Reincarnation

Reincarnation by Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

By this evening struck out in many talks which I give here. It's usually based on some sort of experience which I had in the past few days or sometimes the past few minutes. And even though it's our monasteries, we don't have televisions. Every now and again, somebody shows me a documentary which they've recorded either from the TV or from the internet, and we have a look at it at our monastery. And there were a couple of documentaries which people gave to me last week were documentaries on the old subject of reincarnation. And I remembered it's been a long time since I've thought about this, and it's one of those very important parts of Buddhism, this part of Buddhism, which does create a problem for some people. And in this talk, I want to investigate why it can be a problem and what it's here to teach us. And also that some of the perennial questions which people ask about no rebirth, basically, how does it happen and what is the process? I know that sometimes, especially for us monks and the nuns and those people who really are devoted Buddhist practitioners, those ones who really do meditate a lot. One of the great meditations, which was supposed to do a lot, is a meditation on death, not just to make us depressed or morbid, but actually to inspire us about the importance of life. But even more than the Meditation on death is a meditation on what happens next. One of those great questions. So today I'm going to be focusing the talk about rebirth or reincarnation and just basically what it means for us and how we can make use of that idea to live much, much better lives, more lives of greater freedom and greater peace. But first of all, uh, for someone like myself, you know, being a monk for so many years, actually, even just before I became a monk, the idea of rebirth or reincarnation, that this is not our only life, that we didn't come into this life with an empty slate. And when we finished this life at our death, we don't just disappear. That seemed to be something so obvious to me. I never needed to be taught that. I never even sort of was convinced of that. It was just part of me, the lead, convincing. And of course, being a Buddhist monk living in countries where people would take that for granted and they start talking about, you know, their previous lives or people who lived before this. Uh, it was basically what I grew up with. So the first thing which surprised me, I was a surprise. Now, coming back to a Western country about 25 years ago and 26 years ago now. When I first came to Australia, it was actually surprising. I said, why can't everybody believe in this? It seemed to make so much sense and especially that the evidence is there. One of the documentaries which I saw, ah, I think it was could have been from the BBC, uh, was a documentary about a philosopher in the United States and a quite a good university and what not one of the top universities. But he was a professor of philosophy, and he just read for the first time. Um, Professor Ian Stevenson's work on 20 cases suggested a rebirth. I think we have that book in our library, uh, 20 cases Suggestive of rebirth. And now Professor Ian Stevenson is an interesting man. Uh, he was a professor of. Well, first of all, let's go back. Earlier, he was just a GP, uh, in, uh, Virginia in United States. He was a very good GP. So he got invited back to teach, uh, medicine in the college and teaching medicine. He still wasn't satisfied. So he learned psychiatry practice as a clinical psychiatrist and then went back to university to teach clinical psychiatry. He was a professor of psychiatry. A very brilliant man. But then looking for something to research which interested him, which no one else could research properly for people who had spontaneous memories that they lived before. Know kids who came along and told their parents. Mummy, you're not my real mummy. You know that? My real parents and I live over the other village somewhere. Many of you may have heard such anecdotes, but this fellow decided to check them out to see whether they really were for real or they were just childish imagination. And he spent his whole life researching this. Uh, interestingly, that anyone who wants to do a research project has to get funding, and Professor Ian Stevenson got funding from the only place where you think it's appropriate to get funding for research in reincarnation. He got his sponsorship from Xerox. The ones who reproduce reproduce paper in the photocopier were the sponsors of his research into reincarnation. How appropriate that was. And he spent his whole life researching this. And of course, of all the many examples which he researched going on throughout the whole world, not just in Buddhist countries, even in Muslim countries as well, and obviously in Western countries, finding people who said they'd lived before a young children and filtering out every case which could be explained by other means and choosing in his first book 20 cases, which could not be explained by any other ways except the obvious way that these children had lived before. And you can read that book for yourself. Obviously, I cannot do it justice. 20 cases suggested of rebirth. But one of the main things which this professor was saying when he first read it, the research was top quality. And there was not any suggestions of wishful thinking of a researcher trying to prove something. He was just trying to be a fair minded observer, assessing the information, the data, as equitably as you possibly can and coming to conclusions which you know, were just the obvious ones, where his professor was telling how that affected him. He said this was really good research, and any other field that would be a top quality research was the conclusions which bothered him, because the only conclusion from the data which was provided was that these kids had lived before, that reincarnation was a fact. And he went on the air and said, as a scientist, faced with such data, he said, is irrational not to come to the obvious conclusion that these kids had lived before. Now what? I was struck by the way, as a philosopher, he said, it is irrational not to believe because the evidence was pointing in that direction. He said, if you're a rational person and you have such data, then and it's incontrovertible, then the only thing you can do is try and find another explanation, another solution, which is impossible. So it's interesting to see that there is such very strong data. And of course now after her, professor Ian