ON THAT MOMENTOUS NIGHT when the Buddha attained enlightenment, it is said that he went through several different stages of awakening. In the first, with his mind “collected and purified, without blemish, free of defilements, grown soft, workable, fixed and immovable,” he turned his attention to the recollection of his previous lives. This is what he tells us of that experience:
I remembered many, many former existences I had passed through: one, two births, three, four, five . . . fifty, one hundred . . . a hundred thousand, in various world-periods. I knew everything about these various births: where they had taken place, what my name had been, which family I had been born into, and what I had done. I lived through again the good and bad fortune of each life and my death in each life, and came to life again and again. In this way I recalled innumerable previous existences with their exact characteristic features and circumstances. This knowledge I gained in the first watch of the night.1
Since the dawn of history, reincarnation and a firm faith in life after death have occupied an essential place in nearly all the world’s religions. Belief in rebirth existed amidst Christians in the early history of Christianity, and persisted in various forms well into the Middle Ages. Origen, one of the most influential of the church fathers, believed in the “pre-existence of souls” and wrote in the third century: “Each soul comes to this world reinforced by the victories or enfeebled by the defeats of its previous lives.” Although Christianity eventually rejected the belief in reincarnation, traces of it can be found throughout Renaissance thought, in the writings of major romantic poets like Blake and Shelley, and even in so unlikely a figure as the novelist Balzac. Since the advent of interest in Eastern religions that began at the end of the nineteenth century, a remarkable number of Westerners have come to accept the Hindu and Buddhist knowledge of rebirth. One of them, the great American industrialist and philanthropist Henry Ford, wrote:
I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was twenty-six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered reincarnation . . . time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. . . . I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.2
A Gallup poll taken in 1982 showed that nearly one in four Americans believe in reincarnation.3 This is an astonishing statistic considering how dominant the materialist and scientific philosophy is in almost every aspect of life.
However, most people still have only the most shadowy idea about life after death, and no idea of what it might be like. Again and again, people tell me they cannot bring themselves to believe in something for which there is no evidence. But that is hardly proof, is it, that it does not exist? As Voltaire said: “After all, it is no more surprising to be born twice than it is to be born once.”
“If we have lived before,” I’m often asked, “why don’t we remember it?” But why should the fact that we cannot remember our past lives mean that we have never lived before? After all, experiences of our childhood, or of yesterday, or even of what we were thinking an hour ago were vivid as they occurred, but the memory of them has almost totally eroded, as though they had never taken place. If we cannot remember what we were doing or thinking last Monday, how on earth do we imagine it would be easy, or normal, to remember what we were doing in a previous lifetime?
Sometimes I tease people and ask: “What makes you so adamant that there’s no life after death? What proof do you have? What if you found there was a life after this one, having died denying its existence? What would you do then? Aren’t you limiting yourself with your conviction that it doesn’t exist? Doesn’t it make more sense to give the possibility of a life after death the benefit of the doubt, or at least be open to it, even if there is not what you would call ‘concrete evidence’? What would constitute concrete evidence for life after death?”
I then like to ask people to ask themselves: Why do you imagine all the major religions believe in a life after this one, and why have hundreds of millions of people throughout history, including the greatest philosophers, sages, and creative geniuses of Asia, lived this belief as an essential part of their lives? Were they all simply deluded?
Let us get back to this point about concrete evidence. Just because we have never heard of Tibet, or just because we have never been there, does not mean that Tibet does not exist. Before the huge continent of America was “discovered,” who in Europe had any idea that it was there? Even after it had been discovered, people disputed the fact that it had. It is, I believe, our drastically limited vision of life that prevents us from accepting or even beginning seriously to think about the possibility of rebirth.
Fortunately this is not the end of the story. Those of us who undertake a spiritual discipline—of meditation, for example—come to discover many things about our own mind that we did not know before. As our mind opens more and more to the extraordinary, vast, and hitherto unsuspected existence of the nature of mind, we begin to glimpse a completely different dimension, one in which all of our assumptions about our identity and the reality we thought we knew so well start to dissolve, and in which the possibility of lives other than this one becomes at least likely. We begin to understand that everything we are being told by the masters about life and death, and life after death, is real.
There is by now a vast modern literature dealing with the testimonies of those who claim to be able to remember past lives. I suggest that if you really want to come to some serious understanding of rebirth, you investigate this open-mindedly, but with as much discrimination as possible.
