past lives

[mrb]

YouTube - This is Sparta. Full scene. well do you ever think you have lived another life , i do , dont ask me why .. but methinks i was something like this guy , calls from the past in dreams , distant memorys in my mind just quick flashes , hard to explain ... dont get me wrong im not not agressive , but i have memorys of another life b4 mine ... do you lot ever have that feeling ? past life flashes ?

 

[Devrium]

Well, I felt like that once before when I was a teenager, but I just don't know anymore. As a Buddhist I have been taught about reincarnation and stuff like that... but honestly I don't really claim to know one way or another about what awaits us after death. I just try to make the most of the time I have now. There are 80,000 different sects of Buddhism and they are all different in their beliefs... the type I study and follow (Nichiren Daishonin, SGI) teaches reincarnation but more as a mythical or hypothetical thing. They talk about it like it's an old school belief or something. Really the only ones I know that believe in it (in my type of Buddhism) are very old Japanese lady's that were raised with that belief, because it's in their society and culture. Most of us SGI members... just don't pay much attention to it. We are more concerned about our own human revolution.. changing our lives now, in the present. Striving for a better world, and a better future etc..

 

[mrb]

thats a good reply lol , thanks

 

[lunarla]

I can't say I've ever had any flashes that maybe seem like a past life. Orrrr maybe I do and I'm just not recognizing them as such! If I did, that would be so, so neat though. Out of all the after life conclusions that people draw up, reincarnation is one of my favourites.

YouTube - Waking Life Reincarnation

Also, Ethan Hawke makes me cringe sometimes, but I love Waking Life.

 

[Square_Eyes]

I love Waking Life.

Yes! Awesome film.

 

[BlueDays]

I am not really sure about past lives...but there is one thing that really puzzles me....I have never smoked in my whole life, but whenever i hold a pen or pencil in the fingers like you hold a smoke, it feels familiar and relaxing, like i have smoked all my life!!
That is so strange it makes me wonder about past lives....

 

[Devrium]

thats a good reply lol , thanks

Well Reincarnation comes down to what Shyakamuni Buddha (Prince Siddhartha or the historical Buddha) came to realize sitting under that Bodhi tree 3000 years ago. While there have been many Buddha's in history, Shyakamuni Buddha is the one that started it all. Buddha is an old Indian word that simply means "enlightened one".

If you don't already know.. Prince Siddhartha left his princely life for that of an ascetic one because he wanted to understand how to overcome the sufferings of life: old age, sickness, and death (which later became known as the four sufferings because he counted being born and living itself as a suffering).. he studied for many, many years under different teachers, suffering mental and physical hardships (almost to the point of his own death) But in the end he gave that all up to simply meditate under the pipal tree (a type of fig tree later to be known as the Bodhi tree)...

There, he realized the mystical law of life and the universe.. the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth... also how everything is impermanent.. meaning as solid as the chair you sit in and the building you live in seems... everything will one day crumble.. nothing in life lasts forever. And we are one with everything... everything in the universe effects everything else in the universe. The universe and everything in it are flux, arising and ceasing, appearing and disappearing, in an unending cycle of change conditioned by the law of causation.

This is reincarnation in it's most raw form.

And while we are on the subject of Buddha can I just point out that that fat little man you see sitting in Chinese restaurants is NOT Buddha.. That is Hotei, the Chinese God of Happiness... Just a pet peeve of mine =p

Oh and I just wanted to edit and say that I didn't mean Shyakamuni Buddha started the beliefs surrounding reincarnation.. I don't know who did. But I know many other cultures and religions have their own beliefs on that in other parts of the world.. I was only speaking reincarnation from how I understand it... from a Buddhist standpoint...