Expert: Alex Wilding - 9/2/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hi Alex
im at the moment leaving in Melbourne and migrated  from Sri lanka.Iam abuddist.and planning to get back to sri lanka and follow the eight fold path so that i could stop my this ceasless life cycle

iam reading heaps of books related to rencarnation now in fulltime  but still i couldnt get an idea of the process or mechanisem behind how this our exesting soul grab the next soul or next incarnation

Can you just elaborte it,the process or mechanisem behind how this our existing soul grab the next soul or next incarnation ,for me ?

and other thing , i like to get myself subjected to hyponalysis and traced back to my past lives and see what had happaned to me as well, if you know anywhere in melbourne doing hypnanlysis , plese let it me know

may you bless triple gems
thanks
siri

ANSWER: Hi Siri,
The fact is that different schools of Buddhism have different ideas on this. Some say that it is just like a candle flame lighting another candle. Is it the same flame? They also say that one birth follows at the instant of the former death.
Other schools take more the view that all our actions leave traces deep in our minds. Here the view is that at death, our energies and outward appearance are withdrawn or dissolved into the essence of our mind. If (as is almost always the case) there are unresolved issues, those traces will cause the mind to stir, to feel anxious and lost, and therefore to seek a new birth, conditioned by the traces and patterns left by past actions.

I'm sorry, I don't even know anyone here in Sydney who does that kind of thing, and although I'd find it interesting it isn't something I have sought out. You probably know the saying that "if you want to know what you did in the past, look at your present circumstances; if you want to know how the future will be, look at the way you are acting now".

I hope this helps a bit.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: hi alex

thanks being quick in reply,the answares that you have given me are commonly found interprition on this matter and where i also has alredy stuck .
Anyway i know that unnecesarily spending time on ambigues matters are pointless in our short span of human life because Buddha has clearly told us how to attain Nibbana following his spiritual path if we realy want to do .whats more, isnt it?


Anyway i got another question about Karma(cause-and-effect)

if you also got this book ,this story comes up in abook of Edagar Cayce "Many mensions" page 53

story in nutshell as follows

"A baby began to do bed watering in every night.This habit was descovered due to  a Karma ,as some  bad thing that he had done in his previous life.After series of mental sugestion from his mother as directed by therapist , baby is being fully cured"

My question is

it is known that some of Karma can be avoidable.
but in this case , i feel like that this partular karma has been stoped ,in force,not naturally , with the interferance of baby's mother and the therapist,

Therfore , if this baby has not yet actually terminated this particular karma in this present life,does he has to face the rest of this particular  karma in a next life as well ?

Answer
Hi Siri,
I think the big difficulty with these things is that you can make any interpretation you like. The one you suggest is possible. On the other hand, perhaps the karma was just enough that the baby had to go through a phase of bedwetting? Perhaps the karma was mixed, and the baby had to experience something difficulty followed by some help - maybe in the past he had made some difficulty for someone, some deliberate mess perhaps, but then thought better of it and helped to clean up! We can imagine anything we feel like really, and I don't know a way to tell the difference!
All the best
Alex W