Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 2/9/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello there ive come back to ask another question....

If the world that we live in is becoming destroyed by our somewhat greedy actions then is the next world that we enter into becoming destroyed too as we journey to return back to the place we just left....

Thankyou for reading i look forward to hearing your reply and thankyou for responding to my previous message...

ANSWER: Hello Clementine,

Thank you for letting me answer your question

The best way I can answer your question is by saying that whatever karma we have sewed individually or collectively is ripening now.  If it is negative then that is because we created negative actions of body, speech and mind in the past which is ripening now. If we continue to create negative karma based on our actions then the negative karma produced by those negative actions will ripen in the future in the next incarnation we take, perhaps and it will appear to us who have the karma to see it as though the world is becoming destroyed by greed and other things.

I hope that helps to answer your question.

Don't hesitate to ask anything any follow up question you might have.

Laurie

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

QUESTION: Thankyou for your reply Laurie and im here again to ask another question relating to your response....

How are you able to know that there is a next incarnation,where does your awareness of knowing this come from if the mind is wiped clean in order that you may start again and if you can answer that i was also wondering if a species that is now exstinct is able to return once again,how is it possible for something to die completely if we have eternal existance....

Thankyou for reading,i look forward to hearing your reply....

ANSWER: There are a few ways to know for yourself is something is true.  One is take it on authority from someone you trust.

If you trust Buddha as a teacher, he does speak of his past lives.


One is having and experience of it yourself. One is inference and another is through logic.

Inference for example can be things like the existence of geniuses or prodigies.  Why do they exist?  Well, if that person had that talent in a past life, that talent created an imprint on their consciousness and when they are reborn they continue to have that talent for example.

Buddhists have a couple ways, I believe of logically proving reincarnation. Reincarnation is taught based on the Buddhist belief in dependent origination.

Dependent origination means that things exist in dependence on causes and conditions.
For example, each moment exists in dependence on the moment before it.  Buddhists believe that we have existed from beginningless time. Take your life as Clementine. Dependant arising means that this moment you are reading this exists based on the causes and conditions of the previous moment before you started reading this. And that previous moment exists based on the causes and conditions of the moment that preceded that.  This makes sense logically, right? So follow each moment backwards, and you get the causes and conditions that produced Clementine at 10 years old, Clementine at 5 years old, Clementine at birth – okey so where does it stop?  If it does stop, it is only because we choose a random arbitrary stopping point.  Can that point be found or proved? Can we say Clementine's first moment started at birth? Well then what about conception?  What about the split second before conception? Did you really not exist then and suddenly you existed?  

Buddhists say that if you had the causes and conditions to exist at conception, there must have been causes and conditions that existed the split second before that that caused the conception to happen and for you to enter the womb of your mother; because, they reason, if there are causes and conditions that can be traced every second from the moment you were born till now, how can there suddenly be no causes and conditions when you die, for example?  If causes and conditions are occurring that produce the next second of your life, and the next, there must have always been causes and conditions at work creating us from beginningless time and going on with no end.

So, you as Clementine must have existed in some form before this life. Buddha Shakyamuni himself spoke if his past incarnations. Because things exist based on causes and conditions, there had to be causes and conditions that produced Prince Siddhartha as someone who would become Buddha.  These causes and conditions, as Buddha taught were his deeds in his previous lives as a monk and eventually a Bodhistattva, doing more and more as each life passed for the benefit of others and thereby reaching higher and higher attainments each life which prepared him to eventually become Buddha Shakyamuni.

So I have sort of answered your statement that your mind gets wiped clean.  We learn the tabula rasa theory in psychology classes but Buddhists believe that every moment you have creates an imprint on your mental continuum and you take your mental continuum with you into every new existence.

Some people say that there cannot be reincarnation because they do not recall anything from a past life.  We do you recall what you were doing last year at this time?  Or last week at this time?  We forget so much of what we do in this life, why would we think we would recall what we did in a past life. Often past life memories for those who remember seem to arise from a trigger (causes and conditions again) in this life that bring that memory back.  So if there is no trigger in this life, one might not recall having lived before.

As far as something becoming extinct - again that is causes and conditions.  When the causes and condition that created that thing to exist in the first place come to an end, so does the things. The causes and conditions that produced dinosaurs ended and therefore so did the dinosaurs.  The causes and conditions for me going to college ended - and so I am no longer in college. Same kind of thing.

So the entity that was a dinosaur did not die, just as I did not die when I stopped being a college student, it is just that the causes and conditions of me being a college student and that entity being a dinosaur did end.  That being exhausted his dinosaur karma and therefore is no longer a dinosaur - there was not more need for that being to be a dinosaur so the being went on and became something else due to his karma and the causes and conditions of his reality.

I hope that helps some.  Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.

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QUESTION: Thankyou Laurie for the detailed reply it is much appreciated and in response to what you say i have a tendency to believe mostly in my thoughts that seem to spring from nowhere because they somehow seem to have the logical presence that you speak of.Then these thoughts tend to question the geniuses and prodigies,not that i disagree with what they say but to further my knowledge of what i am believing but of course sometimes i disagree because my mind also seems open to ideas that not everything is found or totally understood....

So i move swiftly onto the Buddha,i must admit i dont know much about the Buddhas path but have delved into a few spiritual areas searching to find where i belong within them all but i feel i come away from everything still looking for an ideal and i sit here now saying that thinking i do fit and not fit into anything and everything which in turn also makes me feel isolated and alone,not that being isolated or alone is anything bad.There are times when i feel i am moving each day in some sort of enlightenment and that its always been the case that i have existed like this but then i feel like i am only a human being and restricted by this fact....

I agree with what you say above though they are things i believe myself i guess i just look for a solid answer so i can say "Voila,i know" but understand my naievity in saying that too.And so i sit asking myself do i have another question and the only thing i can think of right now is,the other day i saw a buddhist on youtube called MC Happiness and i wonder if you have heard of him and what you think of the way he teaches and in the meantime while i wait for your reply maybe another question will arise from nowhere....

Thankyou for reading and once again thankyou for your reply it was interesting to read but i dont think i was ever a dinosaur,was you?....

Answer
Thanks again for letting me answer your question.

Well, you are in a human incarnation currently but you have the Buddha nature inside you and life is just a process of becoming awake to your Buddha nature; your highest wisdom potential and your highest compassion potential. You are only as restricted as you choose to be.

I had not heard of MC Happiness until you mentioned him. He is making the dharma accessible to young folks that is great. I suspect if he is fully ordained he might technically be breaking a vow by creating music - but if his intention is to spread the dharma to those who might not otherwise hear it, then that is great.

I remember being a bear and my friend remembers being a giraffe - so it is possible I was a dinosaur - Since I don't think their lives were all that exciting, it would probably be hard for me to remember if I was.

Take care - Laurie