why do people believe in past lives?
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i can accept karma if you say that people get cancers due to the cumulative reasons from baby to current moment.
if that is karma, it pretty close to the word causality.
however, if you say that karma includes what people do in past life and is connected to current life. then i say karma is not true because i there is no evidence for past life.
many people claiming they have experience past live experiences is not evidence. its what we call anedoctcal evidence, which is very lame piece of evidence.
its useless, they can talk all they wat about what they see and what they feel, it will lead to nothing but has no real positive effect to human life.
if you want improvement in human life. look at the inventions made that has benefited human. they are all works of human through our hands and minds. we only know that we have to rely on ourself to improve life.
heart transplant, kidney transplant, bone marrow donation, surgeons, paramedics, nurses, light bulbs, fighting cure of 1918 spanish flu which kills many millions, finding electricity, finding gravity, inventing microscope, inventing materials with special properties.
our step by step hard work and authetic human work can lead to real improvement.
talking about past lives is merely speculative stuff like other theories of supertitious back with anedoctal evidences and pseudo evidence. -
maybe i should not talk about karma.
i shall just talk about past life theories. its a wrong theory. -
No time to discuss now.. will reply later. It seems like you have not read up on what exactly is Karma yet...Originally posted by january:i can accept karma if you say that people get cancers due to the cumulative reasons from baby to current moment.
if that is karma, it pretty close to the word causality.
however, if you say that karma includes what people do in past life and is connected to current life. then i say karma is not true because i there is no evidence for past life.
many people claiming they have experience past live experiences is not evidence. its what we call anedoctcal evidence, which is very lame piece of evidence.
its useless, they can talk all they wat about what they see and what they feel, it will lead to nothing but has no real positive effect to human life.
if you want improvement in human life. look at the inventions made that has benefited human. they are all works of human through our hands and minds. we only know that we have to rely on ourself to improve life.
heart transplant, kidney transplant, bone marrow donation, surgeons, paramedics, nurses, light bulbs, fighting cure of 1918 spanish flu which kills many millions, finding electricity, finding gravity, inventing microscope, inventing materials with special properties.
our step by step hard work and authetic human work can lead to real improvement.
talking about past lives is merely speculative stuff like other theories of supertitious back with anedoctal evidences and pseudo evidence.
But just a short note first: Karma does not in any way mean Determinism or Fatalism, and therefore does not contradict improvements in science or attempt to find cures. Perhaps someone can say something about this while I am away... -
I had seen some documentaries on Discovery Channel about the possibilties of past lifes experiences and ironically, those people who relate their past lifes expericence are caucasians and best of all.... Catholic or Christians.
Now if someone were to ask me if I believed if ther is such thing as previous lifetimes, I would say YES without a doubt. I have this thinking even before I had encountered the Triple Gems. This is because when I look at things on a more subtle level, there are things and people I find that I'm familiar with no matter the feeling is love or hatred.
The best example I can qoute is during my poly days, there was this guy from another class. He is a very very normal guy who don't look replusive or wierd. He does not behave outlandish. He is just like anybody else. But the first time I saw him, I do not like him and have a strong sense of oppression towards him. I thought I'm odd, but it tured out that more than 80% of the lecture group dislike him based on 1st impression. So where did this feeling comes from? It must come from somewhere in order for everyone to react in such a way.
Hence there must be something beyond this lifetime (I wonder what he had done to so many of us
).
Cherrio -
Originally posted by oldkid:I had seen some documentaries on Discovery Channel about the possibilties of past lifes experiences and ironically, those people who relate their past lifes expericence are caucasians and best of all.... Catholic or Christians.
Now if someone were to ask me if I believed if there is such thing as previous lifetimes, I would say YES without a doubt. I have this thinking even before I had encountered the Triple Gems. This is because when I look at things on a more subtle level, there are things and people I find that I'm familiar with no matter the feeling is love or hatred.
The best example I can quote is during my poly days, there was this guy from another class. He is a very very normal guy who don't look replusive or wierd. He does not behave outlandish. He is just like anybody else. But the first time I saw him, I do not like him and have a strong sense of oppression towards him. I thought I'm odd, but it tured out that more than 80% of the lecture group dislike him based on 1st impression. So where did this feeling comes from? It must come from somewhere in order for everyone to react in such a way.
Hence there must be something beyond this lifetime (I wonder what he had done to so many of us ).
Cherrio -
Usually pple call it " Mei Ren Yuan " which means no matter where he go , pple just don't like the sight of him untill they know him better . I have such fate also , no matter where i go , the pple there just don't like the sight of me n will purposely make my life difficult so that i will leave the place without them having to sack me . And that also applies to friends , even when i try to make friends , usually those that willing to be friends with me are those who are trying to take advantage of me . Untill now 80% of my friends are those who like to make use of me for their own advantage which is why i rather be a loner then to make friends with pple outside .
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Perhaps you have forgotten all that we have discussed so far. Perhaps you should sincerely go and do a research on Ian Stevensons, or many other scientists' works on their research on rebirth/reincarnation.Originally posted by january:maybe i should not talk about karma.
i shall just talk about past life theories. its a wrong theory.
