More On Reincarnation … 4 comments
While contemplating the last question, my flow of thought went on to memory.
Why don’t we carry clear memories from one life to the next? If a Lama can come back into a new body and claim his singing bowl from his last incarnation, then why can’t I come back in my next life and claim CrankyBuddhist.com and continue posting as cranky who is now whatever my new name is?
Like, clearly claim it, not ‘oh, I have some feeling that I’m connected to this project, I should go work on it’ muddled memory.
I’ve asked myself this question before, but I never took the answer to the ends that I have been in the last week or so. And now it’s become clear as to why we don’t clearly remember past lives, or remember them enough to lay claim to their projects and deeds.
My mind ran through a lot of possibilities and complications, and instead of listing them, I’ll just leave you with the thought for your own contemplation.
4 Responses to 'More On Reincarnation …'
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I’m curious to know what your take on this is. My question would be this: say you take a really serious blow to the head. Is it possible that afterwards, your memory will be spotty? Do you remember much from your childhood?
When you die, you lose your entire body – it’s way worse than just a head injury. Wouldn’t it be quite extraordinary to be able to project memories from a previous life into this one, or access memories from a previous life in this one? It seems like it would be bordering on a miracle.
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I, whether good or bad or nothing at all, remember most of my childhood all the way back to when I was born. Although it could be questionable about the birth memory. It freaks my Mom out when I tell her stories from when I was a baby. Used to freak my grandmother out too.
I’ve always had the feeling that after we leave our bodies we become ‘clear’ and not only have all of memories from this life, but all the ones from previous lives too. It’s bearable because having those memories when we are in spiritworld is not as traumatic as having memories in this physical world.
I always thought we had this clarity for self-analysis – so we could choose our next life well.
I never thought of memory as being attached to the body. I’ve always thought of them as being attached to the spirit.
So that if you are hit on the head a lose a few in this life, when you pass on, they will all be there.
That’s my take on it. It’s just something I’ve always thought would be true.
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Seeker – I was thinking something along those lines, but also the idea of ownership …
Could you imagine leaving a fortune and then coming back into a different family and try to reclaim that fortune? Or what about responsibility – where would that end? Or would it?
Not having clear past life memories kind of keeps things a little neater, wouldn’t you say?
Is it possible that clear memories of the past would get in the way of the lessons that we need to learn in this life? If our many lives take a variety of forms (e.g. male, female, poor, rich etc.), it would be very confusing to start out with conscious memory of all that “baggage.”