乾县铁佛寺移动版

Take another example. Let us say that you came into life with the tendency to be patient and kind due to your mental habits in the past life. But in the present life you neglect to strengthen and develop such tendencies. They would gradually weaken and  die  out  and  perhaps  be  completely  absent  in  the  future  life.  Patience  and kindness being weak in this case, there is a possibility that  either in this life or in the next life, a short temper, anger and cruelty could grow and develop, bringing with them all the unpleasant experiences such attitudes create.

We will take one last example. Let us say that due to your mental habits in the last life, you came into the present life with the tendency to be short-tempered and angry and you realize that such habits only cause unpleasantness. If you are only able to weaken such tendencies, they would re-emerge in the next life where with a bit more effort,  they  could   be  eliminated  completely  and  you   could  be  free  from  their unpleasant effects.

QUESTION: So does Buddhism teach that there is free will?

ANSWER: The  Buddha  said  that there are three false views concerning  human experience - that everything happens randomly, that everything is due  to  the will of a supreme god and that everything is caused by past kamma (Anguttara  Nikaya I,173).  As said before, our kamma conditions us rather than determines us. Human will is like riding a horse. I want the horse to go one way, one speed, to canter or to gallop, and she has her own ideas. If I have the experience and the confidence I can make her do what I want. If the horse senses that I am weak or inexperienced she will take no notice of me and do exactly what she wants, despite my wishes. Further, apart from my wishes the horse has limited capabilities. If I want her to go 50 km an hour but she does not have the strength to go that fast, it will not happen no matter how  much   I  want  it  or  how  much   I  push  her.  A  pleasant  ride  on  a  horse  is conditioned by multiple factors and it is the same with human will. So you can say we don’t have free will, our will is conditioned, like everything else.

Of course, the more we develop our will, the more patience and persistence we have, the more we can change in positive ways. This is the whole purpose of the Noble Eightfold Path.

QUESTION: Is it possible to come into contact in the next life with the people you have known in this life?

ANSWER: Yes, it is. Once an old gentleman and his wife who had been married for many years and who loved each other deeply, told the Buddha that just as they had 'beheld' each other in this life they wanted to do so in the next life too. The Buddha said that if their affinity with each other was strong and if they had a similar level of faith, virtue, generosity and understanding, that this could happen. When two people meet  and  have  an  immediate  affinity  with  each  other  which  develops  into  an

enduring and deep friendship or love, a Buddhist would say that it is quite possible that they had a connection in a former life. This is yet another very positive aspect of rebirth - that the bonds between people can endure beyond death.

QUESTION: You have talked a lot about rebirth but is there any proof that we are reborn when we die?

ANSWER:  Not  only  is  there scientific evidence to support the  Buddhist  belief  in rebirth, it is the only after-life theory that has any evidence to support it. There is not a scrap of evidence to prove the existence of heaven and of course evidence of annihilation at death must be lacking. But during the last 30 years, parapsychologists have been studying reports that some people have vivid memories of their former lives.  For example,  in  England, a five-year old girl said she could remember her ‘other mother and father’ and she talked vividly about what sounded like the events in  the  life  of  another  person.  Parapsychologists  were  called  in  and  they  asked hundreds of questions to which the girl gave answers.  She  spoke of living  in  a particular village in what appeared to be Spain, she gave the name of the village, the name of the streetshe lived in, her neighbors' names and details about her everyday life there. She also tearfully spoke of how she had been struck by a car and died of her injuries two days later. When these details were checked, they were found to be accurate. There was a village in Spain with the name the girl had given. There was a house of the type she had described in the streetshe had named. What is more, it was found that a 23-year old woman living in the house had been killed in a car accident five years before. Now how is it possible for a five-year old girl living in England and who had never been to Spain to know all these details? And of course, this is not the only case of this type. Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia's Department of Psychology has described dozens of cases of this type in his  books.  He  was  an  accredited  scientist  whose  25-year  study  of  people  who remember former lives is very strong evidence for the Buddhist teaching of rebirth.* (责任编辑：admin)