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/qanda05.htmQuestion:
You have talked a lot about rebirth but is there any proof that we are reborn when we die?
Answer:
Not only is there scientific evidence to support the Buddhist belief in rebirth, it is the only after-life theory that has any evidence to support it. There is not a scrap of evidence to prove the existence of heaven and of course evidence of annihilation at death must be lacking. But during the last 30 years parapsychologists have been studying reports that some people have vivid memories of their former lives. For example, in England, a 5 year-old girl said she could remember her "other mother and father" and she talked vividly about what sounded like the events in the life of another person. Parapsychologists were called in and they asked her hundreds of questions to which she gave answers. She spoke of living in a particular village in what appeared to be Spain, she gave the name of the village, the name of the street she lived in, her neighbors' names and details about her everyday life there. She also fearfully spoke of how she had been struck by a car and died of her injuries two days later. When these details were checked, they were found to be accurate. There was a village in Spain with the name the five-year-old girl had given. There was a house of the type she had described in the street she had named. What is more, it was found that a 23-year-old woman living in the house had been killed in a car accident five years before. Now how is it possible for a five year- old girl living in England and who had never been to Spain to know all these details? And of course, this is not the only case of this type. Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia's Department of Psychology has described dozens of cases of this type in his books. He is an accredited scientist whose 25 year study of people who remember former lives is very strong evidence for the Buddhist teaching of rebirth.Question:
Well, have there been any scientists who believe in rebirth?
Answer:
Yes. Thomas Huxley, who was responsible for having science introduced into the 19th century British school system and who was the first scientist to defend Darwin's theories, believed that reincarnation was a very plausible idea. In his famous book 'Evolution and Ethics and other Essays', he says:
In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahmanical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the Cosmos to man... Yet this plea of justification is not less plausible than others; and none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality; and it may claim such support as the great argument from analogy is capable of supplying.
Then, Professor Gustaf Stromberg, the famous Swedish astronomer, physicist and friend of Einstein also found the idea of rebirth appealing. Opinions differ whether human souls can be reincarnated on the earth or not. In 1936 a very interesting case was thoroughly investigated and reported by the government authorities in India. A girl (Shanti Devi from Delhi) could accurately describe her previous life (at Muttra, five hundred miles from Delhi) which ended about a year before her "second birth." She gave the name of her husband and child and described her home and life history. The investigating commission brought her to her former relatives, who verified all her statements. Among the people of India reincarnations are regarded as commonplace; the astonishing thing for them in this case was the great number of facts the girl remembered. This and similar cases can be regarded as additional evidence for the theory of the indestructibility of memory. Professor Julian Huxley, the distinguished British scientist who was Director General of UNESCO believed that rebirth was quite in harmony with scientific thinking. There is nothing against a permanently surviving spirit-individuality being in some way given off at death, as a definite wireless message is given off by a sending apparatus working in a particular way. But it must be remembered that the wireless message only becomes a message again when it comes in contact with a new, material structure - the receiver. So with our possible spirit-emanation. It... would never think or feel unless again 'embodied' in some way. Our per venalities are so based on body that it is really impossible to think of survival which would be in any true sense personal without a body of sorts... I can think of something being given off which would bear the same relation to men and women as a wireless message to the transmitting apparatus; but in that case 'the dead' would, so far as one can see, be nothing but disturbances of different patterns wandering through the universe until... they... came back to actuality of consciousness by making contact with something which could work as a receiving apparatus for mind. Even very practical and down-to-earth people like the American industrialist Henry Ford found the idea or rebirth acceptable. Ford was attracted to the idea of rebirth because, unlike the theistic idea or the materialistic idea, rebirth gives you a second chance to develop yourself. Henry Ford says: I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty-six. Religion offered nothing to the point.. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is fume if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock... Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more... The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease... If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men's minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.
So the Buddhist teachings of rebirth does have some scientific evidence to support it. It is logically consistent and it goes a long way to answering questions that theistic and the materialistic theories fail to do. But it is also very comforting. What can be worse than a theory of life that gives you no second chance, no opportunity to amend the mistakes you have made in this life and no time to further develop the skills and abilities you have nurtured in this life. But according to the Buddha, if you fail to attain Nirvana in this life, you will have the opportunity to try again next time. If you have made mistakes in this life, you will be able to correct yourself in the next life. You will truly be able to learn from your mistakes. Things you were unable to do or achieve in this life may well become possible in the next life. What a wonderful teaching! -
it has already been proven dat there are alot of pple happened to know their past life thru meditating.Originally posted by january:i can accept karma if you say that people get cancers due to the cumulative reasons from baby to current moment.
if that is karma, it pretty close to the word causality.
however, if you say that karma includes what people do in past life and is connected to current life. then i say karma is not true because i there is no evidence for past life.
many people claiming they have experience past live experiences is not evidence. its what we call anedoctcal evidence, which is very lame piece of evidence.
its useless, they can talk all they wat about what they see and what they feel, it will lead to nothing but has no real positive effect to human life.
if you want improvement in human life. look at the inventions made that has benefited human. they are all works of human through our hands and minds. we only know that we have to rely on ourself to improve life.
heart transplant, kidney transplant, bone marrow donation, surgeons, paramedics, nurses, light bulbs, fighting cure of 1918 spanish flu which kills many millions, finding electricity, finding gravity, inventing microscope, inventing materials with special properties.
our step by step hard work and authetic human work can lead to real improvement.
talking about past lives is merely speculative stuff like other theories of supertitious back with anedoctal evidences and pseudo evidence.
by the way buddhism n science are co-related.
