It sounds like your level of nibbida (disenchantment, weariness) is strong. This bodes well; who knows, maybe the path will be piece of cake for you?Feathers wrote:Or I can decide the game isn't worth the candle - after all, even if (big if for me) rebirth is all true, memory carrying over seems so rare, that I won't be suffering. So I do as much as benefits me in this life, and then either this life is all there ever was (win) or I get reborn and continue for many more lives . . . but that would have happened anyway, as apparently even working your butt off for decades doesn't get you free of that.
If real progress, stream-entry at least, is not a realistic possibility, I simply don't see the motivation to do more than meditate a bit (for a happier mind) and live a moral life (because it's the right thing to do, and to hedge your bets on reincarnation).
This one life is exhausting - I used to wish there was an afterlife, now I am leaning towards hoping this one life is all there is. The idea of 7 more is already too much to face. To expend effort and precious energy on something that would still almost certainly leave me facing far more than 7 . . .
Looking at life here and now is like standing at the bottom of a hill with two broken legs, knowing I have to somehow climb that hill. Buddhism seems to chuck in an entire mountain range.
And yes, I know I'm on a Buddhist forum, and . . . I do believe there's something to Buddhism. If I didn't, if I was neutral or opposed to it, I wouldn't be here.
Feathers
Becoming a doctor is difficult and 'rare'. When I finished school in Sydney, less than the top 1% of students could qualify for medicine. Is it impossible? No, but you would lying to your kid if you said it was common and easy. That being said, for some kids it IS easy. Maybe you are one of those 'kids'? You'll never know unless you give it a shot.
At the end of the day, its all causal from my understanding. You don't really have much choice in the matter. The fact that you have already come this close to Buddhism means you are already on the path.