Also see, Buddhism and Science by Ajahn Brahmavamso:
Excerpts: http://www.bswa.org/modules/icontent/index.php?page=105
Remembering Past Lives
Buddhism is founded on meditation, and meditation can reveal
many, many things, especially deep memories from the past. Monks,
nuns, and ordinary meditators can reach such deep meditations that
they can not only levitate, but they can remember previous lives!
Many people can actually do this. When you come out of a deep
meditation you have incredible energy. Afterwards you won't be able
to go to sleep, nor will you be able to go and watch TV, because
the mind will be too full of its own joy and happiness. Moreover,
the mind is so empowered that you can make suggestions to it,
suggestions that you would not normally be able to fulfil. But
empowered by deep meditation, you can follow the suggestions. I've
actually taught this special meditation to people on meditation
retreats, because on meditation retreats some get deep results.
People sometimes get memories of when they were babies, and then of
being in their mother's womb. If they are lucky they get memories
of when they were a very old person, i.e. memories from a past
life! One of the important things with those past life memories is
that they are very real to the person experiencing them. It's as if
you are back there experiencing it. Anyone who has had a memory
like that has no doubt in their mind about past lives. It's not a
theory any more. Such memories are like remembering where you were
this morning when you had breakfast. You have no doubts that that
was you this morning, having that breakfast. You didn't imagine it.
With the same clarity, or even greater clarity, you remember that
that very old person was you, only it wasn't a few hours ago, it
was many decades ago. It was a different time, a different body and
a different life. Now if people can do that on nine day meditation
retreats, imagine what you would do if you were a monk or a nun,
who meditates not just for a weekend, or for nine days, but nine
years, twenty-nine, thirty-nine, or fifty-nine years. Imagine how
much power you could generate in that meditation. Now imagine how
much more power you could generate if you were a Buddha with an
Enlightened mind.
Now you know what to do to discover for yourself if you've lived
before. Meditate. I don't mean just meditating to get rid of stress
and make your self calm. I mean really meditate, deeply. Meditate
to get your mind into what we call the Jhānas. Those are
deep states of absorption, where the body disappears. You don't
feel. You can't see. You can't hear. You're absolutely inside the
mind. You have no thoughts but you are perfectly aware. You are
blissed out. The method, the instructions for the experiment, are
very clearly laid down. Even in my little book "The Basic
Method of Meditation" all the steps are there. Follow them,
and invest the resources necessary for doing that experiment not
just one weekend retreat, but many weekend retreats, and sometimes
many years of meditating. If you want to follow that 'scientific
method', you have to enter into a Jhāna. And then, after
you emerge from that state, you ask yourself, "What is my earliest
memory?" You can keep going back in your mind, and eventually you
will remember. You will see for yourself the experience of past
lives. Then you know. Yes, it is true! You have had the
experience for yourself.
The Buddha said he did remember past lives, many past lives,
many aeons of past lives. He said specifically that he remembered
ninety-one aeons. That's ninety big bangs, the time before and the
time afterwards, huge spaces of time. That's why the Buddha said
there was not just one universe, but many universes. We are not
talking about parallel universes as some scientists say. We are
talking about sequential universes, with what the Buddha called
sanvattati vivattati. This is Pāli, meaning the unfolding
of the universe and the infolding of it, beginnings and
endings.
The suttas even give a measure for the lifetime of a
universe. When I was a theoretical physicist, my areas of expertise
were the very small and the very large; fundamental particle
physics and astrophysics. They were the two aspects that I liked
the most, the big and the small. So I knew what was meant by the
age of a universe and what a 'big bang' was all about. The age of a
universe, the last time I looked in the journals, was somewhere
about seventeen thousand million years. In the Buddhist
suttas they say that about thirty seven thousand million
years is a complete age. When I told that to the state astronomer
he said yes, that estimate was in the ball park, it was acceptable.
The person who was the convener of the Our Place in Space seminar
made a joke about the fact that a hundred or two hundred years ago,
Christianity said the universe was about seven thousand years old.
That estimate certainly isn't acceptable, the Buddhist one
is!
It is remarkable that there was a cosmology in Buddhism
twenty-five centuries ago that doesn't conflict with modern
physics. Even what astronomers say are galaxies, the Buddha called
wheel systems. If any of you have ever seen a galaxy, you will know
there are two types of galaxy. First, there is the spiral galaxy.
The Milky Way is one of those. Have you seen a spiral galaxy? It is
like a wheel! The other type is the globular cluster, which looks
like a wheel with a big hub in the middle. 'Wheels' is a very
accurate way of describing galaxies. This was explained by someone
twenty five centuries ago, when they did not have telescopes! They
didn't need them, they could go there themselves!
