..續本文上一頁e about the events that happened to me yesterday, they will not simply dismiss it and say that I am talking nonsense. If they don”t believe it, it is up to them, but I have truly, personally experienced it.

　　In the Ten Stages Sutra, Lord Buddha explicitly mentioned that some sentient beings can recall some of their past lives. Some can even recall events that happened countless eons ago. Certainly, not everyone possesses this ability. For most people, after entering the womb, obscurations cause them to forget everything in their past life. Only a small number of people, due to their meditative power or other special causes and conditions, retain some of their memories.

　　Of course, those able to remember their past life may not necessarily have studied Buddhism before. In the past, Dr. Ian Stevenson (1918-2007) from the University of Virginia devoted himself to more than forty years of research, collecting over two thousand true cases from different countries to prove the existence of past and future lives. Later, he selected twenty of the most convincing cases and put them together to compose Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. In each of the cases in that book, the time, the people, and the place involved are clearly indicated. Thus, if someone were to try to refute them one by one, it would take many hours of work.

　　In the Tibetan area, there are also some eminent monks that are able to remember their past life. For example, my guru His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok used to recall the experiences of his past life during the time of Padmasambhava, when he was born as Nanam Dorje Dudjom. I remember one time when His Holiness was in a place at Dawu expounding on the six bardos (a section of the Tibetan Book of the Dead), during that teaching, he suddenly became very sad, and explained that he had just recalled how in Padmasambhava”s time this scripture had been expounded and who were Padmasambhava”s disciples, but now, as time has passed, everything has changed and become what we are today. While speaking about this, tears fell from his eyes.

　　On another occasion, His Holiness was invited to the first Tibetan monastery—Samye Ling. When His Holiness was expounding Dharma to the monks there, he remembered vividly scenes when Padmasambhava was transmitting Vajrayana teachings in the past; they reappeared as if they had just happened yesterday. While His Holiness described the scenes, he couldn”t hold back his tears and seemed very sad. I personally witnessed this myself. For someone like His Holiness, who has made such great contributions to Buddhist causes, there is no need for him to simply lie to others.

　　Besides these renowned masters, there are also some ordinary people who naturally possess the ability to remember their past life. For example, near our Buddhist institute, there is a little girl, who before she was five or six years old was able to remember many things in her past life vividly. Initially, it was hard for her family to believe how it was possible for her to know these past life events, but later they were able to verify the girl”s accounts entirely matched with reality. In the face of these truths, no matter how much her parents were not willing to believe that past and future lives existed, they had to recognize their existence.

　　Also, the famous English novelist and writer Charles Dickens recounted how once when he was walking in the outskirts of an area, he found that the scenery around him was very familiar, and he felt extremely emotional about it, and started to recall that this was the place where he had been murdered in his previous life.

　　Another similar case was with a prominent literary figure. He was also able to remember that he had lived in this world for many lifetimes. During his previous lives, he…

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