Of the hundreds of stories about reincarnation that could be told here, there is one that particularly fascinates me. It is the story of an elderly man from Norfolk in England called Arthur Flowerdew, who from the age of twelve experienced inexplicable but vivid mental pictures of what seemed like some great city surrounded by desert. One of the images that came most frequently to his mind was of a temple apparently carved out of a cliff. These strange images kept coming back to him, especially when he played with the pink and orange pebbles on the seashore near his home. As he grew older, the details of the city in his vision grew clearer, and he saw more buildings, the layout of the streets, soldiers, and the approach to the city itself through a narrow canyon.
Arthur Flowerdew much later in his life, quite by chance, saw a television documentary film on the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. He was astounded to see, for the very first time, the place he had carried around for so many years in those pictures in his mind. He claimed afterward that he had never even seen a book about Petra. However, his visions became well known, and an appearance in a BBC television program brought him to the attention of the Jordanian government, who proposed to fly him to Jordan along with a BBC producer to film his reactions to Petra. His only previous trip abroad had been a brief visit to the French coast.
Before the expedition left, Arthur Flowerdew was introduced to a world authority on Petra and author of a book on the ancient city, who questioned him in detail, but was baffled by the precision of his knowledge, some of which he said could only have been known by an archaeologist specializing in this area. The BBC recorded Arthur Flowerdew’s pre-visit description of Petra, so as to compare it with what would be seen in Jordan. Flowerdew singled out three places in his vision of Petra: a curious volcano-shaped rock on the outskirts of the city, a small temple where he believed he had been killed in the first century b.c., and an unusual structure in the city that was well known to archaeologists, but for which they could find no function. The Petra expert could recall no such rock and doubted that it was there. When he showed Arthur Flowerdew a photograph of the part of the city where the temple had stood, he astounded him by pointing to almost the exact site. Then the elderly man calmly explained the purpose of the structure, one that had not been considered before, as the guard room in which he had served as a soldier two thousand years before.
A significant number of his predictions proved accurate. On the expedition’s approach to Petra, Arthur Flowerdew pointed out the mysterious rock; and once in the city he went straight to the guard room, without a glance at the map, and demonstrated how its peculiar check-in system for guards was used. Finally he went to the spot where he said he had been killed by an enemy spear in the first century b.c. He also indicated the location and purpose of other unexcavated structures on the site.
The expert and archaeologist of Petra who accompanied Arthur Flowerdew could not explain this very ordinary Englishman’s uncanny knowledge of the city. He said:
He’s filled in details and a lot of it is very consistent with known archaeological and historical facts and it would require a mind very different from his to be able to sustain a fabric of deception on the scale of his memories—at least those which he’s reported to me. I don’t think he’s a fraud. I don’t think he has the capacity to be a fraud on this scale.4
What else could explain Arthur Flowerdew’s extraordinary knowledge except rebirth? You could say that he might have read books about Petra, or that he might have even received his knowledge by telepathy; yet the fact remains that some of the information he was able to give was unknown even to the experts.
Then there are fascinating cases of children who can spontaneously remember details of a previous life. Many of these cases have been collected by Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia.5 One startling account of a child’s memories of a past life came to the attention of the Dalai Lama, who sent a special representative to interview her and verify her account.6
Her name was Kamaljit Kour, and she was the daughter of a schoolteacher in a Sikh family in the Punjab in India. One day, on a visit to a fair in a local village with her father, she suddenly asked him to take her to another village, some distance away. Her father was surprised and asked her why. “I have nothing here,” she told him. “This is not my home. Please take me to that village. One of my school-friends and I were riding on our bicycles when suddenly we were hit by a bus. My friend was killed instantly. I was injured in the head, ear, and nose. I was taken from the site of the accident and laid on the bench in front of a small courthouse nearby. Then I was taken to the village hospital. My wounds were bleeding profusely and my parents and relatives joined me there. Since there were no facilities to cure me in the local hospital, they decided to take me to Ambala. As the doctors said I could not be cured, I asked my relatives to take me home.” Her father was shocked, but when she insisted, he finally agreed to take her to the village, though he thought that it was just a child’s whim.