Stevenson. And I'm not quite sure if he's here today, but I know one of our members who comes most Friday evenings when it was in the United States, went to visit him and had dinner with him. And as a result of that, we got some of his major works here with his signature in our monastery library, because we sent our respects to him. But he came along, came across as someone who was actually quite bitter, bitter that his research, which he had done as an as a professor of psychiatry in a good university, was not accepted by his peers. He was bitter not because they criticized his research method or his integrity, simply because the results did not fit what they wanted to hear. That was all. And, uh, he he died recently. Or should we say he reincarnated recently, I think was last year sometime. But his research has been carried on. And I remember once giving a talk at the, uh, the London Buddhist Vihara Sri Lankan Temple in London was very close to where my mother lived and giving a talk on reincarnation. And her boy came out to me afterwards. And he was one of those cases in that book. He said, you know, I am one of those 20 and had a lovely conversation with him when he was about this time, about 18 or 19 when I saw him and he told me personally, he said that was the worst thing I ever did in my life. Tell someone about my past memories because he said once it was publicised, there was only a young boy at the time he got held at school. As you know what happens now in school? If there's anything about you which is weird or strange. Now, the other boys in the school tend to tease you about it, and he got a terrible teasing from his friends at school once they found out. Once he became well known that he was one of these people who could remember his past lives when actually heard his pain. In having admitted that and told that coming out is remembering his past life, it became very clear to me that this boy never got anything out of telling people that he would be born, except a lot of suffering, and that meant a lot to me, in the sense that people don't invent these memories to to gain anything. In fact, when you tell people those memories, you lose a lot. There's nothing to gain out of that, but everything to lose. And so the very fact that he had to suffer with coming out about his memories meant something to me. It meant that it gave his memories that little bit more legitimacy, legitimacy, because it was hard and difficult for him to, uh, let people know what had happened to him. But there he was. It's wonderful to meet a person who, uh, was courageous enough. Or you may say, stupid enough to tell people about their previous lives. That work has been continued on by other people. And of course, I've often mentioned here the work of Professor Romer, who does research on near-death experiences. And I did read, you know, in other scientific magazines. There are some researchers now who say that they can, by stimulating a part of the brain, recreate out of the body experiences. But as a scientist, you have to be able to recreate the whole experience, not a partial experience. Can you actually recreate an out-of-body experience where people who are out of the body actually hear and see what's going on? Rather than just have his imaginary experiences. So I really challenged, as many scientists would. If you think you can recreate an out-of-body experience just by stimulating the brain, can you recreate the total experience where people floating out of their body, especially after a trauma, a death trauma, can actually see and hear everything which is going on? Again, there was another documentary where a person under an operation, again floating out of their body, actually floated so high they saw a tennis shoe which was on the ledge of a window in the operating theatre, which don't know what it was doing there, but nobody knew it was there until they came out afterwards and said, there's a tennis shoe on the on the ledge. And of course they looked. It was there. Now, those sorts of interesting, um, uh, experiences give a legitimacy that when a person does say that they died and they floated out of their body, that something continued on, and they get information which is not able to be gathered from other sources. That gives another legitimacy. And now the angle to, yeah, there must be something after life because people come back and they give some very solid evidence for this. But for those of you who are interested, just go in and look up the research on doctor Professor Pim van Lommel. He's retired now and is now going around the world giving lectures on his research, because he also thinks that people can only realise that now that life does go on after death. Then that would change a lot of people's attitudes towards life. And in this talk, I don't want to spend too much time giving the evidence and arguing the case. It's more like I want to say, well, what happen if one does accept this? But first of all, I should go back. Why is it that sometimes people find it difficult to accept that there is such a thing as reincarnation? I investigators struggle with that for a long time. They've got sort of no silly arguments. There's more people alive today than ever been before. So how can get people being reincarnated? Where's it all come from? And now, right in the very beginning, not just from Buddhism, also ancient Greece, they all believed in reincarnation. Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, they were all reincarnation ists. Was actually only the the Christian church. It was about 5 or 600 A.D. they had a council and they voted against it and became a heresy. The early Christianity also believed in reincarnation, even the Kabbalah, the Jewish tradition. They also believe in reincarnation. He was actually part of the early spiritual church. One of my friends, one of my mates, uh, uh, one of the Jewish rabbis, uh, over here in Perth, the Rabbi Moshe Burnstein, he was to be the, uh, the, uh, spiritual director, chaplain at Carmel School. And he always used to bring his kids over to my monastery every year. And I used to go and visit Carmel once a year to teach his kids. And the first time I met him, he came out to me and said, oh, you were. Yeah, we believe in reincarnation as well. That's a great opening line to make friends with the Buddhist monk. So. So he was one of the rabbis. He said, yeah, we believe in it as well. So many Jewish people believe in rebirth as well. So the answer is, you know why there's so many human beings now, and there's never been so many human beings who are dead to