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Yea exactly! If we dismiss these evidences, we are just being someone as dogmatic as some cult followers... who fervently believe in certain dogmas in spite of other scientific evidences that show otherwise. Not only can science say that rebirth does not exist, there are in fact evidences, and witnesses (i.e meditators or others who recalled past lives) that can bear witness to this truth.Originally posted by 798:it has already been proven dat there are alot of pple happened to know their past life thru meditating.
by the way buddhism n science are co-related. -
Perhaps as a reminder of our previous discussions I shall paste everything over from... buddhism is alright but still faulty.....
-----2) karma is another crap
the problem with buddhism is that it fails to learn from the basis of science.
theories have to be verifable...... if it cannot be experimentally carried out...
we do not make another hypothesis and conclusions
but i am amazed that buddhist believe in recarniations.....
therefore.. buddhist lack reasoning skills seriously in these areas...[/quote]
All these things can be proven and verifiable, but the main 'way' of proving is not through the so called 'modern science'. Because the 'modern science' methods do not exist in Buddha's era. In fact no scientific way can ever replace the way to proof spiritual truth - meditation. That is the right scientific method that anyone can do and reproduce the evidence for themselves. Countless others has done the experiment and seen for themselves even today. Including quite a few experienced ones in this forum and my dharma teachers and many others I do not know.
Spirituality is still not under the domain of modern science - modern science knows so little but consciousness, they know about brain and brainwaves but nothing about consciousness. Honest scientists will tell you that.
Buddhism and Science article - it contains a very good talk by Ajahn Brahmavamso. I highly recommend everyone to read the whole thing.
[quote]Originally posted by concerned_man:Remembering Past Lives
Buddhism is founded on meditation, and meditation can reveal many, many things, especially deep memories from the past. Monks, nuns, and ordinary meditators can reach such deep meditations that they can not only levitate, but they can remember previous lives! Many people can actually do this. When you come out of a deep meditation you have incredible energy. Afterwards you won't be able to go to sleep, nor will you be able to go and watch TV, because the mind will be too full of its own joy and happiness. Moreover, the mind is so empowered that you can make suggestions to it, suggestions that you would not normally be able to fulfil. But empowered by deep meditation, you can follow the suggestions. I've actually taught this special meditation to people on meditation retreats, because on meditation retreats some get deep results. People sometimes get memories of when they were babies, and then of being in their mother's womb. If they are lucky they get memories of when they were a very old person, i.e. memories from a past life! One of the important things with those past life memories is that they are very real to the person experiencing them. It's as if you are back there experiencing it. Anyone who has had a memory like that has no doubt in their mind about past lives. It's not a theory any more. Such memories are like remembering where you were this morning when you had breakfast. You have no doubts that that was you this morning, having that breakfast. You didn't imagine it. With the same clarity, or even greater clarity, you remember that that very old person was you, only it wasn't a few hours ago, it was many decades ago. It was a different time, a different body and a different life. Now if people can do that on nine day meditation retreats, imagine what you would do if you were a monk or a nun, who meditates not just for a weekend, or for nine days, but nine years, twenty-nine, thirty-nine, or fifty-nine years. Imagine how much power you could generate in that meditation. Now imagine how much more power you could generate if you were a Buddha with an Enlightened mind.
Now you know what to do to discover for yourself if you've lived before. Meditate. I don't mean just meditating to get rid of stress and make your self calm. I mean really meditate, deeply. Meditate to get your mind into what we call the Jhānas. Those are deep states of absorption, where the body disappears. You don't feel. You can't see. You can't hear. You're absolutely inside the mind. You have no thoughts but you are perfectly aware. You are blissed out. The method, the instructions for the experiment, are very clearly laid down. Even in my little book "The Basic Method of Meditation" all the steps are there. Follow them, and invest the resources necessary for doing that experiment not just one weekend retreat, but many weekend retreats, and sometimes many years of meditating. If you want to follow that 'scientific method', you have to enter into a Jhāna. And then, after you emerge from that state, you ask yourself, "What is my earliest memory?" You can keep going back in your mind, and eventually you will remember. You will see for yourself the experience of past lives. Then you know. Yes, it is true! You have had the experience for yourself.
The Buddha said he did remember past lives, many past lives, many aeons of past lives. He said specifically that he remembered ninety-one aeons. That's ninety big bangs, the time before and the time afterwards, huge spaces of time. That's why the Buddha said there was not just one universe, but many universes. We are not talking about parallel universes as some scientists say. We are talking about sequential universes, with what the Buddha called sanvattati vivattati. This is Pāli, meaning the unfolding of the universe and the infolding of it, beginnings and endings.
