When answering the question about skepticism of the reality of past lives, Joseph says "it's true. you don't have to believe it but it's true." and then later on goes to say that it is unskillful to disbelieve in things that one knows nothing about. When listening to the answer I was wondering about how Joseph could "know" about past lives being real. If it is unskillful to say that something about which one does not know about is untrue, how can it be skillful to say that something about which one does not know about is true? I assume that Joseph's belief in the reality of past lives comes from his experiences with Dipa Ma. I'm open to the possibility of past lives being a thing. My thinking about past lives being real is that past life experiences happen rarely either by random chance or by attaining deep states of realization. I view experiencing past lives to be connected with insight leading to permanent meditative stabilization, the past being connected to the future. Tho I've never met anyone who has experienced past lives, so this is all just ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if the past lives that enlightened people like Dipa Ma experienced were actual people who could be researched but I also wouldn't be surprised if they were entirely created by the mind. I doubt that anyone ever has the subjective experience of living a lifetime, dying and then being reincarnated into another human lifetime. I would bet that when I die that will be the end of experiencing life entirely for me, no reincarnating into a future baby. But I assume that there are people alive today who have experienced past lives and that many people will continue to experience past lives, especially if they become highly realized spiritual practitioners.
Agreed. I believe in past lives but cannot prove it as true or false so I hold that belief lightly. There is a question of why we don’t remember our past lives in this life and the answer was that if we had full knowledge of our past life, we would be trying to process our goals and desires from that life instead of this life. Therefore it is better to forget for simplicity and not trying to solve conditions from the last life.
