Wanderings and Wonderings

It was many years ago when a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of past-life regression. Being born and raised Catholic, I grew up with the belief of spending my afterlife either in heaven or hell; so something like this was quite hard for me to fathom. I had never really given much thought as to who I was until a couple of days ago when I caught a moment of self-reflection and realized that I might actually be from Mongolia in one of my previous lives.

Before coming here, I was warned about the below-freezing temperatures especially on my arrival in January. But as soon as I stepped out of the airport, the cold was not as cold as I had expected it to be. In fact, it is like I did not need any getting used to to the -35 to -30 figures. I guess I was a pastoral nomad on the steppes of Mongolia who spent a lot of time herding despite the harsh winter climate.

Inasmuch as I have noticed Mongolians to be meat lovers, I absolutely love eating the same. My first meal here was a huge meat platter and I had to use my usual room left for dessert to finish the whole plate. Just recently, I had a taste of one of their national dishes, “buuz,” with ground horse meat and I was savoring every bite of it. I can only surmise that my past life was in the landlocked country of Mongolia where food from livestock is the staple diet.

Come to think of it, my newfound belief in life after life is Buddhist in nature. In Buddhism, beings go through a succession of lifetimes in a continuing cycle of conception and death. Thus, it is possible that I was a Buddhist in this part of the world. I might also have been a Shaman. Unlike what monotheists believe that there is only one God who is a singular entity, the God of Shamanism is not a “He,” but nature. Over the years, I have always entertained the thought of God as someone or something grander like the trees, the sky, and maybe the universe.

I know that there is a lot to being a Mongolian, and I may or may not embody it. But of all the countries I have traveled to and felt homesick in every now and then, I feel the most at home here in Mongolia. The extremely cold weather does not bother me one bit. I also look forward to eating different kinds of meat and tasting the various ways they are cooked. Finally, my personal beliefs about life and God are very much similar to that of Buddhists and Shamans who live here. I may not carry a Mongolian passport nor have Mongolian features, but I am definitely sure that my soul is.