The suttas even give a measure for the lifetime of a universe. When I was a theoretical physicist, my areas of expertise were the very small and the very large; fundamental particle physics and astrophysics. They were the two aspects that I liked the most, the big and the small. So I knew what was meant by the age of a universe and what a 'big bang' was all about. The age of a universe, the last time I looked in the journals, was somewhere about seventeen thousand million years. In the Buddhist suttas they say that about thirty seven thousand million years is a complete age. When I told that to the state astronomer he said yes, that estimate was in the ball park, it was acceptable. The person who was the convener of the Our Place in Space seminar made a joke about the fact that a hundred or two hundred years ago, Christianity said the universe was about seven thousand years old. That estimate certainly isn't acceptable, the Buddhist one is!
It is remarkable that there was a cosmology in Buddhism twenty-five centuries ago that doesn't conflict with modern physics. Even what astronomers say are galaxies, the Buddha called wheel systems. If any of you have ever seen a galaxy, you will know there are two types of galaxy. First, there is the spiral galaxy. The Milky Way is one of those. Have you seen a spiral galaxy? It is like a wheel! The other type is the globular cluster, which looks like a wheel with a big hub in the middle. 'Wheels' is a very accurate way of describing galaxies. This was explained by someone twenty five centuries ago, when they did not have telescopes! They didn't need them, they could go there themselves!
There is a lot of interesting stuff in the old suttas, even for those of you who like weird stuff. Some times people ask this question, "Do Buddhists believe in extra terrestrial beings, in aliens?" Would an alien landing here upset the very foundation of Buddhism? When I was reading through these old suttas I actually found a reference to aliens! It's only a very small sutta, which said that there are other world systems with other suns, other planets, and other beings on them. That's directly from the Anguttara Nikāya. (AN X, 29) -
More..Originally posted by concerned_man:Come and See for Yourself
If you had just one person who had been confirmed as medically dead who could describe to the doctors, as soon as they were revived, what had been said, and done during that period of death, wouldn't that be pretty convincing? When I was doing elementary particle physics there was a theory that required for its proof the existence of what was called the 'W' particle. At the cyclotron in Geneva, CERN funded a huge research project, smashing atoms together with an enormous particle accelerator, to try and find one of these 'W' particles. They spent literally hundreds of millions of pounds on this project. They found one, just one 'W' particle. I don't think they have found another since. But once they found one 'W' particle, the researchers involved in that project were given Nobel prizes for physics. They had proved the theory by just finding the one 'W' particle. That's good science. Just one is enough to prove the theory.
When it comes to things we don't like to believe, they call just one experience, one clear factual undeniable experience, an anomaly. Anomaly is a word in science for disconcerting evidence that we can put in the back of a filing cabinet and not look at again, because it's threatens our worldview. It undermines what we want to believe. It is threatening to our dogma. However, an essential part of the scientific method is that theories have to be abandoned in favour of the evidence, in respect of the facts. The point is that the evidence for a mind independent of the brain is there. But once we admit that evidence, and follow the scientific method, then many cherished theories, what we call 'sacred cows' will have to be abandoned.
When we see something that challenges any theory, in science or in religion, we should not ignore the evidence. We have to change the theory to fit the facts. That is what we do in Buddhism. All the Dhamma of the Buddha, everything that he taught, if it does not fit the experience, then we should not accept it. We should not accept the Buddha's words in contradiction of experience. That is clearly stated in the Kālāma Sutta. (AN III, 65) The Buddha said do not believe because it is written in the books, or even if I say it. Don't just believe because it is tradition, or because it sounds right, or because it's comforting to you. Make sure it fits your experience. The existence of mind, independent of the brain, fits experience. The facts are there.
Sometimes, however, we cannot trust the experts. You cannot trust Ajahn Brahm. You cannot trust the scientific journals. Because people are often biased. Buddhism gives you a scientific method for your practice. Buddhism says, do the experiment and find out for your self if what the Buddha said is true or not. Check out your experience. For example, develop the method to test the truth of past lives, rebirth and reincarnation. Don't just believe it with faith, find out for yourself. The Buddha has given a scientific experiment that you can repeat.
Until you understand the law of kamma, which is part of Buddhism, kamma is just a theory. Do you believe that there is a God 'up there' who decides when you can be happy or unhappy? Or is everything that happens to you just chance? Your happiness and your suffering in life, your joy, your pain and disappointments, are they deserved? Are you responsible or is it someone else's fault? Is it mere chance that we are rich or poor? Is it bad luck when we are sick and die at a young age? Why? You can find the true answer for yourself. You can experience the law of kamma through deep meditation. When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, the two knowledge's he realized just before his Enlightenment were the knowledge from experience of the truth of rebirth, and the knowledge from experience of the Law of kamma. This was not theory, not just more thinking, not something worked out from discussions around the coffee table this was realization from deep experience of the nature of mind. You too can have that same experience.
