Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 2/28/2011

Question
QUESTION: Hi Laurie,

Why should I work towards enlightenment? I don't expect to attain enlightenment in my current life, so any progress on the path will have to be continued in my next life. But, as I understand it, the only part of "me" that is reborn is my karmic potential and certain habits and tendencies. Nothing of my personality or memories will continue, in the same way that I recall nothing of my last life now. So really I am doing the work now for someone else to benefit from later. Is this correct?

Dan

ANSWER: Hello Daniel -

Thank you for letting me answer your question.

Although I get the concept I am curious what specifically is "a mug's game"?

To answer your question, as I understand reincarnation, what you bring from lifetime to lifetime are your karmic seeds and your metal continuum. As far as I understand it, it is the memory of everything you have ever done.

At a certain stage of progress as a Bodhisattva, you actually recall all your past lives.  Buddha himself told his disciples about many of his past lives for the purpose of teaching them.

If you did not recall anything about your past lives then when a Buddhist master died, it would be hard to find his reincarnation.  The potential candidate for being named as the reincarnation of a Buddhist master must, usually when they are very young pick out from a group of many his specific mala, bell, dorje, dhamaru and other things that were his.  This is one of the tests they do to prove they have found the right person.  So, how could the young person pick the right ones if they had no memories?

Many Buddhist practitioners have no memory of any of their past lives.  From what I have learned, when it is time, the memories will come to you.

As I understand it, many of our habits and tendencies do tend to carry from life to life due to the strength of our karmic imprints.

The Buddhist masters explain it like tire tracks. The more often you drive your car over a specific place in a dirt road, the deeper the rut the tires make.  Same with our karmic imprints.  The more often we are angry, the deeper the karmic imprint. And so when an option comes up in another life to be calm or be angry, if we have a deep imprint to anger, then more than likely we will be angry.

Now as to the other part of your question you say you are doing the work now for someone else.  Actually, you are correct in that statement.

We Westerners think we only have one mind.  Buddhist masters laugh when they hear that as they know we have many minds.  Why?

The mind is not a fixed thing - if it were it could never change.  It like most other things is in the nature of impermanence. It is constantly changing.  So you are not the same person now as you were when you wrote this question to me.  You have changed and you continue to change moment to moment as your karma ripens and you create new karma every moment.

So I am doing the work now for the person I will be tomorrow - therefore I should try to do positive things and avoid negative things so that me tomorrow is happier than me today.

I hope you gain enlightenment in this life - but if you don't it is suggested you do not waste this life thinking you won't be enlightened as you do not know when the next time you will have a perfect human rebirth is - it may be three lifetimes from now.  But right now you have the causes and conditions to study and to get as far as you can - All the Buddhist masters suggest that we not waste it.

I hope this makes sense.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask.

In the mean time, take care -

Namaste - Laurie


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

QUESTION: Thank-you for your prompt answer to my question. In answer to your question, a "mug's game" is an old expression meaning a futile endeavour.

The question I posed is one that has come up in discussion, and which I have no good answer for. The truth of most of Buddha's teachings are evident enough to me personally that this question does not really bother me to a great extent. But for someone who may be of a different or no belief, they may not be able to take on faith the word of me, you or boddhisatvas. After all, Buddha said we should examine and question his teachings. In one of your previous answers you used a good analogy; that of a frozen pond, and how sometimes we need to venture a step or two to gain the confidence that the ice will hold our weight. But for someone who has never even experienced ice, that first step may be too intimidating.

Is there any advice you would give to someone who has questions about Buddhism, someone who may be a very logical and left brain type, and can't accept the concept of rebirth? I am not confident enough in my understanding to offer much in the way of advice.

Thank-you as always for your help,

Dan



ps: While I realize that some realized masters have knowledge of their previous lives, it is interesting to me that in interviews I've read, both the current Dalai Lama and the Karmapa profess no knowledge of their previous lives, although the Dalai Lama reportedly feels a special connection to two of his previous incarnations. So from my point of view, if this doesn't pose a problem for them in their practice, I certainly am not going to let it affect mine.