make up these numbers, even from the very early times. It's not just human to human rebirth. There's some animals and other beings to human beings. And one of the problems is that sometimes the human beings are so arrogant, we think we're just special. And that is the gap between the animal realm and the human realm is so great it cannot be bridged. So, you know, we think that we're so superior. How can we, you know, come from an animal and now be reborn as a human being? And that's another thing which I call like speciesism. I know we've had like racism, gender ism, where first of all, we think one race is superior and other races where we had gender ism, where we think that sort of one gender is more superior than other gender, or sexism, in the sense that we think that straight people are better than gays. They've got all these isms, but one thing we're still stuck with is species ism, where we think as human beings, we are so superior than any other animal that basically we can put other animals in zoos in cages, eat them and abuse them, exploit them, whatever. But, you know, it's just straight down from early Buddhism that people get born from animals into human beings. And that's where many of our present human beings have come from. As the number of animals in this world, especially the so-called higher animals, have decreased, so the human beings have increased. It's basically where many of us have come from. If you want a nice story about that, this is one of the little anecdotes you pick up in your life as a monk in one of our monasteries in Thailand. Many years ago, a Thai Buddhist went to the market and saw there was a monkey up for sale, and this poor monkey was in a small cage, had been abused. And this man took pity and compassion on this monkey and brought it, and wanted to release it in a place where it would be well looked after. To give this monkey some freedom. So instead of actually taking it to a nature reserve where we wouldn't be able to look after itself, it took it to one of the monasteries. And other monks are nice and kind, so gave it to the head monk led it out of the cage, and the head monk looked after it and had a bit more freedom. He could run around in the forest monastery and swing through the trees, but because it was so associated with human beings, it was like half monkey, half human. Now whenever the monks would have their tea time in the afternoon, the monkey would always also come. And very cute. He would also hold a cup of tea, just like all the other monk, and sit there while all the other monks were drinking their tea. It was actually basically one of the monks and after all, it was only a couple of letters. A difference between a monk and a monkey. So there it was, enjoying life in the monastery. But, you know, it was very protective. And you know that sometimes amongst love, that little monkey and, you know, just feed it and had good fun with it. But the monkey was very protective. And one of the things he would do would be to chase any cars which came outside if they were making too much noise, because it like being in a peaceful place. It realized this was a forest monastery and the monks wanted to be quiet. Unfortunately, one day it traced to a truck and fell under the wheels and got killed. And that was the end of that monkey in that light. But the head monk who's. I won't say who it is, but he's actually been here. He sat in this seat here and given talks some years ago. He had a very good meditator and he told everybody what happened. He happened to meditate and could see what happened in his meditation. Then as that monkey died, the stream of consciousness, what some people call the soul, but in Buddhism called it a stream of consciousness. It's only a slight difference. So you don't need to worry too much about that. As far as this explanation is concerned, this, uh, stream of consciousness, the monkey went out of the monkey's body. Went into the village where one of the ladies was pregnant. He saw it actually entering this woman's womb and he told the man what had happened, which is how I can tell you. And so, because he told the monks that this woman who was pregnant, they saw this. This monkey, as she entered the womb, was going to take rebirth as a human being. Why that would happen is because that monkey was associating so much with human beings. Basically, it thought it was a human being, but that's where it belonged. That's why it's attracted into a human life. Many times if you have animals, pets, dogs, cats, kittens, whatever, because you know you're with them all the time. How many of you have got cats and dogs which actually eat human food? They would refuse to eat whiskers. They want sort of chicken or whatever you eat and you give it to them, don't you? And they're so associated with you that they very often they get to be born as a human being. That's what they really think they are. So he got reborn as a human being, a little boy. And when I first heard of that, the baby hadn't been born yet. And all the monks were waiting to see because this was the local village. So there you go. And I've learned over there, these are your local people. So they would actually. They knew exactly what was happening and they would actually see this woman. And they told me that as soon as that baby was born, they noticed an interesting thing. That baby was exceptionally hairy for a baby boy. There was a monkey before, and it still had a tiny bit of that monkey character. And of course, you know, it probably was a little monkey when it grew up. And it was actually true because I knew that came from a monkey before. So you can actually have this transition from an animal realm to a human realm, which answers that question very sort of an article, how very elegantly. And anyone says it's just too much of a barrier to to cross, even genetically. Now, what is it? I don't know, exact number 99 point. I don't know how many percent. Genes of ourselves and monkeys are the same. And he has seen sort of documentaries of animals who can actually speak. Go and look up addicts of parrot. That's one of my favorite one on the internet. Alex the parrot. So, you know, he passed away recently. This guy, I call it a guy, even though it was a parrot. Could have conversations with you. First time I saw that, it was actually spooky. There was a parrot, and there was this, uh, I think a lady or a psychologist who was looking after it. They had a conversation together and, like, how are you today? I'm not so. Well, you know, he'd have a nice lunch. Yeah, a couple of nice carrots, whatever