you contemplate coming back after you die? How many of you have joked that'll you were a sloth in a past life or that you'll come back as the opposite sex, or richer, or without disability or with, hopefully, more wisdom? How many of you have contemplated the animal you'd like to come back as, should you have a choice, hoping it'll be something noble like a dolphin or an eagle over a dung beetle?

'I don't mind, so long as I don't have big boobs or asthma' I joked last week to my best mate and her husband as we had a cuppa in the garden, enjoying a little winter sunshine. She looked at me and laughed, reminding me I don't believe in reincarnation. She does - as a vipassana meditator who have essentially Buddhist beliefs, coming back again to learn your lessons is a given.

There's a lot of Buddhist philosophy I subscribe to, but not that. It seems like wishful thinking to me, or perhaps just an easy answer to what happens to our brains - and our consciousness - when we die.

It's impossible for us to believe in no thought as thinking creatures.

Try it.

Told ya.

It's easier for me to rest easy in the idea that we become part of the earth physically - our matter is absorbed into the universe to feed the universe. This is infinitely beautiful a concept - the ones we love become part of the very air we breath. I struggle to think of me not thinking when I am gone, but accept this is the case. I'm just neurons firing in my brain, and that's okay. When those electrical impulses stop, so do I. I will live on for a while in the brains of people who remember me, and I am plant and fungi food and that's absolutely freaking awesome. I existed, and then I do not.

I don't need to think about coming back as a beautiful spotted quoll or as princess to give my life meaning.

The cases for reincarnation are indeed fascinating, but without proof, it's just a story we believe in to explain the inexplicable and inconceivable, in the same way some of us choose to have faith in God. We are constantly creating stories - the whole of humanity is a collective story of how we see ourselves on the planet. We tell stories and believe in them because they motivate us and compel us to have a reason to exist. They explain our suffering and life circumstances. It is easier to believe in a multitude of extraordinary stories than it is to understand that we are just a material being that will be one day immaterial.

That isn't to say the stories of reincarnation aren't worth contemplating in some way. How fascinating it is to contemplate that someone is afraid of swimming because they drowned in a previous life or that they feel so connected to their 'soul' mate that they must have met in all the previous lives before. The research of Dr Stephenson who explored the anecdotal evidence of reincarnated children does sound so convincing that I don't blame people for ignoring the cognitive bias and various fallibility in his studies. How cool is it to think that a child has a memory of being a WW1 fighter pilot or great Aunty Susan who we loved so very much.

It's a nicer story and perhaps we can wrap our neurons more easily around that than the thought of our brains no longer thinking.

And boy we can come up with any reason to explain the problems with reincarnation, can't we? For example, there's roughly 2.5 million more ants for every person on earth. How is it possible people possibly come back as an ant? Do we just cycle through? What about all the other ants? Do they not have a consciousness? What about the expanding population of people in the world? Are new souls created? By what process? Is there a reservoir of souls just hanging out waiting for the possibility of reincarnation? We do seem to have an answer to any questioning of reincarnation, without any proof whatsoever. We argue we don't need proof to believe what we know is true.

Okaaaaaay.

The way I figure, if I'm reincarnated after all, that's a happy bonus, because earth is pretty beautiful, all told. But I also have to be happy with the idea that I'm just stardust, and that's just as meaningful.

It's meaningful because it's a framework less likely to start war. Because if we and every living creature is also dust, then we have something in common, and perhaps are less likely to drop a bomb on each other for believing other stories.

It's okay to just live one life, and do as best we can by acting out of love so that the ones born out of nothing after us inherit a good life too. If we achieve that, then our life has meant something.