Remembering our Past Lives

Our minds being obscured by ignorance finds it difficult to remember the past. Also, many changes occur in our body and mind as we die and are reborn, making recollection difficult.

Not remembering something does not mean that it does not exist - we sometimes even forget where we parked our car! However, some people can remember their past lives in meditation.

What is more important is how we live our present life. Knowing what we were like in past lives is useful only if it helps to generate determination to avoid negative actions or to free ourselves from rebirth. The important thing is to purify our previous negative actions, avoid creating more and put energy into accumulating positive potential and developing our good qualities.

If we want to know our past life, we only have to look at the state of our present life. If we want to know about our future lives, we only need to look at what we are doing right now. This is because we received our present rebirth based on our past actions.

A human rebirth is a fortunate one and we created the cause for it by living ethically in our previous lives. On the other hand, our future rebirth will be determined by what we think, say or do now., and our mind motivates all these actions.

Thus, we can get an idea of the kind of rebirths we will take by looking at our present attitudes and examining whether they are constructive or destructive. We do not need to go to the fortune teller to ask will become of us as we can simply consider the imprints that we are living on our mindstream by our thoughts, words and deeds.

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