Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Subjective. I dunno how effective is that method, so no comments. Furthermore like I said it also depends on how experienced is the hypnotist.
Not everyone can meditate without guidance and training. With a hypnotist to guide you, it will be faster than trying to master meditation by oneself.
However, as I said, not everyone has a past life.I will disagree on that.
Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:huh? why so special? this people(without past) came afresh out from god's clay machine? new model and formated already huh?
However, as I said, not everyone has a past life.
Originally posted by annoy-you-must:When the tree has soil, nutrients, etc etc... and therefore the tree appears to you, even then, it does not have inherent existence.
How is it that because things and phenomenon can never exist on their own without the aid of external factors, they lack an inherent existence?
[b]What is an inherent existence?
Let's say a tree. It has to depend on soil, nutrients, water, sunlight and many other things to exist. Without that, it does not exist. But yet, when all these things are present, the tree do exist. It's standing there right in front of our eyes.
It's only when the nutrients, water and sunlight are removed do the tree cease to exist. But nevertheless, the tree had once existed.
Is impermanence the same as, or related to, emptiness?[/b]
I'm not sure if I've understood. But am I correct to say that the word 'empty' or 'emptiness' is actually misleading?Originally posted by An Eternal Now:All are empty!! There is no graspable/fixed attributes, forms, shapes, colours, to be found in anything... only appearances/Conditions as dependent arising.
Even though trying to remember past life should not be a goal in Buddhism, proving that past lives exist will increase the credibility of Buddhist teachings.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Yes, EVERYONE can access their past lives. It depends on how experienced is the hynotist, and a whole list of other factors whether that can be successful. Also sometimes, one session is not enough, but a few sessions before it becomes successful.
Anyway I wouldn't recommend that method, but Meditation as it is the most proven and effective method -- but it requires discipline and real practice for a period of time.
Anyway to remember past life shouldn't even be a goal in Buddhism to begin with, but merely a side effect of our real practice. If one meditates only to remember past lives, then he has unfortunately missed what Buddhism has to offer.
update: I should also quickly note that Practice and the 8 fold path in Buddhism is NOT confined to sitting meditation alone but is an entire way of life. Meditation should be 'done' constantly moment to moment, whether in standing, sitting, sleeping and being silent.
What you must understand is that there is no objective reality out there (and neither is it a subjective reality as if everything is just like matrix appearing in our brains, there is no subject or object division ultimately, only one reality/one mind) -- it has no fixed colours, shapes, form, attributes, any graspable existence 'out there'. What arises is dependent-arising appearances/conditions, it is therefore not 'inherently existing'.Originally posted by annoy-you-must:I'm not sure if I've understood. But am I correct to say that the word 'empty' or 'emptiness' is actually misleading?
To make sure I've really understood the correct thing, allow me to raise a simple analogy: a flower.
A flower is made up of an infinite amount of entities such as the petals, stalk, torns, leafs, water, etc. These components are, of course, also made up of even smaller components.
The components can also be non-physical, such as the correct conditions, time and place (i.e. no drought).
Hence, what we normally perceive as a flower is actually just a mixture of the correct conditions and components. The flower is just a group of particles (atoms, sub-atomic particles, sub-sub-atomic particles and so on) that have the correct structures.
When we talk about non-physical quantities such as the beauty of the flower, it's the same thing. The flower appears beautiful to us because it's shape in a particular manner, sending signals to our brain which register the shape as beautiful. However, to other people, the same flower may not be beautiful because the conditions are not there.
Am I right to interpret it as this way?
I wonder if you have read some of the interesting discussion on past lives in this forum.Originally posted by annoy-you-must:Even though trying to remember past life should not be a goal in Buddhism, proving that past lives exist will increase the credibility of Buddhist teachings.
Our memories is a funny thing however. Our brains a mysterious thing. People can be in a highly suggestive state when they are hypnotised. Memories can be created and implanted in our mind. How are we to make sure that 'memories' recalled during meditations are accurate?
