Reincarnated Lama: Many Westerners ordain

The reincarnated Lama: The true story that defies logic

(Lei's Looking Glass) Nov. 27, 2025: Some stories challenge everything we think we know about life, death, and what comes after. Across Tibet and beyond, for over a thousand years, people have reported children who remember past lives, masters who choose their next rebirth, and signs that seem too specific to ignore. This episode explores one of the most astonishing cases in modern times — and the ancient system behind it. Whether you're skeptical or simply curious, this journey into reincarnation, destiny, and the mysteries of the human mind will stay with you long after the story ends. #reincarnation #leislookingglass

Time is short, Life is long: How to Meditate

Wisdom Quarterly; Jack Kornfield (spiritrock.org); FPMT, Inc. (video); COUNTDOWN: -3

A definition and purpose for meditation, how to sit, how to set up a meditation session, different meditation techniques, and how to deal with obstacles. Follow this course FREE at the FPMT Online Learning Center and learn more about Discovering Buddhism.

Time, which contracts and expands at will, is short -- whereas "life" (samsara) is long, endless on its own, except that it's always ending. But it renews again the next moment. 

Each moment divides into three sub-moments, an arising phasing, turning, and falling. This is the incessant "rise and fall" the breath mimics at a much slower speed. Moments pass too quickly to discern -- as showers of particles and mind-moments rise, turn, and fall -- just on the inhale, to say nothing of the retention phase and exhalation.

This becomes much clearer as consciousness sharpens and intensifies and the invisible becomes visible. Mind is superior to phenomena, which can be discerned directly IF only the mind were purified and serene, lucid, and made wieldy by mindful application.

Western Theravada monk explains Thai forest approach (VY)

We are here. How will we get there? Every journey begins with a footstep, every meditation with an inhalation.

Another name for nirvana is "the beyond" or more literally the beyond-beyond, the "farther shore." We are here on this shore with all its dangers and fearful states. And we look beyond the flood, the body of water, the deluge. And we see on that side a farther shore, safe, free of fear, without danger. How to go from here to there, how to "cross over"?

 

Partially-enlightened former monk current lay teacher Jack Kornfield

A strong person, the metaphor continues, might flex a stretched arm or stretch a flexed arm and be there in the twinkling of an eye. We must sit, settle, remain attentive, and thereby be transported by effort to see things just as they are.
 
The major Buddhist schools -- Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana (a large Mahayana subschool) -- have their methods. Here a Western lama in the banned New Kadampa Tradition (Tibetan Vajrayana not affiliated with the current Dalai Lama) offers advice on how to meditate.

 

The 14th Dalai Lama on developing mind (2010)

• Why is FPMT not affiliated with the Dalai Lama? 
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Tibet: "Unmistaken Child" (full movie)

48adidaphat; Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddhist concept of rebirth -- often poorly translated as "reincarnation" -- while both mysterious and enchanting, is hard for most Westerners to grasp.

UNMISTAKEN CHILD follows the four-year search for the reincarnation of Lama Konchog, a world-renowned Tibetan master who passed away in 2001 at the age of 84.

The 14th Dalai Lama, who himself is believed to be the same being reborn on Earth life after life to save or protect the people of Tibet, charges the deceased monk's devoted disciple, Tenzin Zopa (who had been in his service since the age of seven), to search for his master's reincarnation.

Tenzin sets off on this unforgettable quest on foot, mule, and even helicopter, through breathtaking landscapes and remote traditional Tibetan villages. Along the way Tenzin listens to stories about young children with special characteristics and performs rarely seen ritualistic tests designed to determine the likelihood of reincarnation.

He eventually presents the child he believes to be his reincarnated master to the Dalai Lama so he can make the final decision.

Stunningly shot, UNMISTAKEN CHILD is a beguiling, surprising, touching, and humorous experience.

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Jade Buddha Tour in SoCal (Feb. 12-27)

(Tour dates)

Jade Buddha for Universal Peace
Total attendance at Jade Buddha world tour to date: The Jade Buddha is on tour throughout major cities in America, Asia, and Australia before being set up at... jadebuddha.org.au/en
Tour Dates - Photos - Mandala Lights - News - Team - Donations

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• Conscious Life Expo.com (Los Angeles, 2011)

Holy Objects

(tsatsastudio.org)

It is amazing but true that making offerings to statues of the Buddha can bring inconceivable merit: It has the power to cause rebirth in the human world. That may not seem "inconceivable" until one reflects on how rare and precious a human rebirth is. Understanding the potential value in it, and what is possible here (full liberation), it is rightly called an inconceivable or "infinite" accumulation of merit.

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WQ editors are acquainted with numerous nuns living in Burma who, through meditation, had independently remembered one another as being acquainted in former lives. In addition, to remembering one another, they had independently investigated what karma (merit) brought them to a human rebirth. It was found that having performed a meritorious deed together had led to rebirth together. That is to say, having done good in the past, they met again in the present. Frequently, that "good" performed in the past had been the offering (of flowers, candles, incense, or simply appreciation) in front of a Buddha image or stupa (reliquary). This had had the power of leading back to this world.

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Such tales should be dismissed out of hand...if they were not so common and independently arrived at by advanced meditators. The "field of merit" provided by the Buddha and the noble community of practitioners (ariya sangha) is indeed a vast and imponderable resource, so much so that even remembering it (devotional recollection) is powerful in and of itself.