it was. I don't remember the actual conversation, but this wasn't sort of a fake conversation. The power was obviously using language intelligently. So if you really can train a parrot or a sort of, uh, any of these other sort of so-called high animals, they can be highly intelligent. Basically, we're breaking down the species of speciesism, where we think that human beings are somehow created by God and everything else is just to be exploited. And is that sort of arrogance is no longer acceptable. If we are closer, far more interdependent with the animal world, even interdependent in the sense that we come and go between those species. You know, in our best understanding that answer, that question, one of the interesting questions is how does actually the rebirth happen, actually how it happens because many scientists say, say, well, we know it does happen, but how does it happen? And it's very, very clear if you're a meditator, if you don't know something about how your mind works and actually what drives you, what actually drives you from day to day, from year to year, from life to life is exactly the same thing. You know, we have our hopes and aspirations, what the Buddha called our craving, our unfinished business in life, if you like. And this is what happens when a person dies. Their unfinished business, their cravings, the aspirations, their hopes that hasn't died yet. It's that which drives you forward. That is the force. In the same way that, you know, this is apparently the the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, the 150th anniversary of his publication of The Origin of the species. This is another little aside. I think that Professor Ian Stevenson is like a Darwin sort of now putting this in great scientific research, you know, for people, but not being accepted, but, you know, for evolution. How does that actually work? What drives evolution? It's not just by chance. It's actually what drives evolution is a desire and craving to evolve because a couple of kids just beforehand know they they ask me a question now and just, uh, actually they, uh, question I was the question, little girl. Last but the answer, I remember the answer. I don't remember the question. The answer was that, you know, because of your craving, what you want, if you want to be beautiful, if you want to be tall. Now, that very desire inside of you would actually change your body to go in that direction. Now, why is it that so many, you know, young men, young women, if taller than they were sort of in the last generation? Because they want to be. Now, the evidence which, uh, got me interested in this. Many, many years ago, I saw this article sort of in a journal. And this was the evidence of the the mutant cats. This is a timely one here because we got the little kitten in the back there. But some years ago, it must have been about, um, 24 or 5 years ago. It must be about 30 years ago, uh, when, uh, Margaret Thatcher, she was the prime minister of England. One of the first things she did when she came into power was to fight the unions in that country. And one of the things was to close the coal mines because they were uneconomical. So she thought so they closed many coal mines to many of those coal mines were in South Wales, some up in the north. But this particular one, which was closed, was next to Cardiff was Swansea, I can't remember which. And once it was closed and a fence was put around it, the people in the local area, if they had extra kittens, instead of actually dumping it at a Buddhist monastery and getting the monk to bring it and see if he could find a nice home here, they were far more cruel. They would go under the fence and this coal mine. They'd go to the edge of the pit, which went hundreds of meters down, and they'd throw these unwanted kittens down the shaft. Just throw them down. This is so cool. The only reason I found out this was happening was about, I don't know, maybe ten years later, they sent engineers down into that mine to check on its stability to make sure that it wasn't going to collapse. So they had to do an inspection. And when they went down the bottom of the shaft, that's when they found this whole mound of like, you know, dead cat flesh and fur. All the cats had been actually thrown down there. But you also know that cats, especially kittens that sometimes they do for they land on their feet. They're incredibly agile, almost supernaturally agile. Because many of the cats survived. They survived the fall. They knew that because there was a heap of cats underground. But in those 1015 years, I forget how long. But it wasn't that long. They knew when the coal mine was closed down and they knew when they actually they this happened, they found a whole new species of cats underground. Cats with huge ears that they came from Mars. Who are blind, born blind, but huge ears. There was a new species of cat had evolved in the space of 10 or 15 years. How did that happen? It's obvious. Those cats living down hundreds of meters underground where no light came. They didn't need eyes. So basically, the eyes weren't developed. They needed ears because it was sound which would lead them to their. Their dinner sound, which would protect them for their enemies. Sound which would lead them to their mate so they could reproduce. For the ears. Because the ears were really necessary. They. Glu glu glu glu glu. The huge ears eye is not necessary. They were just right. And a whole new species. I remember seeing a photograph of them. I'd never seen a cat like that. It had evolved a why? Because of this, I needed to. That's the whole thing which motivates and pushes you and creates this desire, which is a creative force in you and in all beings. And that desire doesn't stop when you die. That whole force creates and continues to create and continues to move you forward from life to life to life. And that's almost exactly how the Buddha taught it. The craving creates the next life. You can see that happening now. How your craving, your desires, what you think is really important in life that is moving you forward right now and now, won't stop when you die. I'll just continue to make another life, another birth, another form. We can continue to express what you aspire to, continue to evolve. For those of you who want to have another idea how this works and how things are carried along, some time ago I developed assembly of the mango, which is the best cinnamon which I have got so far. I love mangoes, especially when they're in season. Sometimes when they're out of season, you know, because they're