Flow

To a monk who demands to know why they should not accept the Pax offer of immortality as a form of rebirth, she quotes Buddha as teaching that no individual is reborn, that all things are subject to annicca—the law of mutability—and she then elaborates on the doctrine of anatta, literally “no-self,” the Buddha’s denial that there is any such thing as a personal entity known as a soul. Responding to another query about death, Aenea quotes a Zen koan: “A monk said to Tozan, ‘A monk has died; where has he gone?’ Tozan answered, ‘After the fire, a sprout of grass.’

The Rise of Endymion, chapter 20 - Dan Simmons