Answer
Hello Dan -

Thanks for filling me in on a Mugs game :>

Actually I have believed in reincarnation since I was 13 and someone explained it to me.  This was long before I was a Buddhist.  So when I became a Buddhist I was very excited thinking that I could openly discuss reincarnation and the reincarnation memories I have had.

It turns out that many Buddhists even long time one struggle with this concept.

But from what I understand, in Buddhism one does not have to accept all the dogma at one time when to be considered Buddhist.  So, as I have heard many teachers say, if reincarnation for example is not resonating with you try first to understand it from a logical standpoint. Meditate on it to see if you can identify why it is not working for you and then read and study and talk to teachers and fellow classmates about it. If after you have really tried to understand it but it is still not working for you, then just let it go for a while.

And down the road try again and see if the longer you practice, the more it will resonate with you. Sometimes it takes a great while for people to accept this.  But if that is the case then after a while one should at take it on faith - and that is back to the frozen pond analogy. Because everything else the teachings say seem right and work for you then you can take on faith that there is reincarnation because the great masters have been right in all their other teachings and they say there is reincarnation so it follows that it makes sense to at least say it probably exists even if you have no direct experience.

Fortunately, as far as I know now, all of Buddhas teachings are based on logic so I can give you a logical reason reincarnation probably exists -

Buddhism teaches a concept called dependent arising; each thing or in this case each moment exists in dependence on the moment before it.  Take your life as Dan for example. 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 Dan at 10 years old, Dan at 5 years old, Dan at birth – okey so where does it stop?  

If it does stop, it follows it is only because we choose a random arbitrary stopping point.  Can that point be found or proved? Can we say Dan’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 Dan must have existed in some form before this life. And since like causes and conditions logically produce like causes and conditions it is not logical to believe that we were abiding in heaven or just hanging around in ether and suddenly we were born - we had to have reason to be born and the causes to be born here in samsara.

That takes us to what is called the 12 links of dependent origination.  This is the wheel of 12 things that keeps us living, dying and being reborn again and again.  Basically it says in a nutshell that because we have cravings and attachments to things we constantly crave a new life and so we create the causes for it and we again and again are reborn in samsara and must live, get old, get sick and die and then be reborn. Once we stop creating the causes (which is totally possible to do) then we stop being born in samsara and we no longer reincarnate. That is why Buddhism teaches renunciation - so that we let go of our cravings to be reborn and instead seek liberation or nirvana and/or Buddhahood.

According to Buddhists, people like geniuses do not just materialize out of nothing and no where – in a random fashion or because that was the way God made them.  They are geniuses because they had been developing those attributes through many lives. Through many lives, they developed the causes and conditions to be a genius or prodigy in this life.

It explains why bad things happen to good people - why some are born poor and some rich - why some are born gay - why two twins have different personalities -  why some people are born blind.  It all comes from karma from past lives.

So, although one may find reincarnation difficult to accept now, eventually, as we study the dharma more and more, eventually we will come to accept and eventually believe in it. Again though, there is no requirement for when we have to believe it – we will get there when we are ready, if you stay with Buddhism.

And you say that His Holiness the Dalai Lama professes to recall his past lives - Partly that might be because it is not polite in Tibetan customs to talk about ones achievements or the important past lives one may have had but here is an excerpt that does point to the fact that His Holiness remembered at least some things

"The party went to the house with Kewtsang Rinpoche disguised as the servant, and junior official Lobsang Tsewang disguised as the leader. The Rinpoche was wearing a rosary that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, and the little boy of the house recognized it and demanded that it be given to him. Kewtsang Rinpoche promised to give it to him if he could guess who he was, and the boy replied that he was "Sera aga", which means in the local dialect "a lama of Sera". Then the Rinpoche asked who the leader was and the boy gave his name correctly; he also knew the name of the real servant. This was followed by a series of tests that included the choosing of correct articles that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama. "

And if I had to guess - this is just a guess mind you, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is at least a Bodhisattva past the 3rd Bhumi which means he has recollection of all his past lives.

But there is no real reason to dwell on them unless as Buddha Shakyamuni did, you mention them in order to help someone or teach something.

I hope some of this helps - if you have any further questions, I will try to answer them

In the mean time, namaste -

Laurie