They went to the village together as promised, and she recognized it as they approached, pointing out the place where the bus had hit her, and asking to be put in a rickshaw, whereupon she gave directions to the driver. She stopped the rickshaw when they arrived at a cluster of houses where she claimed she had lived. The little girl and her bewildered father made their way to the house she said belonged to her former family, and her father, who still did not believe her, asked the neighbors whether there was a family like the one Kamaljit Kour had described, who had lost their daughter. They confirmed the story and told the girl’s astonished father that Rishma, the daughter of the family, had been sixteen years old when she was killed; she had died in the car on the way home from the hospital.
The father felt extremely unnerved at this, and told Kamaljit that they should go home. But she went right up to the house, asked for her school photo, and gazed at it with delight. When Rishma’s grandfather and her uncles arrived, she recognized them and named them without mistake. She pointed out her own room, and showed her father each of the other rooms in the house. Then she asked for her school books, her two silver bangles and her two ribbons, and her new maroon suit. Her aunt explained that these were all things Rishma had owned. Then she led the way to her uncle’s house, where she identified some more items. The next day she met all of her former relatives, and when it was time to catch the bus home, she refused to go, announcing to her father that she was going to stay. Eventually he persuaded her to leave with him.
The family started to piece the story together. Kamaljit Kour was born ten months after Rishma died. Although the little girl had not yet started school, she often pretended to read, and she could remember the names of all her school friends in Rishma’s school photograph. Kamaljit Kour had also always asked for maroon-colored clothes. Her parents discovered that Rishma had been given a new maroon suit of which she was very proud, but she had never had time to wear it. The last thing Kamaljit Kour remembers of her former life was the lights of the car going out on the way home from the hospital; that must have been when she died.
I can think of ways that one might try to discredit this account. You might say that perhaps this little girl’s family had put her up to claiming she was the reincarnation of Rishma for some reason of their own. Rishma’s family were wealthy farmers, but Kamaljit Kour’s own family were not poor and had one of the better houses in their village, with a courtyard and garden. What is intriguing about this story is that in fact her family in this life felt rather uneasy about the whole business, and worried about “what the neighbors might think.” However, what I find most telling is that Rishma’s own family admitted that, although they did not know much about their religion, or even whether reincarnation is accepted or not by Sikhs, they were convinced beyond any doubt that Kamaljit Kour was in fact their Rishma.
To anyone who wants to study seriously the possibility of life after death, I suggest looking at the very moving testimonies of the near-death experience. A startling number of those who have survived this experience have been left with a conviction that life continues after death. Many of these had no previous religious belief at all, or any spiritual experience:
Now, my entire life through, I am thoroughly convinced that there is life after death, without a shadow of a doubt, and I am not afraid to die. I am not. Some people I have known are so afraid, so scared. I always smile to myself when I hear people doubt there is an afterlife, or say, “When you’re dead, you’re gone.” I think to myself, “They really don’t know.”7
What happened to me at that time is the most unusual experience I have ever had. It has made me realize that there is life after death.8
I know there is life after death! Nobody can shake my belief. I have no doubt—it’s peaceful and nothing to be feared. I don’t know what’s beyond what I experienced, but it’s plenty for me . . .
It gave me an answer to what I think everyone really must wonder about at one time or another in this life. Yes, there is an afterlife! More beautiful than anything we can begin to imagine! Once you know it, there is nothing that can equal it. You just know!9
The studies on this subject also show that the near-death experiencers tend afterward to be more open and inclined toward accepting reincarnation.
Then again, could not the amazing talents for music or mathematics that certain child prodigies display be attributed to their development in other lives? Think of Mozart, composing minuets at the age of five, and publishing sonatas at eight.10
If life after death does exist, you may ask, why is it so difficult to remember? In the “Myth of Er,” Plato suggests an “explanation” for this lack of memory. Er was a soldier who was taken for dead in battle, and seems to have had a near-death experience. He saw many things while “dead,” and was instructed to return to life in order to tell others what the after-death state is like. Just before he returned, he saw those who were being prepared to be born moving in terrible, stifling heat through the “Plain of Oblivion,” a desert bare of all trees and plants. “When evening came,” Plato tells us, “they encamped beside the River Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold. All are requested to drink a certain measure of this water, and some have not the wisdom to save them from drinking more. Every man, as he drinks, forgets everything.”11 Er himself was not permitted to drink the water and awoke to find himself on the funeral pyre, able to remember all that he had heard and seen.