force chemicals or whatever, and they don't taste so nice. When mangoes are in season, they're really nice, especially when they're with sticky rice. You know, that's one of my favorites. I should say that I really shouldn't, because the last time I said something like this, the next day, I had so much of what I said. So I try to keep it quiet. I lost my mindfulness, I do apologize. But anyway, back to mangoes. When you eat a mango that you left with the sea. Sometimes I have eaten a mango today and you plant the seed in the garden. And mangoes grow quite well in Perth. So you look after it. Mango tree grows. I don't know how many years it takes. Five. Ten years. Maybe 15 years. Your mango tree is, uh, big. Has its first flowers. First mangoes. And you taste that first mango. Now, my question is, what went across in the first mango? You ate the mango from the new tree which were eating right now. What went across? Now you all know there's probably not even a molecule in that original mango, which is now in the new mango. Even the DNA changes. You ask any biologist or whatever. They don't have exactly the same thing. There's some mutations there from, um, from life to life. From one mango tree to another mango tree. The sun has gone across because you don't get like an apple, you know, from a mango seed. And also, you know, perhaps that mango you ate, first of all, was really sweet. A new mango is likely to be sweet. Maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. If the old mango tree was drought resistant. The new mango tree would have a lot of drought resistance. I can understand actually how you go across from the first mango to the other mango. It's totally different, but we can actually trace the whole series of cause and effect. The first mango seed planting in the ground. Seeing the water germinate. Crack the shell. Little sapling coming up every day. We can see this. The cause and effect going longer and longer and longer. Pushing up through the ground. The little sapling, the tree, the tree making its leaves, the leaves and flowers, the flowers being pollinated, the fruit forming. And now you got your sweet mango. You can actually see a chain, a chain of cause and effect, which is why you can actually trace the man. Go from the new tree back to the old mango. This is actually a chain of cause and effect. It's exactly what happens a human being when they die. The whole chain, which you can actually see a connection from moment to moment to moment. But when you get to the new life, it's hardly anything which is in the old life, which is now in the new life. Except if that old man go was drought resistant, the new one is likely to be. If the old man go was sweet, the new one is liable to be sweet. That's what we mean by karma. It's those tendencies, those inclinations, the qualities that is actually what goes across. That's actually one of the best explanations of how it works in the theory. But actually how it works in practice is and I'll tell this to you, and it is a truth. I don't mind saying this. I can't prove it. But if you really want to prove it when you die, then you'll be able to prove this. What happens when people die? You'll. You'll be quite surprised you're still there. This. That's what it feels like anyway. You know, there you are, dead. And all these other people, you know, sometimes messing around around you. You can actually see and hear everything which is going on. This is what it feels like floating out of your body. One of the best descriptions which I ever read was again in an article which was written by a person who was not a Buddhist. And this if it's coming from a Buddhist, it's just a Buddhist. That's how they believe anyway. But a person who had a lot to lose by saying about his basically death experience and that was, um, the, uh, the former senator of Western Australia, uh, Senator Graham Edwards, I think he's retired now. Senator Graham Edwards, a politician. If any of you remember him, he was a politician who would be in a wheelchair in the Senate, federal Senate. It's actually because of him. They made sure that every, um, part of that new Parliament house, you know, was wheelchair friendly. But how he died, how he lost his legs, which he wrote in his article, which was a wonderful article. He was a Australian soldier in the Vietnam War. He was in a firefight known as a serious firefight with the Viet Cong, however, and his friend was slightly wounded and he went to help his friend, and because he was more concerned about helping his friend, another soldier, than himself. He stood on a landmine and blew off his legs, and he said in this wonderful article, what happened next? This flash of light and unbearable pain really was unbearable. Only for about a second. The next thing he knew, and I remember these words floating above the paddy fields of Vietnam without a care in the world. So free, so peaceful. Describing it as the most wonderful experience of his life. I mention that because everybody has those experiences says the same. You find that someone who's had a near-death experience basically died by the end of the party? They always invariably described it as wonderful, peaceful, delightful. So much so that when they come back afterwards, they're never afraid of death. They go around telling other people, look, it's nothing to be afraid of. Dying is to be afraid of, because that's quite painful and quite long sometimes. But death itself. Wow. That's really something to look forward to. There you go. Got some to look forward to in life. Now. Again. The dying out of the way. Just enjoy the death. He said he didn't know how long he was floating outside of his body, having a wonderful time. But what brought him back was a just one thought. As I thought about his wife back here in Perth, who had just given birth to their first child and a parental responsibility came up. It's not right that I leave my wife and my child. They'd just been born with that thought. Drawbacks. He's experienced being sucked back into his body as soon as he entered his body. Again. Incredible pain, but again, only for a second. And then unconsciousness. The next thing he knew, waking up in the hospital, being treated. He wrote about that experience, even though he was a politician, and people could call him crazy for saying things like that. No, that was real. He wanted to share with other people. That's classic. That's what happens. And from there, if you don't come back again, you go seeking often another burden. Now, the important reason why I say this is because if we can actually see