There is a lot of interesting stuff in the old suttas,
even for those of you who like weird stuff. Some times people ask
this question, "Do Buddhists believe in extra terrestrial beings,
in aliens?" Would an alien landing here upset the very foundation
of Buddhism? When I was reading through these old suttas I
actually found a reference to aliens! It's only a very small
sutta, which said that there are other world systems with
other suns, other planets, and other beings on them. That's
directly from the Anguttara Nikāya.
(AN X, 29)
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The Boy with No Brain
This is a well known case that throws a challenge to modern
science. It's the case of Professor John Lorber and the student
with no brain.[1]
Professor Lorber was a neurologist at Sheffield University who held
a research chair in paediatrics. He did a lot of research on
hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. The student's physician at
the university noticed that the youth had a slightly larger than
normal head, and so referred him to Professor Lorber, simply out of
interest. When they did a brain scan on the student they saw that
his cranium was filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid. The student
had an IQ of 126, had gained a first-class honours degree in
mathematics, and was socially completely normal. And yet the boy
had virtually no brain. This is not just a fabrication; research
has found other people with no brains. During the first world war,
when there was such carnage in the trenches of Europe. Soldiers had
their skulls literally blown apart by bullets and shrapnel. It is
said that the doctors found that some of the shattered heads of
those corpses were empty. There was no brain. The evidence of those
doctors was put aside as being too difficult to understand. But
Professor Lorber went forward with his findings, and published
them, to the great disturbance of the scientific community.
Billions of dollars are going into research on the brain. Current
views hold that imbalances in the brain are causing your
depressions, your lack of intelligence, or your emotional problems.
And yet here is evidence that shows you don't need much of a brain
to have an excellent mind.
A doctor friend in Sydney discussed this case with me once. He
said he'd seen those CT scans, and confirmed that the case was well
known in the medical community. He explained that that boy only had
what was called a reptilian brain stem. Usually, any baby born with
just a reptilian brain stem, without the cortex and the other
stuff, will usually die straight away or within a few days after
birth. A reptilian brain stem is not capable of maintaining basic
bodily functions such as breathing, heart or liver. It's not enough
to keep the higher brain functions going. It's not enough for
speech, not enough for intelligence, certainly not enough for being
an honours student in mathematics. This doctor said, "Ajahn Brahm,
you wouldn't believe the problem that this is causing in my field
of science. It shatters so much past research. It is challenging so
many drug companies that are making billions of dollars in
profits". Because dogmatic scientists can't understand how a person
with virtually no brain can be intelligent, they are just burying
the findings at the back of the filing cabinet, classifying it as
an anomaly. But truth just won't go away.
The Mind and the Brain
As soon as you start to include the mind, this 'ghost in the
machine', in the equations, scientists tend to become discomfited.
They take refuge in dogma, and say, "No, that cannot exist". I
really took the Sate Astronomer to task over such dogmatism in
science.
As far as Buddhism is concerned there are six senses. Not just
the five senses of science, namely sight, sound, smell, taste and
touch but in addition the mind. From the very beginning in
Buddhism, mind has been the sixth sense. Twenty-five centuries ago,
the sixth sense was well recognised. So this is not changing things
to keep up with modern times; this was so from the very beginning.
The sixth sense, the mind, is independent of the other five senses.
In particular the mind is independent of the brain. If you
volunteer to have a brain transplant with me you take my brain and
I take your brain I will still be Ajahn Brahm and you will still be
you. Want to try it? If it was possible and it happened, you would
still be yourself. The mind and the brain are two different things.
The mind can make use of the brain but it doesn't have
to.
Some of you may have had out of the body experiences. These out
of the body experiences have recently been the subject of
mainstream scientific research. Out of the body experiences are now
a scientific fact! I like to stir people up by saying things like
that. Recently I saw that Dr. Sam Parnia, a researcher from the
University of Southampton Medical School, has given a paper,
stating that consciousness survives death.[2]
He said that he did not know how it happens, or why it happens,
but, he says, it does happen. His evidence was gathered from people
who have had out of the body experiences in his hospital. Dr
Parnia, investigated and interviewed many, many patients. The
information which they gave him, as a cool headed scientist, said
yes, those people were conscious during the time they were dead.
What was especially very convincing was that often they could
actually describe to the doctor the medical procedures that were
done during the time when they were clinically dead. They could
describe it as if they were looking at their body from a position
above the table. But how that happens Dr. Parnia can't explain. Why
it happens he can't explain. But other medical findings also
support the above. Finally, their findings replicated the work done
earlier by Dr. Raymond A. Moody in the United States.[3]
The evidence proved to those hard nosed doctors that out of body
experiences do happen. But how could they happen? If we agree that
the mind can be independent of the body, then we have a plausible
explanation. The brain doesn't need to be functioning for a mind to
exist. The scientific facts are there, the evidence is there, but a
lot of scientists don't like to admit those facts. They prefer to
close their eyes because of dogmatism.