Is there some universal law that makes it almost impossible for us to remember where and what we have lived before? Or is it just the sheer volume, range, and intensity of our experiences that have erased any memory of past lives? How much would it help us, I sometimes wonder, if we did remember them? Couldn’t that just confuse us even more?
From the Buddhist point of view, the main argument that “establishes” rebirth is one based on a profound understanding of the continuity of mind. Where does consciousness come from? It cannot arise out of nowhere. A moment of consciousness cannot be produced without the moment of consciousness that immediately preceded it. His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains this complex process in this way:
The basis on which Buddhists accept the concept of rebirth is principally the continuity of consciousness. Take the material world as an example: all the elements in our present universe, even down to a microscopic level, can be traced back, we believe, to an origin, an initial point where all the elements of the material world are condensed into what are technically known as “space particles.” These particles, in turn, are the state which is the result of the disintegration of a previous universe. So there is a constant cycle, in which the universe evolves and disintegrates, and then comes back again into being.
Now mind is very similar. The fact that we possess something called “mind” or “consciousness” is quite obvious, since our experience testifies to its presence. Then it is also evident, again from our own experience, that what we call “mind” or “consciousness” is something which is subject to change when it is exposed to different conditions and circumstances. This shows us its moment-to-moment nature, its susceptibility to change.
Another fact that is obvious is that gross levels of “mind” or “consciousness” are intimately linked with physiological states of the body, and are in fact dependent on them. But there must be some basis, energy, or source which allows mind, when interacting with material particles, to be capable of producing conscious living beings.
Just like the material plane, this too must have its continuum in the past. So if you trace our present mind or consciousness back, then you will find that you are tracing the origin of the continuity of mind, just like the origin of the material universe, into an infinite dimension; it is, as you will see, beginningless.
Therefore there must be successive rebirths that allow that continuum of mind to be there.
Buddhism believes in universal causation, that everything is subject to change, and to causes and conditions. So there is no place given to a divine creator, nor to beings who are self-created; rather everything arises as a consequence of causes and conditions. So mind, or consciousness, too comes into being as a result of its previous instants.
When we talk of causes and conditions, there are two principal types: substantial causes, the stuff from which something is produced, and cooperative factors, which contribute towards that causation. In the case of mind and body, although one can affect the other, one cannot become the substance of the other . . . Mind and matter, although dependent on one another, cannot serve as substantial causes for each other.
This is the basis on which Buddhism accepts rebirth.12
Most people take the word “reincarnation” to imply there is some “thing” that reincarnates, which travels from life to life. But in Buddhism we do not believe in an independent and unchanging entity like a soul or ego that survives the death of the body. What provides the continuity between lives is not an entity, we believe, but the ultimately subtlest level of consciousness. The Dalai Lama explains:
According to the Buddhist explanation, the ultimate creative principle is consciousness. There are different levels of consciousness. What we call innermost subtle consciousness is always there. The continuity of that consciousness is almost like something permanent, like the space-particles. In the field of matter, that is the space-particles; in the field of consciousness, it is the Clear Light . . . The Clear Light, with its special energy, makes the connection with consciousness.13
The exact way in which rebirth takes place has been well illustrated with the following example:
The successive existences in a series of rebirths are not like the pearls in a pearl necklace, held together by a string, the “soul,” which passes through all the pearls; rather they are like dice piled one on top of the other. Each die is separate, but it supports the one above it, with which it is functionally connected. Between the dice there is no identity, but conditionality.14
There is in the Buddhist scriptures a very clear account of this process of conditionality. The Buddhist sage Nagasena explained it to King Milinda in a set of famous answers to questions that the King posed him.
The King asked Nagasena: “When someone is reborn, is he the same as the one who just died, or is he different?”
Nagasena replied: “He is neither the same, nor different . . . Tell me, if a man were to light a lamp, could it provide light the whole night long?”
“Yes.”
“Is the flame then which burns in the first watch of the night the same as the one that burns in the second . . . or the last?”
“No.”
“Does that mean there is one lamp in the first watch of the night, another in the second, and another in the third?”
“No, it’s because of that one lamp that the light shines all night.”
“Rebirth is much the same: one phenomenon arises and another stops, simultaneously. So the first act of consciousness in the new existence is neither the same as the last act of consciousness in the previous existence, nor is it different.”