how it happens, if we can get the evidence, if we know what's going to happen, it actually does change the way we look at this line. Sometimes, you know, people say you've got a narrow view of things, and to say you've got a narrow view to me applies. If you think this is the only life you've ever had or you will ever have very narrow. And it's also very disappointing. A lot of suffering sometimes, because sometimes in this life it just doesn't go right. Sometimes in just one life it can be just a very pathetic. And you see that sometimes the things that don't go well, that don't go right. And if this is all there was, just one lie, then this would suck big time. And sometimes you say you may be having a good time. This is so unfair. Why is it that okay, you're having a good time in Australia? You may complain if you look at the news, what's happening in Palestine, or you look at what's happening in Zimbabwe, you look at happening what's in. No, these other hotspots in the world, you think? Why? Sometimes looking at the big picture, many, many lives, it gives us a much better understanding and answer to one of these, some of these intractable problems of life. Why them are not me? Maybe that, you know, you've been through that before. You don't have to do that this lifetime. Very often people who recall their past lives understand the ease of keeping on. Being reborn is the key for not just because we want to be, or because now we wanted to do more things. Basically, you know, the training and learning in the same way that people go to a school or university. You know, you don't have to just you don't just go for one year, you know, now we have the holiday time. There's schools out, universities out. We go back there to learn some more next year. And don't think just because you've graduated, your learning has finished. Now, you all know that we learn so much more every year. We learn a bit more. We experience a bit more. And I don't mean just intellectual knowledge, I mean the experience or knowledge to learn about life, to learn about things, understand what it's like to be poor, to be rich, to be famous, to be not famous or whatever, and to learn what's really important in life. And perhaps that's the most wonderful thing about the big picture of understanding. We have lived many lives. It is the importance of, you know, rather what really is important in life for us now. One life. This is a small life. It is 60, 70, 80 years. It isn't that long. I mean, how old are most of the people in this room? You know, how quick has that gone by? You know, it's this one. Life is just a flash. And you all know that. And sometimes you think she is. This it? Where's my life gone? Oh my God. And, um. So old already. It is very nice to have a bigger picture. One of the things with Buddhist and Buddhist are always so patient. One of the reasons is it doesn't matter. And if you can't finish it in this life, you know you can finish the dishes in your next life. If you haven't, you know, done all your homework and just know. Clean the gutters. You say you promised all. You're going to clean the gutters. Okay, darling, I do it in my next life for you. Don't be so. Because we got. We got more time. You haven't got time. Time to learn. But more importantly, what happens is, is you learn what's really important in life. Because all the other things which people think are important in life. You know, the the big house, the money, the fame, whatever it is, how many you're worried about, the economy, the stupid thing to be worried about, you know, when you're dead, you're going to be as poor. Whether you're a millionaire or poor. You're exactly the same when you go in your coffin. So if you get a really rich coffin or just a bit of plywood or, you know, a cardboard box from coal, it'll get burned anyway. It's exactly the same. They all end up as a pile of ash. And if you don't actually get burned, you get buried. And again, just the worms at you. And it doesn't matter if it's jarrah wood or it's just plywood, it all gets eaten anyway. So we all ended up the same. What it means is there's something more important in life. When we see big pictures of many, many lives and people who remember their last past lives. You can remember them yourself. That's what gives it the most interesting. It changes your whole value system. What's important? That's one of the reasons why I like giving a talk on this. Because if a person really understood and I accept it and they embrace that got their head around and noticed they had the heart around the fact they're going to be reborn again. Notice this one life, but many lives. The whole value system changes your perspective and framework of life changes. Now, one thing we don't get so upset. You know, when sort of people die. You know they're going to die. Maybe meet them again later on. Big deal. Death is not just an ultimate. It's just a just a temporary thing. And all this thing about a matter of life and death, which is sometimes in law and in our society, we can do anything to stop people dying. You can go through red traffic lights if as a matter of life and death. And so Buddhism is not a matter of life and death. It's a matter of how you live and how you die. That's what's really important is the how. Not the not the what. The whole thing about understanding many lives that changed his life from an outcomes based society. What are you achieving? What are you going to get? What are you going to reach? To a process based value system. I'm just saying this to a anagarika today because, you know, as always happens when there's a lot of people, you know, working together. There's an argument in the kitchen. I said, look, guys, this is a Buddhist monastery. The most important thing is not that the food is delicious. The most important thing is not the food comes on time. The most important thing. It's just how that food is made. Now the harmony, the peace of compassion between you guys. Keep that the most important thing. And the food is like there's no food at all. As long as you guys are in peace and harmony, then you're great cooks. It's a process is important, not the outcomes. Getting the food is secondary to actually how it's done. And I noticed that so much in our life. It's just outcomes based. You know your achievements. You know what you've got. How many people just worry about how they got that. Not what they achieved, but what it costs you emotionally, spiritually to get there. And so when it's just outcomes, then we actually losing the losing the plot. Basically it's not what you achieve