All religions in the world except Buddhism maintain the existence of a soul. They affirm a real 'self', an 'essence of all being', a 'person', a 'me'. Buddhism says there is no self! Who is right? What is this 'ghost in the machine'? Is it a soul, is it a being, or is it a process? What is it? When the Buddha said that there is no one in here, he never meant that to be just believed, he meant that to be experienced. The Buddha said, as a scientific fact, that there is no 'self'. But like any scientific fact, it has to be experienced each one for themselves, paccattam veditabbo viññūhī. Many of you chant those Pāli words every day. It is basic scientific Buddhism. You have to keep an open mind. You don't believe there is 'no self', you don't believe there is a 'self' both beliefs are dogmatism. Keep an open mind until you complete the experiment. The experiment is the practice of sila, samādhi and pañña, (virtue, meditation and insight). The experiment is Buddhist practice. Do the same experimental procedures that the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree. Repeat it and see if you get the same results. The result is called Enlightenment.
Men and women have repeated that experiment many times over the centuries. It is in the laboratory of Buddhist practice that the Enlightened Ones, the Arahants, arise. The Arahants are the ones who have done the experiment and found the result. That's why Buddhism always has been the scientific way. It is the way of finding out for your self the truth of Enlightenment. -
More on the website itself...Originally posted by concerned_man:Buddhism is also the scientific way of discovering the truth about happiness, what most people are interested in. What is happiness? Some students from our local Islamic school came to visit our monastery a short while ago. I performed a little party trick for them, which was also an illuminating way to demonstrate the existence of the mind. I was trying to explain Buddhism, so I asked them:
"Are you happy? Put your hands up if you are happy now".
At first there was no response. Then one person responded and raised their hand.
"Oh! You're all miserable?" I said "Only one person, come on! Are you happy or not?"
More students put there hands up.
"Okay, all those people who put their hands up saying they are happy, with your index finger can you now point to that happiness? Can you give it coordinates in space?" They couldn't locate that happiness.
It's hard to locate happiness, isn't it? Have you ever been depressed? Next time you are depressed, try to point to that feeling with your index finger! You will find that you cannot locate depression, or happiness, in space. You cannot give it coordinates, because these things reside in the mind, not in the body, not in space. The mind is not located in space. That's why after a person dies, if they become a ghost they can appear all over the world immediately. People sometimes ask me, "How can that happen?" How can a person who dies, say in New York, appear immediately in Perth? It is because the mind is not located in space, that's why. This is why you cannot point to happiness, you cannot point to depression, but they are real. Are you imagining the happiness? Do you imagine the depression? It's real. You all know that. But you cannot locate it in three dimensional space. Happiness, depression, and many other real things, all live in mind-space.
The mind is not in the brain, it's not in the heart. We have seen that you could have no brain but still have a mind. You could take out your heart, and have a bionic heart, or a heart transplant, and you would still be you. This understanding of the mind is why Buddhists have no objection at all to cloning. You want to clone me, go for it! But don't think that if you clone Ajahn Brahm that you'll be able to have one Ajahn Brahm who goes to Singapore this evening, another one who stays in Perth for next Friday night's talk, plus one who can stay in Bodhinyana monastery, one who can go to Sydney, and one who can go to Melbourne. If you clone me, the person who looks like me will be completely different in personality, knowledge, inclination, and everything else. People clone Toyota cars in the same way. They look exactly the same but the performance really depends on the driver inside the car. That's all cloning is, it's just a replicating a body. Sure it looks the same, but is the body all that a person is? Haven't you seen identical twins? Are identical twins the same personality? Have they got the same intelligence? Have they got the identical inclinations? Do they even like the same food? The answer is usually no.
Why do people have this problem about cloning? Clone as much as you want. You are just creating more bodies for streams of consciousness to come into. Those streams of consciousness come from past lives. What's the problem? You would never be able to predict the result. Suppose you took Einstien's brain, extracted some of his DNA, and cloned a new Einstien. He might look the same, but I guarantee he won't be half as clever.
If people want to proceed with stem cell research, which is going to help humanity, then why not? In stem cell research there is no 'being' involved. The 'being' hasn't come in yet. In Buddhism, it is understood that the 'being' descends into the mother's womb at any time from conception until birth. Sometimes it doesn't even go into the womb at all and the foetus is stillborn. The objections to stem cell research are dogmatic, unscientific, and uncompassionate. They're foolish as far as I'm concerned. I think sometimes that I would tear my hair out if I weren't a monk.
If you want to look at the scientific evidence for rebirth, check out Professor Ian Stevenson. He spent his whole life researching rebirth on a solid scientific basis at the University of Virginia.[4] Chester Carlson, the inventor of xerography, (encouraged by his wife) offered funds for an endowed chair at the University to enabled Professor Stevenson to devote himself full-time to such research. If it weren't for the fact that people do not want to believe in rebirth, Dr. Ian Stevenson would be a world famous scientist now. He even spent a couple of years as a visiting fellow of Magdalene College in Oxford, so you can see that this is not just some weird professor; he has all of the credentials of a respected Western academic.