The King asks for another example to explain the precise nature of this dependence, and Nagasena compares it to milk: the curds, butter, or ghee that can be made from milk are never the same as the milk, but they depend on it entirely for their production.
The King then asks: “If there is no being that passes on from body to body, wouldn’t we then be free of all the negative actions we had done in past lives?”
Nagasena gives this example: A man steals someone’s mangoes. The mangoes he steals are not exactly the same mangoes that the other person had originally owned and planted, so how can he possibly deserve to be punished? The reason he does, Nagasena explains, is that the stolen mangoes only grew because of those that their owner had planted in the first place. In the same way, it is because of our actions in one life, pure or impure, that we are linked with another life, and we are not free from their results.
In the second watch of the night when Buddha attained enlightenment, he gained another kind of knowledge, which complemented his knowledge of rebirth: that of karma, the natural law of cause and effect.
“With the heavenly eye, purified and beyond the range of human vision, I saw how beings vanish and come to be again. I saw high and low, brilliant and insignificant, and how each obtained according to his karma a favorable or painful rebirth.”15
The truth and the driving force behind rebirth is what is called karma. Karma is often totally misunderstood in the West as fate or predestination; it is best thought of as the infallible law of cause and effect that governs the universe. The word karma literally means “action,” and karma is both the power latent within actions, and the results our actions bring.
There are many kinds of karma: international karma, national karma, the karma of a city, and individual karma. All are intricately interrelated, and only understood in their full complexity by an enlightened being.
In simple terms, what does karma mean? It means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with its consequences. It is said by the masters that even a little poison can cause death and even a tiny seed can become a huge tree. And as Buddha said: “Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.” Similarly he said: “Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel.” Karma does not decay like external things, or ever become inoperative. It cannot be destroyed “by time, fire, or water.” Its power will never disappear, until it is ripened.
Although the results of our actions may not have matured yet, they will inevitably ripen, given the right conditions. Usually we forget what we do, and it is only long afterward that the results catch up with us. By then we are unable to connect them with their causes. Imagine an eagle, says Jikmé Lingpa. It is flying, high in the sky. It casts no shadow. Nothing shows that it is there. Then suddenly it spies its prey, dives, and swoops to the ground. And as it drops, its menacing shadow appears.
The results of our actions are often delayed, even into future lifetimes; we cannot pin down one cause, because any event can be an extremely complicated mixture of many karmas ripening together. So we tend to assume now that things happen to us “by chance,” and when everything goes well, we simply call it “good luck.”
And yet what else but karma could really begin to explain satisfyingly the extreme and extraordinary differences between each of us? Even though we may be born in the same family or country, or in similar circumstances, we all have different characters, totally different things happen to us, we have different talents, inclinations, and destinies.
As Buddha said, “What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now.” Padmasambhava went further: “If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.”
The kind of birth we will have in the next life is determined, then, by the nature of our actions in this one. And it is important never to forget that the effect of our actions depends entirely upon the intention or motivation behind them, and not upon their scale.
At the time of Buddha, there lived an old beggar woman called “Relying on Joy.” She used to watch the kings, princes, and people making offerings to Buddha and his disciples, and there was nothing she would have liked more than to be able to do the same. So she went out begging, but at the end of a whole day all she had was one small coin. She took it to the oil-merchant to try to buy some oil. He told her that she could not possibly buy anything with so little. But when he heard that she wanted it to make an offering to Buddha, he took pity on her and gave her the oil she wanted. She took it to the monastery, where she lit a lamp. She placed it before Buddha, and made this wish: “I have nothing to offer but this tiny lamp. But through this offering, in the future may I be blessed with the lamp of wisdom. May I free all beings from their darkness. May I purify all their obscurations, and lead them to enlightenment.”
That night the oil in all the other lamps went out. But the beggar woman’s lamp was still burning at dawn, when Buddha’s disciple Maudgalyayana came to collect all the lamps. When he saw that one was still alight, full of oil and with a new wick, he thought, “There’s no reason why this lamp should still be burning in the daytime,” and he tried to blow it out. But it kept on burning. He tried to snuff it out with his fingers, but it stayed alight. He tried to smother it with his robe, but still it burned on. The Buddha had been watching all along, and said, “Maudgalyayana, do you want to put out that lamp? You cannot. You could not even move it, let alone put it out. If you were to pour the water from all the oceans over this lamp, it still wouldn’t go out. The water in all the rivers and lakes of the world could not extinguish it. Why not? Because this lamp was offered with devotion, and with purity of heart and mind. And that motivation has made it of tremendous benefit.” When Buddha had said this, the beggar woman approached him, and he made a prophecy that in the future she would become a perfect buddha, called “Light of the Lamp.”
