Tathāgatagarbha

Tenzin now found herself suspended in amniotic fluid inside her new mother’s womb. Or that’s what it felt like anyway, since she had not yet developed sense organs beyond the rudimentary ones common to simple multicellular organisms. Yet her consciousness remained intact, along with her memory, which was a relief.

The most common reason why most people cannot remember their past lives, is the trauma of death, and the confusion of rebirth. Just as during life we have defense mechanisms that block out experiences that we don’t have the capacity to process, so in death, the mind tends to shut down, block out, and forget our previous lives as if they were a bad dream. But now, for the first time, Tenzin was able to complete the transition with full recognition of the process, thereby keeping her consciousness intact, mostly.

“Ok, now what?” She thought to herself.

Since she only had a hurried glimpse of the outside world, as her consciousness descended into her new world, she didn’t have much information to go on. From the little she saw, it seemed like medieval type fantasy world, judging from the lack of cars and air pollution anyway. While it may have been presumptuous to assume that a civilization at that level of technological development would automatically be hostile to women, Tenzin thought to herself that maybe it would be better to be born male for once.

In her study of Buddhism, she was often put off by the apparent sexism of much older writing. She recognized that many of those texts were meant for monks, and as such often tried to reinforce monastic ideals of celibacy, and thus shouldn’t be taken too seriously, still, she didn’t like how often it was suggested that being born female is somehow a shortcoming, or the result of past negative karma. Hence she had great respect for historic figures like Machig Labdron, who chose to be reborn as a woman despite previous male reincarnations, like choosing to play a game on hard mode, as well as for the Vimalakirti Sutra, where a female Buddha totally shuts down a Buddhist monk in an argument when he suggests that her female form is somehow inferior.

Still, the moment the thought of being reborn as a male crossed her mind, she felt something inside her change, as if she had just inadvertently assigned some points in character creation. While it was too early to tell for sure, it felt like this time around, Tenzin would be male.

“Just great,” Tenzin thought, half-sarcastically, “I better be careful what I think from here on.”

All the previous lives Tenzin could remember had been female, so it was going to take some effort to get used to thinking of herself as a he, but just as with the powa that brought her to this world, there didn’t seem to be a way back now. He, he, he, hehehe, Tenzin couldn’t help but laugh to himself, and wondered if this is exactly why Tibetan names like his were all gender neutral.

Consciously directed embryonic development felt strangely similar to customizing an RPG character. While it wasn’t as obviously mathematical, as when a set number of points is distributed among various attributes, it wasn’t that far off either. Tenzin could tell which characteristics were available genetically from his father’s and mother’s sides, and could choose among them mostly freely.

After somewhat fumbling into becoming a male, Tenzin decided not to choose too many characteristics from his father’s side, since the gender-flip was going to be confusing enough as it is. While he did not opt for his father’s stout build, muscular physique, or ample body hair, Tenzin did choose his sharp eyes, tactical mind, and swift feet. He also seemed to have red hair, which Tenzin decided to go with, since it would make Kurukulla happy, she loved all things red.

From his mother, Tenzin chose a melodious voice, lithe physique, and long, slender fingers. In her past life, Tenzin was very frustrated at not having longer fingers, since it made mastery of many musical instruments especially difficult. Not this time.

As Tenzin’s embryo developed, more subtle characteristics became available to choose, like the slightly pointed ears from his mother, and his father’s pointedly sharp canines; her expressive eyebrows, and his defined abs; her patience, and his courage.

Over the course of customizing his new body, Tenzin noticed that certain combinations of attributes would unlock new, higher order skills, like the combination of his mother’s ears and fingers, combined with his father’s lungs and abs, would make him better at music and singing, or the joining of his father’s tactics with his mother’s patience, would make him a better strategist. At this point, it occurred to Tenzin that he probably should have studied the major and minor marks of the Buddha more closely in art class, since they now seemed to be the key to creating the best build for a new character, so to speak. But, oh well, better luck next life.

After a while, the options started to dwindle and eventually disappeared. The embryo had turned into a fetus, and was already beginning to develop the various characteristics. Tenzin now had working eyes and ears, and could dimly perceive the changes of day and night on the outside, as well as hear things, mostly his mother’s voice.

Now, he wasn’t so lucky as to be reincarnated in a different world where everyone miraculously spoke Modern English, however, there were familiar elements in the speech he could make out while still in the womb. The language spoken in this world was remarkably close to Sanskrit. Tenzin was by no means fluent in it, but did learn some in his Religious Studies in his past life, as well as memorizing certain hymns while studying Indian music, which was enough to give him a basic vocabulary and grammar framework to absorb the spoken language of this world while sitting around in the womb, waiting for the pregnancy to come to term.

For the most part, it sounded like his parents had a harmonious marriage. They never raised their voices at each other, and it felt like his mother was well cared for, at least judging by the steady, uninterrupted flow of nutrients. It also seemed like the father was always around, which was good, but like, didn’t he have a job?

From the sound of it, the parents didn’t have any other kids, at least none who were around. Still, it was strange that they seemed to be able to sustain themselves out in the forest without much effort. Was someone bringing them food? Were they independently wealthy, or maybe retired? What if they were criminals in hiding? Tenzin’s imagination ran wild with possibilities, probably because he was so bored holed up in a womb while fully conscious.

While it was too early to make any definite decisions without first surveying the situation on the outside, the tactical mind Tenzin inherited from his father told him that he might as well use this time to formulate a plan for when he got outside. No matter which world, it was unlikely that a mentally fully-formed infant would be considered normal. At the same time, he was barely getting through the duration of the pregnancy without driving himself crazy. Pretending to be a stupid baby for years on top of it would probably be too much to handle.

He would have to make an alliance with at least one of the parents, so as to gain a certain level of independence early, or he would risk losing a lot of his memories through forced goo-goos and gaa-gaas just to try to fool his them into thinking he’s normal. Then again, would it really be necessary? While in some ways it felt like Tenzin chose to come here and controlled his own character creation, in a manner of speaking, the opposite was also true. It was Kurukulla’s arrow that pulled him to this particular place, and he didn’t create his character from scratch, but merely mixed and matched from two columns of choices. Even having such a high degree of conscious choice in processes that were normally considered to be beyond intentional control, it still felt like Tenzin was being pulled along by karmic ties.

There was also the possibility that all this was predetermined. Did the monk in Kathmandu know what would happen when he taught Tenzin how to perform powa? Or what if his new parents used some method to summon Tenzin’s consciousness to this particular place? There were still too may unknowns.

As Tenzin became absorbed in his thoughts, it started to feel like the walls were closing in on him. That was when he realized that it was in fact he who had grown too large for his walls. As he started to feel his mother’s contractions pressing down on him it became clear that it was finally time to be reborn again.