Dr. Stevenson has over 3000 cases on his files. One interesting example was the very clear case of a man who remembered many details from his past life, with no way of gaining that information from any other source. That person died only a few weeks before he was reborn! Which raises the question, for all those months that the foetus was in the womb, who was it? As far as Buddhism is concerned, the mother kept that foetus going with her own stream of consciousness. But when another stream of consciousness entered, then the foetus became the new person. That is one case where the stream of consciousness entered the mother's womb when the foetus was almost fully developed. That can happen. That was understood by Buddhism twenty five centuries ago. If the stream of consciousness doesn't enter the mother's womb, the child is a stillborn. There is a heap of evidence supporting that. -
Oh and also... see the reason topic How do I see my past lives which has an interesting discussion thereOriginally posted by An Eternal Now:More..
Update by AEN: examples such as above, including the article about the boy remembering his past life in WWII, are evidences that rebirth and past lives can be traced and proven.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:did you? how will i know whether you had?
or u mean me? no. I'm not one of them. I'm still amatuerish in practise and still quite new to Buddhism actually. (i'm 16) I know one of my ex moderator and longchen had memories of past lives. Longchen was a Westerner in past life who fought in World War 1 in France, he did not die but his life was ruined, therefore explaining his trauma or fear of war in this life. After that he became a mystic in a Western spiritual tradition in the past life living in Belgium and making a living as an artist.. this life he is also acquinted with western mysticism (he is not really Buddhist now, although he is interested in Buddhism) This also explains why when he visited Belgium (this life), he felt so familiar like he had lived there before. Also, this life, he also makes a living doing art (more precisely, digital art). Two lifetimes ago, he was a Tibetan monk from the Nyingma sect, and that explains why he shown interest in the Dzogchen teachings (taught in Nyingma tradition).
One of my past lives of my ex moderator was the Persian king who built many famous buildings in India like the Taj Mahal. He was killed by his son. He was disturbed after remembering and did some 'healing' before returning to normal. He had remembered many many other lifetimes, even as a monk, even including one that he was a Dolphin several lifetimes ago. There could be others who had memories of past lives in this forum but did not want to discuss it openly.
My Buddhist master and teachers also certainly did remember their past lives, they were teachers in a Zen Monastery in Kyoto in previous life. Some of the japanese monks visited one of my taiwanese teachers and my taiwanese teacher could even speak Japanese to them (not that he learnt in this life, he could remember). They even brought one of their past life photo and it looked eerily similar to his current looks. My local dharma teacher has also went back to Japan to visit her old monastery too, if memory serves.
Anyway, interesting article I posted in the forum before: Boy remembers Past Life Being Shot in WWII
Sorry guys for posting so many posts and not all at once.
Because sgForums allows a very limited amount of text to be posted in one post, otherwise it will become "[Post is too long. Click here to view this post.]", and when expired it will not be read-able.
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Longchen replied:
Erm... if I am not wrong. In that life, I joined a Western Mystical group first before i participated in World War 1.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:did you? how will i know whether you had? Laughing
I know one of my ex moderator and longchen had memories of past lives. Longchen was a Westerner in past life who fought in World War 1 in France, he did not die but his life was ruined, therefore explaining his trauma or fear of war in this life. After that he became a mystic in a Western spiritual tradition in the past life living in Belgium and making a living as an artist.. this life he is also acquinted with western mysticism (he is not really Buddhist now, although he is interested in Buddhism) This also explains why when he visited Belgium (this life), he felt so familiar like he had lived there before. Also, this life, he also makes a living doing art (more precisely, digital art). Two lifetimes ago, he was a Tibetan monk from the Nyingma sect, and that explains why he shown interest in the Dzogchen teachings (taught in Nyingma tradition).
Also it is possible to trace (though not really neccessary) the series the events that lead to one doing certain things or having certain conditions in life. I know why I became a monk... it was due to certain events in a previous life (before Tibetan monk) that triggered the desire to do so. I also knew what (the karmic tendency) caused me to end up being in World War 1. However, I do not wish to lay out my intimate personal stuffs on a public forum.
This goes to show that karma and past-life are not really crap.
But then skeptics will alway say otherwise. -
science says that energy cannot be store or destroy, therefore when a living thing is dead, the molecule cells will tranpose to another form of energy to a new form, tis is wat we call regenerate.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Yea exactly! If we dismiss these evidences, we are just being someone as dogmatic as some cult followers... who fervently believe in certain dogmas in spite of other scientific evidences that show otherwise. Not only can science say that rebirth does not exist, there are in fact evidences, and witnesses (i.e meditators or others who recalled past lives) that can bear witness to this truth.
alot of things have proven dat buddhism teachings are related to science but not being expose yet. edward edison was inspired by buddhism teaching too dat he discovered alot of things which proven newton's law may not be perfectly right. -
Yes Buddha is so accurate even 2500 years ago... even from things so distant away as to be considered Cosmology (his description of planets -- he calls it round or oval bodies, solar systems -- he calls it sun systems, orbits, galaxies -- he calls it spiral systems, etc) are so accurate... to things as tiny as bacteria in water (i.e he picks up a cup of water, and says there are 84000 beings that are so tiny as not to be seen, puzzling others until the microscope is discovered)Originally posted by 798:science says that energy cannot be store or destroy, therefore when a living thing is dead, the molecule cells will tranpose to another form of energy to a new form, tis is wat we call regenerate.
alot of things have proven dat buddhism teachings are related to science but not being expose yet. edward edison was inspired by buddhism teaching too dat he discovered alot of things which proven newton's law may not be perfectly right.