So it is our motivation, good or bad, that determines the fruit of our actions. Shantideva said:
Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.16
Because the law of karma is inevitable and infallible, whenever we harm others, we are directly harming ourselves, and whenever we bring them happiness, we are bringing ourselves future happiness. So the Dalai Lama says:
If you try to subdue your selfish motives—anger and so forth—and develop more kindness and compassion for others, ultimately you yourself will benefit more than you would otherwise. So sometimes I say that the wise selfish person should practice this way. Foolish selfish people are always thinking of themselves, and the result is negative. Wise selfish people think of others, help others as much as they can, and the result is that they too receive benefit.17
The belief in reincarnation shows us that there is some kind of ultimate justice or goodness in the universe. It is that goodness that we are all trying to uncover and to free. Whenever we act positively, we move toward it; whenever we act negatively, we obscure and inhibit it. And whenever we cannot express it in our lives and actions, we feel miserable and frustrated.
So if you were to draw one essential message from the fact of reincarnation, it would be: Develop this good heart that longs for other beings to find lasting happiness, and acts to secure that happiness. Nourish and practice kindness. The Dalai Lama has said: “There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; my philosophy is kindness.”
Karma, then, is not fatalistic or predetermined. Karma means our ability to create and to change. It is creative because we can determine how and why we act. We can change. The future is in our hands, and in the hands of our heart. Buddha said:
Karma creates all, like an artist,
Karma composes, like a dancer.18
As everything is impermanent, fluid, and interdependent, how we act and think inevitably changes the future. There is no situation, however seemingly hopeless or terrible, such as a terminal disease, which we cannot use to evolve. And there is no crime or cruelty that sincere regret and real spiritual practice cannot purify.
Milarepa is considered Tibet’s greatest yogin, poet, and saint. I remember as a child the thrill of reading his life story, and poring over the little painted illustrations in my handwritten copy of his life. As a young man Milarepa trained to be a sorcerer, and out of revenge killed and ruined countless people with his black magic. And yet through his remorse, and the ordeals and hardships he had to undergo with his great master Marpa, he was able to purify all these negative actions. He went on to become enlightened, a figure who has been the inspiration of millions down through the centuries.
In Tibet we say: “Negative action has one good quality; it can be purified.” So there is always hope. Even murderers and the most hardened criminals can change and overcome the conditioning that led them to their crimes. Our present condition, if we use it skillfully and with wisdom, can be an inspiration to free ourselves from the bondage of suffering.
Whatever is happening to us now mirrors our past karma. If we know that, and know it really, whenever suffering and difficulties befall us, we do not view them particularly as a failure or a catastrophe, or see suffering as a punishment in any way. Nor do we blame ourselves or indulge in self-hatred. We see the pain we are going through as the completion of the effects, the fruition, of a past karma. Tibetans say that suffering is “a broom that sweeps away all our negative karma.” We can even be grateful that one karma is coming to an end. We know that “good fortune,” a fruit of good karma, may soon pass if we do not use it well, and “misfortune,” the result of negative karma, may in fact be giving us a marvelous opportunity to evolve.
For Tibetan people, karma has a really vivid and practical meaning in their everyday lives. They live out the principle of karma, in the knowledge of its truth, and this is the basis of Buddhist ethics. They understand it to be a natural and just process. So karma inspires in them a sense of personal responsibility in whatever they do. When I was young, my family had a wonderful servant called A-pé Dorje who loved me very much. He really was a holy man and never harmed anyone in his whole life. Whenever I said or did anything harmful in my childhood, he would immediately say gently, “Oh, that’s not right,” and so instilled in me a deep sense of the omnipresence of karma, and an almost automatic habit of transforming my responses should any harmful thought arise.
Is karma really so hard to see in operation? Don’t we only have to look back at our own lives to see clearly the consequences of some of our actions? When we upset or hurt someone, didn’t it rebound on us? Were we not left with a bitter and dark memory, and the shadows of self-disgust? That memory and those shadows are karma. Our habits and our fears too are also due to karma, the result of actions, words, or thoughts we have done in the past. If we examine our actions, and become really mindful of them, we will see there is a pattern that repeats itself in our actions. Whenever we act negatively, it leads to pain and suffering; whenever we act positively, it eventually results in happiness.
