TRANSCRIPT

Rinpoche: We are going to take… Yes?

Guest: A quick question?

Rinpoche: No problem.

Guest: So there is the idea of reincarnation from the Buddhist faith. But you also spoke about different world like after you leave here and you go to heaven if you believe in heaven. So how does that work? How does reincarnation work? Do you keep being reincarnated if you are good in this world or do you move right on?

Rinpoche: That’s a very good question, and I’m going to… Do we have a few minutes? We could squeeze you in. Are you guys going to be alright? Now, if you close your eyes, cover your ears, don’t talk, stay in a place that no one’s touching you, you’re not touching anything, and you’re just there. Can your mind still see, hear, taste and touch? Your mind.

Guest: Yes.

Rinpoche: Very good. When you are dreaming, and your gross consciousness is totally gone, there’s no consciousness; in your subconsciousness, you are sleeping, can you taste, touch, feel and sense?

Guest: No.

Rinpoche: Correct. Sometimes dream states, where you are touching, tasting and feeling things are even more profound than life. So that means it could scare you, it could make you very happy, you wake up crying, you wake very happy or sad, right? And it’s as if it’s real. Sometimes we wake up, we don’t even know that it’s a dream or where we are. That mind that can see that and feel that is your actual mind. That mind is only a temporary resident of your body.

Now, can you remember everything what you did last Wednesday exactly?

Guest: No.

Rinpoche: But if you relax, and you take your time, and you kind of ask people, will the memory come back?

Guest: Yes.

Rinpoche: Cause it’s a relaxed state of mind. Ok, so last Wednesday did happen. It’s just that it’s your memory… but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen or you didn’t do it. Can you remember things that happened to you 10 years ago? Some yes, but if you concentrate and focus and keep thinking a lot of it will come back, right? When you were a child, when you were an infant, did you have cognition? Can you see, hear, taste and touch?

Guest: Yeah.

Rinpoche: You can, right? Can you remember that?

Guest: No.

Rinpoche: Ok, but does that mean it didn’t happen?

Guest: No.

Rinpoche: But for you to have that cognition, that mind, at infancy and now you are the same person. Everything from the time you were born till now is one mind. That mind never changed. It’s just your perceptions became sharper. Correct?

So, if you have that mind now, that mind is the same mind you had last Wednesday. That was the same mind you had when you were a child ten years ago. That’s the same mind you had when you were born. So, is that the same mind you would have had when you were in the womb?

Guest: Correct.

Rinpoche: Correct. Are there many cases of babies who heard what their parents were talking about when they were born and later say, “Hey mom, you know you did this and this”, and mom’s like, “How’d you know?” Because they heard, right? So you definitely had a mind when you were in your mother’s womb, right? So, at the time of conception would you have had a mind? Just a lucky guess?

Guest: I’m going to go with a yes.

Rinpoche: Very good because it’s only logical. You’re going yes now, not because you know or don’t know, it’s because it is logical and you are smart. So, you had to have had a mind at the time of conception, to have it in gestation nine months, to have it at birth, to have it at childhood, 10 years ago, Wednesday, and now, correct? This will be the same mind you have 10 years later, 20 years later, at the time of death. So, if you have a mind at conception till now, so would you have had a mind prior to conception?

Guest: Yes.

Rinpoche: Correct. That was your previous life. It has to continue and everything you like and didn’t like, and did and didn’t do in your previous lives, follow you in this life. The actions you did in body, speech, and mind are converted into karma. You have money in the bank, it’s not paper, it’s electronic. It can convert to paper. The mind is like that, it can convert into any material.

So, prior to birth, you had a mind.

I’m not saying ‘accept’, I’m saying logically. You have a mind, right? So, you must have had a mind prior to birth in order to have a mind at conception, and to have a birth during gestation of mind.

Till now that mind continues to your previous life and your previous life and your previous life. If you do breathe meditation you will start recalling your previous lives because it is just a memory, it’s nothing supernatural. If you do meditation correctly, you will remember what happened to you 10 years ago. You will remember what happened to you at childbirth because it is just a memory that unlocks when your mind is very relaxed.

So when you do meditation, you will remember your previous lives. Not because it’s mystical or something “Ooo…”, like magic. It’s because it is a memory that is in your mind that’s stored away. It just has to be unlocked. There are many cases of young Tibetan lamas who remember their previous lives perfectly.

For example, when they were very young, they remember the lives, names, where they lived, and it correlates, and people can find it. They can remember what they ate, what belonged to them, you can give them things that belong to them and similar other objects and they will tell you that was mine, this was not. We have seen this with our own eyes.

So how does that relate to a place to go? In Buddhism there are different types of heaven. There are heavens for beings who are not attained, there’s a place that in English you call heaven but it’s an inappropriate translation. It is a place that you live for a very long time, you are very youthful, you are very strong, there’s a lot of food, there’s no effort, there’s no sweating, there’s no aging, you live for thousands and thousands of years until your time comes, and then you die and take another rebirth. So heaven is a transitional place because for a Buddhist the aim is not to get to heaven, the aim is to become a fully enlightened being to transcend all of it.

Separately from that, when you have enlightened beings like the Buddhas, when they become fully enlightened, from their mind they can manifest pure realms. They can mass manifest realms and places where we can actually visit or go there to receive teachings. We call those SHING. SHING is a place manifested by Buddha but it’s translated as heaven, which is not appropriate. So, in the English translation it gets a little corrupted. But in actual Tibetan sense. It’s not a Christian or monotheistic type of heaven; it is a completely different, different type of heaven. All right? So, that is how reincarnation and heaven work together in Buddhism in a nutshell.

Guest: Wow. Thank you so much.

Rinpoche: And you don’t have to accept but you can understand that. That’s how 2 billion people in the world live… 2 billion to 2 ½ to 3 billion… 2 to 2 ½ billion people in the world fully live their lives on reincarnation.

Because you see, reincarnation doesn’t belong to Buddha or Buddhism. It’s a universal phenomenon. Do you understand? It’s just that Buddha talked about it. For example, does electricity belong to Thomas Edison?

Guest: No.

Rinpoche: But he was responsible for creating the light bulb and all that, or something like that. Does flight belong to the Wright brothers? No, but they ‘kind of’ created flight, but flight is a phenomenon that’s inherent in all beings and on this earth. It’s just who knows how to tap into it and explain it.

So, reincarnation doesn’t belong to a Buddhist. And if you believe in reincarnation, you don’t become a Buddhist; you just realise what happen to us before and after. So, everything we do becomes karma. That karma becomes potent and that will come back to us.

So, in Buddhism, we don’t deny a higher being. We don’t accept or deny a higher being. We don’t focus. We focus on ourselves becoming a better person. And when you accept karma, you take responsibility. God didn’t do it to me. I wait for God, you do it yourself.

Does that conflict with religions that believe in God? If you make it conflict it conflicts… But look, whether there’s a God or not, you still have to work for yourself. You still have to.

But if you believe in reincarnation, if you see reincarnation, it changes your perspective on tolerance and acceptance of everyone. Because everybody was somehow connected to you one life or another. Okay? Does that help you?

Guest: Tremendously. Thank you, so much.

Rinpoche: Good. Very good question. Very good.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and ease of understanding.

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