where you've got a degree, where you've got a big house, you've got a nice family, you've got a great job. That's not important as far as a Buddhist is concerned. It's how you got there. Now what? What was the way? The process. Is the process. This is what drives life from life to life. This is the most important thing. It's not the what, but the how, the how. You live in your life. The how you're working in the kitchen. Not just what you're achieving, the how. When you understand as a process, it changes the whole way of living. So instead of just being people or just aspire to material things, we are aspiring to the processing. And what is process anyway? It processes the way we do things that compassion, the kindness of generosity, the listening to each other, the ability to have harmony to work together. This is all process stuff. So this is the process stuff which becomes really, really important when we see to so many lies because it's a process, a calm, if you like, which becomes most important. It's not what you achieve in life. It's how you achieve it. That's what's really important. You begin to see a huge, bigger picture, and it changed the whole framework of life where, say, you don't know, make $1 million in this life don't matter. Another life thing. If you really want to do it next time, don't matter. You know, if you sort of you can't find a partner in this life, you've done that last. But this life, you can learn how to enjoy being single. You know you can do that next time. The wonderful thing here just got so many options. You don't get so crazy. You don't think, oh my goodness, I'm 4050. I'm a girl. I haven't had a child here. I'm missing out on life, not missing out on life. You know, maybe this life. You had children before. You been there, done that. But instead of having a child have a nice cat, that might somewhat easier for the. Body than have to send him to a school. When they become teenagers, they don't give you headaches. Things you could do. So it just changes the whole perspective on life, which is one of the reasons why I love talking about this. And people have resistance to like me. But why is that? Because as that philosopher said, it's like irrational. The evidence is there. It's strong. Why do people resist it? One of the reasons they resist because if there is reincarnation, rebirth, and sometimes we're saying, oh my goodness, you know, this one life is enough. I've had enough pain and suffering. And to be honest about it, now, those people who have, you know, 40, 50, 60, you know, life is tough sometimes physically you may be quite well provided for, but emotionally you have a huge amount of scars inside of you. What's happened in life and mostly life is very tough. You can see the physical scars, but the mental scars are very hard for a person to see because it's tough. We think we don't want to do this again. Basically, we're scared of the possibility of doing it again. A lot of times it's fear. Now. The fear is one of the great causes of delusion. We just don't want to see it will not see what we're afraid of seeing. But I think a lot of times that people don't believe in rebirth, even though they know it. The evidence is very strong because they're afraid to believe. So in order to overcome that. But okay, you know, you have had some pain in life. We teach known and places like this know how to listen up pain. That would be a bit more smart, especially not to carry around so much of the past and not to carry around the pain which we have. A classic little teaching is a very simple teaching. Many of you have heard this before, but it's such a powerful teaching. Somebody comes up to you and calls you. You're ugly. You're the ugliest girl I've ever seen. What do you do? Do you get angry and upset? What most people do is they start thinking, why did he call me ugly? It's not right that a Buddhist monk should call somebody ugly. He's got no right to call me ugly. This is just wrong that he calls me ugly. And you've now called yourself ugly four more times. Every time you remember that, you allow that person to call you ugly. And at another time, that's where the pain comes from. The original experience is this over in the second? But when we remember that, we recall that we just smile on it. That is where the emotional pain comes from. The original words of abuse are very short, and we think about it over and over and over and over and again. That's where pain comes from. We're only smart. I've only learned about that. They call us ugly. Forget about it. The guy was wrong. What does that man know about you? That he's never watched the movies or seen these? Sort of the latest fashion magazines. He's no expert, so why can't we just. Why do we keep on carrying around and even cherishing the pain of the past? Crazy thing to do. You can let it go. That's one of the great teachings and one of the first teachings of Buddhism, which I really love. You can let go of the rotten stuff. You don't have to keep carrying around with you. Notice the abuse of other people, but your own abuse, your own guilt. It's one of the other reasons why I think people are very afraid of rebirth, because they've all done bad things. I'm sure there's many bad things you've done. Everyone's done some bad things. It reminds me of a story. It's been a while since I told jokes. This might mean it would go over a bit about this boy. This boy was given some homework by his teacher and the, uh, some research. And the following day, he went up to the teacher and said, yeah, I know everything about it. Miss Smith and Miss Smith said, you know everything about it. Here's Miss Smith. Here's $5. Don't tell the headmistress. Because everybody has got skeletons in the closet. So he didn't know what was going on. So he took the $5. He told his friend. And this one his friend said, look, everybody, if you tell somebody I know all about it, then they're not quite sure what you're talking about. They'll give you $5 anyway. So he went back home. He thought, this is really good. I'm going to try this on my mum. So when I saw his mum and said, mum, I know all about it. Oh my God, his $10. Don't tell your dad. Wow, this is really good. So I went to his sister. My sister? I know all about it. How do you know? Oh, lots of friends at school. Here's $20. You pain in the neck. But just don't tell anybody, okay? And when his father came home. Father working. He can score big time off his father. So I went up to his dad, said, dad, I know all about it. He wrote all his $50, said, don't tell your mother. So it's really odd to a good