So much teachings of the Buddha is only becoming only revealed a little today... much more is to come. However, though some forummers tend to be skeptic, scientific and objective, they must also understand that modern science is still not there to understand all of the spiritual reality, and not in the foreseeable future. In terms of this, our modern science is considered really backward, and much more is to be desired. Even so, as Longchen (an experienced practitioner himself) has said:Originally posted by longchen:Very true...indeed.
January... even if you do not believe in past life... it is fine.
Buddhism, is in fact, very very advanced psychology. It is so advanced that current scientist and researcher have not even scratched what Buddha has found.
If you do not believe in all the mystical stuff... Buddhism can still be seem from a very practical psychological approach. -
hi january,Originally posted by january:As a atheist and pro-scient person... it is very clear to me that past life theory is bullsh.t....
some of the explanation and evidence given in some post are....
some people have vivid memory of blar... blar...
some people can recall certain places although they never been there before....blar blar blar....
those mediation experts has .....
all these explanation to me reflects nothing more than poor reasoning skills.
all the evidence are so weak, does not lead to any application and real use in reality, and are base on what we call anedocate evidence...
does not mean that mediators experience a certain transcendent state.. remember vivdly their past lives... means that there is indeed past lives........
seriously evidence is something that is very consistent.
past lives and reincarnation is really happening in our modern world, and has been documented recently by a leading internationally-known psychiatrist, Dr Brian Weiss, from America. If you are still skeptical abt this, You can google his name or buy his 2 best-selling books called
(1) Many Masters, Many Lives; or
(2) Messages From The Masters.
and you will believe in it. These 2 books are true accounts of the patient named Catherine that he has hypnotised and she has regressed to her past lives and documented in these books.
Its sold at MPH (self-improvement section) . Happy reading
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Thanks for highlighting about Dr Brian Weiss and his books.
Excellent input.Originally posted by CP25:hi january,
past lives and reincarnation is really happening in our modern world, and has been documented recently by a leading internationally-known psychiatrist, Dr Brian Weiss, from America. If you are still skeptical abt this, You can google his name or buy his 2 best-selling books called
(1) Many Masters, Many Lives; or
(2) Messages From The Masters.
and you will believe in it. These 2 books are true accounts of the patient named Catherine that he has hypnotised and she has regressed to her past lives and documented in these books.
Its sold at MPH (self-improvement section) . Happy reading -
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The lack of 'solid' evidence ( as scientist might put it) with regards to past and future lives is exactly the reason we don't study about it in schools. This is the same as the argument on the existence of God (or gods), psychic abilities, etc etc.
But personally for me, I believe that there must be more to life than just this. If nothing happens before birth and nothing happens after death, then why be good? We can all just do any thing we like without serious consideration of consequences. -
logical input.Originally posted by mahawarrior:The lack of 'solid' evidence ( as scientist might put it) with regards to past and future lives is exactly the reason we don't study about it in schools. This is the same as the argument on the existence of God (or gods), psychic abilities, etc etc.
But personally for me, I believe that there must be more to life than just this. If nothing happens before birth and nothing happens after death, then why be good? We can all just do any thing we like without serious consideration of consequences. -
In Buddhism, rebirth is part and parcel of the continuous process of change. Indeed, we are not only reborn at the time of death, we are reborn at every moment. This, like other important teachings of Buddhism, is easily verifiable by reference to our own experience and to the teachings of science. For example, the majority of cells that compose the human body die and are replaced many times during the course of a lifetime. Even those few cells which last an entire lifetime undergo continuous internal change. This is part of the process of birth, death, and rebirth. If we look at the mind, we find that mental states (such as worry, happiness, and the like) appear and disappear every moment. They pass away and are replaced by new and different states. Therefore, whether we look at the body or the mind, our experience is characterized by constant birth, death, and rebirth.
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Karma is causality.Originally posted by january:i can accept karma if you say that people get cancers due to the cumulative reasons from baby to current moment.
if that is karma, it pretty close to the word causality.
The causes stretch all the way beyond the times you can remember.
Let's say you have had a very decadent lifestyle.. you smoke and drink heavily. . And one day you kena car accident in a foreign country. You were sent to hospital for Emergency, and when you woke up, you kena amnesia and forgot who you were in the past, what you were doing and so on. All your documents certifying your identity were destroyed, so you have no means of finding out anything about who you were at all.
however, if you say that karma includes what people do in past life and is connected to current life. then i say karma is not true because there is no evidence for past life.[/b]
After you recovered, you led a totally different lifestyle, didn't smoke and drink at all.
Yet, soon you found yourself to be suffering from lung cancer as well as kidney failure.
