About Reincarnation

There are five ways to understand that we have lived before…

The Charavakas, the materialistic school of thought that flourished during the time of Buddha, argued that if something exists it can be perceived by the five senses. Not being able to see past and future lives with their senses, they concluded that reincarnation does not exist.

Although we cannot see our past and future lives, we can nevertheless infer them through logical reasoning.

There are many people nowadays who refuse to believe in hidden objects such as reincarnation, saying that they believe only in what they themselves can see. This view is extremely superficial. Most scientific and historical knowledge is based on logical inference from experiments rather than on unaided sense perception. We cannot directly see atoms, distant galaxies, or events in the past, but we can nevertheless know them through inference. In the same way, although we cannot see our past and future lives, we can nevertheless infer them through logical reasoning.

How Can We Understand The Existence Of Future Lives?

Once we understand the existence of past lives, it will not be difficult to understand the existence of future lives. There are five ways to understand that we have lived before: (1) understanding the , (2) considering the great variety of mental imprints children are born with, (3) reflecting on dreams, (4) contemplating examples of people with memories of previous lives, and lastly, (5) through scriptural authority.

By contemplating and meditating on these five lines of reasoning with an open mind and a good motivation it is not difficult to understand that we have had previous lives. However, if we have decided in advance that reincarnation does not exist, and consider these arguments only to refute them, not even a living Buddha could make us believe in it.