for the following morning, as he was on the way to school again, you saw the milkman. They went up to the milkman and said, milkman, I know all about it. And the milkman said, you do, son. That's the sort of a joke a bunch should tell anyway. But there you go. You've got it. The point is, we all got skeletons in the closet. So if ever we did actually need any money for the Buddhist society, they can always come up to you and say, no, some monks can read mine, so I know all about it. But because we're not corrupt like that, at least not yet. No, it won't never do things like that. But the nice thing about knowing about many lives is you can let go of the past. You don't have to carry it with you from life to life. This is what we call forgiveness. No, forgiveness is letting go of the bad stuff of the past. But when you understand about rebirth, you don't have to be afraid of it once you actually know. No reincarnation, no actually how it works and know what karma is. You know that the rules of the game, basically. You can forgive and let go. You don't have to punish yourself. This is one of the great insights which I'm trying to share with everybody. Guilt is unnecessary. You just. You can let it go. And remember, the AFL code kept on talking about for many years. Done something wrong? Acknowledge. Forgive. Learn. So all you need to do. That's what the Buddha said. No punishment, no penance, no knowledge to mistakes. Forgive it. No, there's no punishment. Sorry, Cat. I know a guy upstate. I know all about it. And learn. And when you do things like that, it means that you can let go of the pain of the past. They don't have to be afraid of rebirth. In fact, once you know what's going to happen, you know exactly just how rebirth happens. It gives a much better, much better, um, understanding about the big picture of life. And I can see that no one's actually looking at me now for the cat. So I think now is a very good time to stop. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's nice. Well, it's a very good timing, cat, because obviously if there's anybody who really looks at that cat just loves the Buddha. Uh, to give it a nice home. Because I know if anybody ever has that idea, I'm going to tell the Thai people. I'm usually the Thai people. Not always. If you do have a spare cat, don't just dump it in a monastery because the cats don't belong sort of in the bush because they're not really, um, environmentally suited for it. Which is why we brought it up here. If anyone has got a nice little home there. Very cute little kitten. It's very, very friendly and very well behaved. Sometimes they didn't come out afterwards and we can see if we can find a home. Okay. So thank you for listening to talk about reincarnation rebirth. Anyone got any comments about questions about it before we finish off? Okay. No comments. Oh you got one. Yeah. In a past century. I don't think you can actually go to the past. I mean, it's not like Doctor Who. You have to actually to go. Basically, you still keep the, um, the time. So you keep on continuing in this time until you take another birth for the future. They can't just actually just jump backwards in time. Yeah. That's not it. That's another question that a very difficult question. I don't want to avoid answering questions because sometimes that that that's not respecting your question. That's a very difficult one. That's about sort of the end of the whole process. Not getting reborn again, finished learning everything. Now you can disappear. But actually this I can just was one little part of it, which, uh, one part of the documentary which I was seeing, I don't know, many of you may know that Doctor Brian Weiss, because people in Malaysia gave me a documentary. This is one of the guys who uses hypnotherapy to actually to regress people into their past lives. And that's a fascinating, uh, part of, uh, of past lives because it's, again, so much information about that, whether it's true or not. And obviously, I say it's true when people get regressed hypnotherapy into a past life. Again, it's so, so many of the problems which I have in this life who with anxiety disorders, with depression, people who have got phobias like agoraphobia or claustrophobia. Sometimes you get back into the previous life and you get some experience, you know, and it was the the start, the cause of this phobia, which now stops you, uh, experiencing, uh, freedom in this life. There are people who maybe have a hard time finding a partner in life. Why is that? Sometimes you go into a past life and you've had some very bad experiences with that partner. Whether it's actually a true rebirth or not. It happens that people tend to get better as a result, and that's why it's a very powerful therapy. So that was actually one guy who wrote a book a long time ago, and people actually gave me a current book of his doctor, Brian Weiss, as many people do, hypnotherapy regressing into people's past lives. It's brilliant because it has a great effect on people. Yeah. But all beings eventually finished. That would be the the end of everything. There's always more beings creative. I like the idea of, like, a steady state. It's basically, you know, that this was like this before. It's like this now. We've got many universes. I think it's Buddhism as far as science is concerned. It's not the first universe, you know, had many big bangs, many sort of big crunches. The big picture in Buddhism is not just you reincarnate, but universes reincarnate as well. And that's, um. I remember the last thing I read from Professor Epstein, UCLA, in about 10 or 15 years ago. Brane theory. That's not BRIN, but short for membranes intersecting, predicting multiple universes one after the other. So even universes reincarnate. And with universes reincarnating into small beings evolving. Come into being. Which is what all people graduate from university. Maybe they'll drop out this lifetime, but they'll go back again later on if they really want to. That's why it's one of those questions. The question was actually wrongly formulated. The question really should have been Will you finish if you want to. So again, because that we are the creators and we use our our craving, our desire to create our will, and you can go whichever way you want. So which way do you wanna go? Be careful sometimes because some of the things you wish for. Come true. So make sure your wishes are good wishes. Uh, some are some Buddha. Are all done by a one to be. One day. Me. To walk out on a martyrdom. I'm on a Masami. Who hiding under a door like a son. Can a mommy?