Even so, I believe in past and future lives. It only make sense to say that we don't come out from nothing.
There certainly is rebirth. There are many topics in this forum in the past discussing about rebirth. Here are some of them you might want to refer to:As for how do we know such memories are true:
Belief in Reincarnation Tied to Memory Errors
why do people believe in past lives?
buddhism is alright but still faulty.....
what is buddhism evidence of reincarnation?
The Boy Who Lived Before (interesting video!!)
and many many more, you may do a search.
You should know that not only is there scientific proof of rebirth, (check Dr Ian Stevenson), there are uncountable number of people who have past life memories. Some of them are children, some of them gained their past life memories through other means such as meditation.
There are also quite a few people in our forum who could remember their past lives. One of them is Longchen (who is also a highly experienced and enlightened meditator/practitioner), who has shared many accounts of several of his previous lifetimes. Not only that -- he was able to trace happenings in this lifetime to a karmic cause in his previous lifetime. He is able to know who his wife, and the people he met, were in his past lives.
Go read the links I provided, you might be able to find *some* info (I wrote quite little, longchen told me much more than that and many more interesting things when I met him personally)
Not only karmic causes for some unpleasant happenings, he was also able to trace interest, talent, and spiritual background all the way back to many (separate) lifetimes ago.
And he is not alone. Many Buddhist practitioners are also able to do this... You can too.
Buddhism and Science
snipped.
Those memories mentioned above are probably vague and easily changed. So no comments on them. In deep meditation you can enter deeper levels of your consciousness in such depths that you when penetrate deeply into the subconscious, it is even possible to 're-live' the entire scene in the past life, as if you are totally present there with your body, conscious, not like a dream.. it is clearer than our usual recalling of past events and leaves no doubts in one's mind. In some cases it can be even traumatic because you 'relive' a traumatic part of past life.. such as fighting in the war. Then you are really physically there - fighting the war, not vague like in dreams but as if you are watching a movie with your entire body present there... as real as it can be. One of my highly enlightened friends (longchen.. he talked to you in my forum before) had such a recalling of fighting war in WW1 in France.Originally posted by january:how do they prove that past life memories are true? it has been stated that in the article what is called full blown false memory
Question:
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...(continued in next post)
(continued from previous post) 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.Anyway here's the boy's story.. Boy remembers Past Life Being Shot in WWII
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!
Stop giving stupid excuses when I have already shown all the proofs and you dogmatically refuses to accept it.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Dumping articles to us to read doesn't prove beyond reasonable doubt. So kindly stop being dogmatic.
Give us a real life example of independent origination.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:That is what I have been saying, that it is possible to have independent origination.
]Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Stop giving stupid excuses when I have already shown all the proofs and you dogmatically refuses to accept it.
Just admit it when your dogmatic position has no leg to stand and don't give these silly and lame excuses to cover up your dogmas.
Anymore such nonsense will be deleted from you straight away.
This is to prevent him from blaming me when I delete his posts.Originally posted by annoy-you-must:]
You said to ignore his nonsense. So why reply him?
That a person does not have a past life or karma from a former life, like me.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Give us a real life example of independent origination.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Even though I personally believe in a past-life, it may not be enough to rely on these so-called evidence to prove the existence of a past life. Evidences can be very open to various interpretation.
Anyway here's the boy's story.. Boy remembers Past Life Being Shot in WWII
[b]About past lives ... Uniontown WW II flyer's memories in Louisiana boy
By Judy Kroeger
DAILY COURIER
Thursday, April 15, 2004
James Leininger, 6, of Lafayette, La., loves airplanes.
"He has always been extraordinarily interested in airplanes," said James' mother, Andrea Leininger, by telephone from their Louisiana home.
Lots of kids love airplanes, but James' story is unique. He has memories of being a World War II fighter pilot from Uniontown -- Lt. James McCready Huston, shot down near Iwo Jima in 1945.
At 18 months old, his father, Bruce Leininger, took James to the Kavanaugh Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas, where the toddler remained transfixed by World War II aircraft.