Come and See for Yourself
If you had just one person who had been confirmed as medically
dead who could describe to the doctors, as soon as they were
revived, what had been said, and done during that period of death,
wouldn't that be pretty convincing? When I was doing elementary
particle physics there was a theory that required for its proof the
existence of what was called the 'W' particle. At the cyclotron in
Geneva, CERN funded a huge research project, smashing atoms
together with an enormous particle accelerator, to try and find one
of these 'W' particles. They spent literally hundreds of millions
of pounds on this project. They found one, just one 'W' particle. I
don't think they have found another since. But once they found one
'W' particle, the researchers involved in that project were given
Nobel prizes for physics. They had proved the theory by just
finding the one
'W' particle. That's good science. Just one is enough to prove the
theory.
When it comes to things we don't like to believe, they call just
one experience, one clear factual undeniable experience, an
anomaly. Anomaly is a word in science for disconcerting evidence
that we can put in the back of a filing cabinet and not look at
again, because it's threatens our worldview. It undermines what we
want to believe. It is threatening to our dogma. However, an
essential part of the scientific method is that theories have to be
abandoned in favour of the evidence, in respect of the facts. The
point is that the evidence for a mind independent of the brain is
there. But once we admit that evidence, and follow the scientific
method, then many cherished theories, what we call 'sacred cows'
will have to be abandoned.
When we see something that challenges any theory, in science or
in religion, we should not ignore the evidence. We have to change
the theory to fit the facts. That is what we do in Buddhism. All
the Dhamma of the Buddha, everything that he taught, if it
does not fit the experience, then we should not accept it. We
should not accept the Buddha's words in contradiction of
experience. That is clearly stated in the Kālāma Sutta.
(AN III, 65) The Buddha said do not believe because it is written
in the books, or even if I say it. Don't just believe because it is
tradition, or because it sounds right, or because it's comforting
to you. Make sure it fits your experience. The existence of mind,
independent of the brain, fits experience. The facts are there.
Sometimes, however, we cannot trust the experts. You cannot
trust Ajahn Brahm. You cannot trust the scientific journals.
Because people are often biased. Buddhism gives you a scientific
method for your practice. Buddhism says, do the experiment and find
out for your self if what the Buddha said is true or not. Check out
your experience. For example, develop the method to test the truth
of past lives, rebirth and reincarnation. Don't just believe it
with faith, find out for yourself. The Buddha has given a
scientific experiment that you can repeat.
Until you understand the law of kamma, which is part of
Buddhism, kamma is just a theory. Do you believe that
there is a God 'up there' who decides when you can be happy or
unhappy? Or is everything that happens to you just chance? Your
happiness and your suffering in life, your joy, your pain and
disappointments, are they deserved? Are you responsible or is it
someone else's fault? Is it mere chance that we are rich or poor?
Is it bad luck when we are sick and die at a young age? Why? You
can find the true answer for yourself. You can experience the law
of kamma through deep meditation. When the Buddha sat
under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, the two knowledge's he realized
just before his Enlightenment were the knowledge from experience of
the truth of rebirth, and the knowledge from experience of the Law
of kamma. This was not theory, not just more thinking, not
something worked out from discussions around the coffee table this
was realization from deep experience of the nature of mind. You too
can have that same experience.
All religions in the world except Buddhism maintain the
existence of a soul. They affirm a real 'self', an 'essence of all
being', a 'person', a 'me'. Buddhism says there is no self! Who is
right? What is this 'ghost in the machine'? Is it a soul, is it a
being, or is it a process? What is it? When the Buddha said that
there is no one in here, he never meant that to be just believed,
he meant that to be experienced. The Buddha said, as a scientific
fact, that there is no 'self'. But like any scientific fact, it has
to be experienced each one for themselves, paccattam veditabbo
viññūhī. Many of you chant those Pāli words every day. It is
basic scientific Buddhism. You have to keep an open mind. You don't
believe there is 'no self', you don't believe there is a 'self'
both beliefs are dogmatism. Keep an open mind until you
complete the experiment. The experiment is the practice of
sila, samādhi and pañña, (virtue, meditation and
insight). The experiment is Buddhist practice. Do the same
experimental procedures that the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree.
Repeat it and see if you get the same results. The result is called
Enlightenment.
Men and women have repeated that experiment many times over the
centuries. It is in the laboratory of Buddhist practice that the
Enlightened Ones, the Arahants, arise. The
Arahants are the ones who have done the experiment and
found the result. That's why Buddhism always has been the
scientific way. It is the way of finding out for your self the
truth of Enlightenment.
