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Saturday, March 8, 2008

Why we cannot see the long past lives?


I am currently reading one of the Buddha’s teaching books, which is about the Q&As between the Buddha and a king in their past lives before the Buddha became the Buddha.
One of the questions was about ‘why we cannot see the long past lives?’ which is I am going to share it with you as below.

King: If we all have the past lives, why we cannot know about those past lives?
The Buddha: Life is just like the circle. For example, from the seed, we get the tree. From the tree, we get the branches, the buds, the flowers, the fruits and the seeds. Where is the beginning? Can you tell the beginning of a tree or a seed? Life circle is the same.
King: Well, I am not clear yet. Can you give me clearer example, please?
The Buddha: Alright. Where did the hen come from?
King: From the egg.
The Buddha: Where did the egg come from?
King: From the hen.
The Buddha: Where is the beginning and where is the ending of this circle? Our life circle is the same: we are going and going again with no beginning and no ending. Many things are happening in the same ways over and over again in this circle. A line was erased by another line by another line by another line. That’s why we cannot see the past lives. Our lifelines were erased by the other our lifelines.

What do you think?


Picture: http://www.springboardmagazine.com/SpringImages/lifecycle_apple.gif

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