I have been very moved by how the near-death experience reports confirm, in a very precise and startling way, the truth about karma. One of the common elements of the near-death experience, an element that has occasioned a great deal of thought, is the “panoramic life review.” It appears that people who undergo this experience not only review in the most vivid detail the events of their past life, but also can witness the fullest possible implications of what they have done. They experience, in fact, the complete range of effects their actions had on others and all the feelings, however disturbing or shocking, they aroused in them:19
Everything in my life went by for review—I was ashamed of a lot of the things I experienced because it seemed I had a different knowledge . . . Not only what I had done, but how I had affected other people . . . I found out that not even your thoughts are lost.20
My life passed before me . . . what occurred was every emotion I have ever felt in my life, I felt. And my eyes were showing me the basis of how that emotion affected my life. What my life had done so far to affect other people’s lives . . .21
I was the very people that I hurt, and I was the very people I helped to feel good.22
It was a total reliving of every thought I had thought, every word I had ever spoken, and every deed I had ever done; plus the effect of each thought, word, and deed on everyone and anyone who had ever come within my environment or sphere of influence whether I knew them or not . . . ; plus the effect of each thought, word, and deed on weather, plants, animals, soil, trees, water, and air.23
I feel that these testimonies should be taken very seriously. They will help all of us to realize the full implications of our actions, words, and thoughts, and impel us to become increasingly responsible. I have noticed that many people feel menaced by the reality of karma, because they are beginning to understand they have no escape from its natural law. There are some who profess complete contempt for karma, but deep inside they have profound doubts about their own denial. During the daytime they may act with fearless contempt for all morality, an artificial, careless confidence, but alone at night their minds are often dark and troubled.
Both the East and the West have their characteristic ways of evading the responsibilities that come from understanding karma. In the East people use karma as an excuse not to give others a helping hand, saying that, whatever they suffer, it is “their karma.” In the “free-thinking” Western world, we do the opposite. Westerners who believe in karma can be exaggeratedly “sensitive” and “careful,” and say that actually to help others would be to interfere with something they have to “work out for themselves.” What an evasion and betrayal of our humanity! Perhaps it is just as likely that it is our karma to find a way to help. I know several rich people: Their wealth could be their destruction, in encouraging sloth and selfishness; or they could seize the chance that money offers really to help others, and by doing so help themselves.
We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. And if we choose we can put an end to suffering and the causes of suffering, and help our true potential, our buddha nature, to awaken in us. Until this buddha nature is completely awakened, and we are freed from our ignorance and merge with the deathless, enlightened mind, there can be no end to the round of life and death. So, the teachings tell us, if we do not assume the fullest possible responsibility for ourselves now in this life, our suffering will go on not only for a few lives but for thousands of lives.
It is this sobering knowledge that makes Buddhists consider that future lives are more important even than this one, because there are many more that await us in the future. This long-term vision governs how they live. They know if we were to sacrifice the whole of eternity for this life, it would be like spending our entire life savings on one drink, madly ignoring the consequences.
But if we do observe the law of karma and awaken in ourselves the good heart of love and compassion, if we purify our mindstream and gradually awaken the wisdom of the nature of our mind, then we can become a truly human being, and ultimately become enlightened.
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.24
Those who master the law of karma and achieve realization can choose to return in life after life to help others. In Tibet a tradition of recognizing such incarnations or tulkus began in the thirteenth century and continues to the present day. When a realized master dies, he (or she) may leave precise indications of where he will be reborn. One of his closest disciples or spiritual friends may then have a vision or dream foretelling his imminent rebirth. In some cases his former disciples might approach a master known and revered for having the ability to recognize tulkus, and this master might have a dream or vision that would enable him to direct the search for the tulku. When a child is found, it will be this master who authenticates him.
The true purpose of this tradition is to ensure that the wisdom memory of realized masters is not lost. The most important feature of the life of an incarnation is that in the course of training, his or her original nature—the wisdom memory the incarnation has inherited—awakens, and this is the true sign of his or her authenticity. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, for example, admits he was able to understand at an early age, without much difficulty, aspects of Buddhist philosophy and teaching that are difficult to grasp, and usually take many years to master.