Buddhism is also the scientific way of discovering the truth
about happiness, what most people are interested in. What is
happiness? Some students from our local Islamic school came to
visit our monastery a short while ago. I performed a little party
trick for them, which was also an illuminating way to demonstrate
the existence of the mind. I was trying to explain Buddhism, so I
asked them:
"Are you happy? Put your hands up if you are happy now".
At first there was no response. Then one person responded and
raised their hand.
"Oh! You're all miserable?" I said "Only one person, come on!
Are you happy or not?"
More students put there hands up.
"Okay, all those people who put their hands up saying they are
happy, with your index finger can you now point to that happiness?
Can you give it coordinates in space?" They couldn't locate that
happiness.
It's hard to locate happiness, isn't it? Have you ever been
depressed? Next time you are depressed, try to point to that
feeling with your index finger! You will find that you cannot
locate depression, or happiness, in space. You cannot give it
coordinates, because these things reside in the mind, not in the
body, not in space. The mind is not located in space. That's why
after a person dies, if they become a ghost they can appear all
over the world immediately. People sometimes ask me, "How can that
happen?" How can a person who dies, say in New York, appear
immediately in Perth? It is because the mind is not located in
space, that's why. This is why you cannot point to happiness, you
cannot point to depression, but they are real. Are you imagining
the happiness? Do you imagine the depression? It's real. You all
know that. But you cannot locate it in three dimensional space.
Happiness, depression, and many other real things, all live in
mind-space.
The mind is not in the brain, it's not in the heart. We have
seen that you could have no brain but still have a mind. You could
take out your heart, and have a bionic heart, or a heart
transplant, and you would still be you. This understanding of the
mind is why Buddhists have no objection at all to cloning. You want
to clone me, go for it! But don't think that if you clone Ajahn
Brahm that you'll be able to have one Ajahn Brahm who goes to
Singapore this evening, another one who stays in Perth for next
Friday night's talk, plus one who can stay in Bodhinyana monastery,
one who can go to Sydney, and one who can go to Melbourne. If you
clone me, the person who looks like me will be completely different
in personality, knowledge, inclination, and everything else. People
clone Toyota cars in the same way. They look exactly the same but
the performance really depends on the driver inside the car. That's
all cloning is, it's just a replicating a body. Sure it looks the
same, but is the body all that a person is? Haven't you seen
identical twins? Are identical twins the same personality? Have
they got the same intelligence? Have they got the identical
inclinations? Do they even like the same food? The answer is
usually no.
Why do people have this problem about cloning? Clone as much as
you want. You are just creating more bodies for streams of
consciousness to come into. Those streams of consciousness come
from past lives. What's the problem? You would never be able to
predict the result. Suppose you took Einstien's brain, extracted
some of his DNA, and cloned a new Einstien. He might look the same,
but I guarantee he won't be half as clever.
If people want to proceed with stem cell research, which is
going to help humanity, then why not? In stem cell research there
is no 'being' involved. The 'being' hasn't come in yet. In
Buddhism, it is understood that the 'being' descends into the
mother's womb at any time from conception until birth. Sometimes it
doesn't even go into the womb at all and the foetus is stillborn.
The objections to stem cell research are dogmatic, unscientific,
and uncompassionate. They're foolish as far as I'm concerned. I
think sometimes that I would tear my hair out if I weren't a
monk.
If you want to
look at the scientific evidence for rebirth, check out Professor
Ian Stevenson. He spent his whole life researching rebirth on a
solid scientific basis at the University
of
Virginia.[4]
Chester Carlson,
the inventor of xerography, (encouraged by his wife) offered funds
for an endowed chair at the University to enabled Professor
Stevenson to devote himself full-time to such research.
If it weren't for
the fact that people do not want to believe in rebirth, Dr. Ian
Stevenson would be a world famous scientist now. He even spent a
couple of years as a visiting fellow of Magdalene College in Oxford, so you can see that this is
not just some weird professor; he has all of the credentials of a
respected Western academic.
Dr. Stevenson has over 3000 cases on his files. One
interesting example was the very clear case of a man who remembered
many details from his past life, with no way of gaining that
information from any other source. That person died only a few
weeks before he was reborn! Which raises the question, for all
those months that the foetus was in the womb, who was it? As far as
Buddhism is concerned, the mother kept that foetus going with her
own stream of consciousness. But when another stream of
consciousness entered, then the foetus became the new person. That
is one case where the stream of consciousness entered the mother's
womb when the foetus was almost fully developed. That can happen.
That was understood by Buddhism twenty five centuries ago. If the
stream of consciousness doesn't enter the mother's womb, the child
is a stillborn. There is a heap of evidence supporting that.