--> now is this fair? since after you woke up you adopted a healthy lifestyle, but that 'someone whom you don't remember' before your amnesia acted in ways that destroyed your body?
It's not about being fair or not. It's about causality. Whether you remember what happened in the past or not does not affect the result. Due to past causes of decadent lifestyle, when the time is ripe, the illness results right now.
'
It is because of the lack of sophisticiation in human research technology at present that led to the inability to track past life beyond the use of anecdotal evidence.
many people claiming they have experience past live experiences is not evidence. its what we call anedoctcal evidence, which is very lame piece of evidence.
Do bear in mind that scientific research could only have developed further because there were scientists who did not stop at conventional knowledge but pursued further to consider and test possibilities.
Without the invention of telescopes, spaceships & super computers(advancement of research technology), people who claim that there are other universes out there would have been deemed illogical and crazy.
When the whole world believed that the earth is flat, Galileo was considered stupid and idiotic to even suggest that earth is round.
The inadequacy of current technology in capturing convincing evidence of rebirth does not automatically deny its possibility. All that science could say at the moment, is that there is no convincing evidence of rebirth, note that this is different from there is convincingly no rebirth. This means, there is possibility of rebirth, but at this point, there is no undebatable means of verifying that possibility.
People who dreamt about venturing into space were told that those projects were useless too.
its useless, they can talk all they wat about what they see and what they feel, it will lead to nothing but has no real positive effect to human life.
Developing deeper understanding of what consitutes human life and experiences, the causality of how and why do things appear and disintegrate, will help develop insight into the state of human condition at present, and inform people how to work towards a desirable future.
Using the analogy I gave above about the amnesic man, if he learnt earlier that in the past he was a smoker and drinker, he might have chosen to adopt other preventive steps much earlier...eg going for checkups earlier, consciously watching his diet and exercise well to increase chances of building up his health. If he still kena cancer, he would have better understood why he kena it, and chances are he is better able to accept it than someone who has no idea at all why they kena such illness.
yup, also look at how inventions have destroyed human in ways even greater than their benefits. look at the nuclear tensions all around the world currently. The arms race. invention of new drugs - e.g. Subutex. invention of needles - perfect tool for drug use. internet games addiction as a result of the flourishing of computer games. I'm sure you could name more hazards than I do...
if you want improvement in human life. look at the inventions made that has benefited human. they are all works of human through our hands and minds. we only know that we have to rely on ourself to improve life.
heart transplant, kidney transplant, bone marrow donation, surgeons, paramedics, nurses, light bulbs, fighting cure of 1918 spanish flu which kills many millions, finding electricity, finding gravity, inventing microscope, inventing materials with special properties.
it's not about inventions, it's about how people use these inventions.
Similarly, the knowledge of past life is not by itself virtuous/non-virtuous. It's how people use that knowledge that matters.
That is why the Buddha always urged people not to bother so much about past lives, but to practice hard in this present life. However, rather than adopting the limiting approach of telling pple past life is not relevant, therefore there is no past life; Buddha acknowledge the presence of past life and how it could affect the present, and therefore urged people to understand causality and abandon negative causes that would result in future problems, and to adopt positive causes that would result in future happiness. That is a wise way of using the knowledge of past lives.
I agree. And scientists embarking on discovering insights into the links between past and present lives is part of this step-by-step hard work. Take care not to kill such steps at its infant stages, but give it sufficient room for it to grow and flourish into verifiable and applicable knowledge.
our step by step hard work and authetic human work can lead to real improvement.
Again, I remind you that the claim that earth is round was considered speculative and superstitious at a time when pple's mind were not open and succumbed to conventional knowledge only.
talking about past lives is merely speculative stuff like other theories of supertitious back with anedoctal evidences and pseudo evidence.
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well saidOriginally posted by _wanderer_:Again, I remind you that the claim that earth is round was considered speculative and superstitious at a time when pple's mind were not open and succumbed to conventional knowledge only.
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can past lives character really follow you and haunt you in present life? i mean, i heard of a story that a person who was disturbed by a soul which is related to the person few lives before. it happen as the soul happen to see the person somewhere and has been following her since. will such thing happen?
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Yes it is very possible. It can be due to various reasons. I have heard of true cases of ghosts following them due to their attachment to the love relationship they had in past lives. I have heard of true cases of ghosts coming back as karmic debtors, to inflict illness and cause death upon the person as revenge for causing harm/killing themselves in a past life. I have heard of true cases of ghosts who are following some guys who is also a ghost himself in his past life, and have some form of karmic affinity with them. Etc etc.Originally posted by jacqn:can past lives character really follow you and haunt you in present life? i mean, i heard of a story that a person who was disturbed by a soul which is related to the person few lives before. it happen as the soul happen to see the person somewhere and has been following her since. will such thing happen?
In any case if such things happen, go seek a Venerable for advise. Depending on what kind of affinity, all you may have to do is to attend pujas, give offerings to Sangha then dedicate merits to these spirits in hope that they may find a better rebirth soon with the merits that you dedicated. If the spirits are coming for revenge, you must also do repentance, dedicate merits, ask for forgiveness, etc. But find a Venerable first.