A few months later, the nightmares began.
"They were terrible, terrible," Andrea said. "He would scream, 'airplane crash, on fire, little man can't get out!' He'd be kicking, with his hands pointing up at the ceiling."
When James was 2 1/2 years old, he and Andrea were shopping and he wanted a toy airplane. "I said to him, 'Look, it has a bomb on the bottom' and he told me, 'That's not a bomb, it's a drop tank.' I had no idea what a drop tank was."
Neither of the Leiningers have ever served in the military, nor are they involved with aviation. Until James began showing an interest in planes, they had nothing aviation-related in their home.
Andrea's mother sent her a book by Pennsylvania author Carol Bowman, called "Children's Past Lives." The Leiningers started using Bowman's techniques of affirming James' nightmares and assuring him that the experiences happened to a different person, not the person he was now. "It helped. The nightmares stopped almost immediately,"; Andrea said.
However, the memories did not stop, but they do not come up all the time.
"I was reading him a story and he got a faraway look," she recalled. "I asked what happened to your plane? 'Got shot,' he said. Where? 'Engine.' Where did it crash? 'Water.' When I asked him who shot the plane, he gave me a look like a teenager, rolling his eyes, 'the Japanese,' like who else could it have been?
"What little kid knows about the Japanese," she asked. "He said he knew it was a Japanese plane because of the red sun. My husband and I were shell-shocked."
James provided other information. He said his earlier name was James, he flew a Corsair and took off on a boat called the Natoma, and he remembered a fellow flyer named Jack Larson.
Foods can set James' memories off, too.
"I hadn't made meatloaf in 10 years, so James had never had it," Andrea said. "When he sat down, he said, 'Meatloaf! I haven't had that since I was on the Natoma.' When we were getting ice cream one day, he told me that they could have ice cream every day on the Natoma."
Bruce began researching his son's memories and discovered a small escort carrier called the Natoma Bay, which was present at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Twenty-one of its crew perished. Bruce also discovered that only one of the Natoma's crew was named James, James Huston.
James Huston's plane was hit in the engine by Japanese fire on March 3, 1945, went down in flames and sank immediately. Flyer Jack Larson witnessed the crash.[/b]
I do not think there are any credible or satisfactory alternative explanations that can replace the theory of rebirth to explain these things. Furthermore these are not just one or a few odd cases, but one out of a whole list of them. It is a very common phenomena.Originally posted by annoy-you-must:Even though I personally believe in a past-life, it may not be enough to rely on these so-called evidence to prove the existence of a past life. Evidences can be very open to various interpretation.
It's like what we learn in science (can't think of specific examples at this moment, but think about the various models for atoms, or even the photoelectric effect). One single phenomenon can be open to much interpretation. With what we know currently, we may claim that " there's no other explanation other than this one ", but we don't know what we don't know.
Like I've said, our brains and our memories are tricky little things. Memories can be fabricated, inserted, taken away, etc.
That is your assumption.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:That a person does not have a past life or karma from a former life, like me.
Somehow, the idea that a person can pop out of nothingness don't appeal to me. For there to be an effect, there has to be a cause. So to say that a person should pop out of nothingness for no apparent reason, or is created by an unchanging permanent creator, doesn't make sense to me.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:That a person does not have a past life or karma from a former life, like me.
And when you have time, do check out that video (not the WW2 one) -- The Boy Who Lived BeforeOriginally posted by An Eternal Now:I do not think there are any credible or satisfactory alternative explanations that can replace the theory of rebirth to explain these things. Furthermore these are not just one or a few odd cases, but one out of a whole list of them. It is a very common phenomena.
By all means these whole lot of cases are proven to be credible through many investigations.
That video has been removed.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:And when you have time, do check out that video (not the WW2 one) -- The Boy Who Lived Before
Fortunately it's still around: http://www.guba.com/watch/2000869810Originally posted by annoy-you-must:That video has been removed.