I am certain the Fireman's talk with Cooper was a warning against this.  He wasn't telling Cooper who to find, where or how, he was saying, "Don't do it!  You keep doing this, time and time again and it always goes badly.  You guys become Richard and Linda and the ripples are so bad it's even making things go wrong here.  Just leave well alone and you'll kill two birds with one stone; you'll stay the same people you were in the first place and things will eventually get back to normal".

Diane could feel the changes happening and realized it was all wrong.  Cooper could feel the changes but in his obsession for saving Laura, he accepted it, without understanding he'd lose track of everything.  

Look at how, as time passed, he became more and more distant.  He seemed to be on auto pilot most of the time, a shadow of the old Coop.  He didn't even notice things changing around him after a while.

Posted by: Nicole_

My take:

Cooper and Diane were in an in-between world, between death and reincarnation. Cooper, who had reached enlightenment in his past life ("fully awake" after coming to in the hospital as Dougie), retained his memories and then woke the next morning (reincarnated) with knowledge of his true "self" intact... he could have gone to nirvana but instead chose to be a boddhisattva, to come back to try to ease others' suffering again.

Diane hadn't reached enlightenment yet though. She had the opportunity to face her suffering (the rape) and not turn away from it, while she was with Cooper in the motel... but she wasn't ready. She couldn't / didn't  break the cycle of her own suffering. So she reincarnated as Linda, and didn't know anything from before... and Cooper reincarnated as Richard, but did know his mission and who he is. 

We needed the scene to show us why Cooper and Diane couldn't stay together happily-ever-after. He was awake, she wasn't. He was choosing to come back to free others (Laura again, really ) from suffering, she was coming back just because she was still caught in the cycle of reincarnation. 

It was sad, but Cooper being unattached in his rebirth to help Laura again makes some sense to me...

Hi Nicole,

This is very interesting.  So Laura is samsara to Coop's Bohdisattva.

Knowing Cooper, it wouldn't surprise me if he had more than a singular samsara he's struggling to save - Sarah (samSarah? ;-)), Leland, Diane, et cetera, ad infinitum.  =:-O

Maybe he'll even get to Richard ("Good-bye, my Son") Horne some day.

😉

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