Great care is taken in the upbringing of tulkus. Even before their training begins, their parents are instructed to take special care of them. Their training is much more strict and intensive than that of ordinary monks, for so much more is expected of them.
Sometimes they remember their past lives or demonstrate remarkable abilities. As the Dalai Lama says: “It is common for small children who are reincarnations to remember objects and people from their previous lives. Some can also recite scriptures, although they have not yet been taught them.”25 Some incarnations need to practice or study less than others. This was the case with my own master, Jamyang Khyentse.
When my master was young he had a very demanding tutor. He had to live with him in his hermitage in the mountains. One morning his tutor left for a neighboring village to conduct a ritual for someone who had just died. Just before he left he gave my master a book called Chanting the Names of Manjushri, an extremely difficult text about fifty pages long, which would ordinarily take months to memorize. His parting words were: “Memorize this by this evening!”
The young Khyentse was like any other child, and once his tutor had left he began to play. He played and he played, until the neighbors became increasingly anxious. They pleaded with him, “You’d better start studying, otherwise you’ll get a beating.” They knew just how strict and wrathful his tutor was. Even then he paid no attention, and kept on playing. Finally just before sunset, when he knew his tutor would be returning, he read through the whole text once. When his tutor returned and tested him, he was able to recite the entire work from memory, word perfect.
Ordinarily, no tutor in his right mind would set such a task for an infant. In his heart of hearts, he knew that Khyentse was the incarnation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom, and it was almost as if he were trying to lure him into “proving” himself. The child himself, by accepting such a difficult task without protest, was tacitly acknowledging who he was. Later Khyentse wrote in his autobiography that although his tutor did not admit it, even he was quite impressed.
What continues in a tulku? Is the tulku exactly the same person as the figure he reincarnates? He both is and isn’t. His motivation and dedication to help all beings is the same, but he is not actually the same person. What continues from life to life is a blessing, what a Christian would call “grace.” This transmission of a blessing and grace is exactly tuned and appropriate to each succeeding age, and the incarnation appears in a way potentially best suited to the karma of the people of his time, to be able most completely to help them.
Perhaps the most moving example of the richness, effectiveness, and subtlety of this system is His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is revered by Buddhists as the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Infinite Compassion.
Brought up in Tibet as its god-king, the Dalai Lama received all the traditional training and major teachings of all the lineages and became one of the very greatest living masters in the Tibetan tradition. Yet the whole world knows him as a being of direct simplicity and the most practical outlook. The Dalai Lama has a keen interest in all aspects of contemporary physics, neurobiology, psychology, and politics, and his views and message of universal responsibility are embraced not only by Buddhists, but by people of all persuasions all over the world. His dedication to nonviolence in the forty-year-long, agonizing struggle of the Tibetan people for their independence from the Chinese won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989; in a particularly violent time, his example has inspired people in their aspirations for freedom in countries in every part of the globe. The Dalai Lama has become one of the leading spokesmen for the preservation of the world’s environment, tirelessly trying to awaken his fellow human beings to the dangers of a selfish, materialistic philosophy. He is honored by intellectuals and leaders everywhere, and yet I have known hundreds of quite ordinary people of all kinds and nations whose lives have been changed by the beauty, humor, and joy of his holy presence. The Dalai Lama is, I believe, nothing less than the face of the Buddha of Compassion turned toward an endangered humanity, the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara not only for Tibet and not only for Buddhists, but for the whole world—in need, as never before, of healing compassion and of his example of total dedication to peace.
It may be surprising for the West to learn how very many incarnations there have been in Tibet, and how the majority have been great masters, scholars, authors, mystics, and saints who made an outstanding contribution both to the teaching of Buddhism and to society. They played a central role in the history of Tibet. I believe that this process of incarnation is not limited to Tibet, but can occur in all countries and at all times. Throughout history there have been figures of artistic genius, spiritual strength, and humanitarian vision who have helped the human race to go forward. I think of Gandhi, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, of Shakespeare, of St. Francis, of Beethoven, of Michelangelo. When Tibetans hear of such people, they immediately say they are bodhisattvas. And whenever I hear of them, of their work and vision, I am moved by the majesty of the vast evolutionary process of the buddhas and masters that emanate to liberate beings and better the world.