The Thug Life Sutra (discourse)

"Latin Thugs" by Cypress Hill with Mexican B Real, Scandinavian DJ Muggs, and Black Sen Dog, et al.

The Buddha explains how rare a human rebirth is with a powerful simile of a turtle and a floating wooden ring.

Dhr. Seven (trans.), Ashley Wells (ed.), Chiggala Sutta, "A Hole 1," Sacca Samyutta (SN 56.47) via suttafriends.org, Beth Upton (bethupton.com) recommendation

Karma: Giselle Bundchen saves sea turtle

“Meditators, suppose a person were to throw a piece of wood with a single hole in it into the ocean -- and there were a blind turtle in that ocean who popped up only once every hundred years.

“What do you think? Would that blind turtle, popping up once every century, ever poke its neck through the hole in that piece of wood?”

“Only after a very long time, venerable sir, if ever.”

“Meditators, I say, that blind turtle, popping up only once every hundred years, would poke its neck through the hole in that piece of wood sooner than a foolish person who has fallen into [rebirth in] the lower worlds would be reborn again as a human being.

[The thug life]

“Why is that? Meditators, it is because in lower worlds there is no Dharma practice or accruing merit.

“In the lower worlds [subhuman rebirths known as the downfall*], they just prey on each other, preying on the weak.

“Why is that? It is because they have not seen the Four Noble Truths. What four [ennobling truths]?

1. the ennobling truth of suffering
2. the ennobling truth of the origin of suffering
3. the ennobling truth of the end of suffering
4. the ennobling truth of the path that leads to the end of all suffering.

I look nothing like a turtle! (Mitch McConnell)

“Therefore, meditators, make an effort to understand: ‘This is suffering.’ Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the origin of suffering.’ Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the end of suffering.’

“Make an effort to understand: ‘This is the path that leads to the end of all suffering.’”

• Human beings in Buddhism
• A Buddhist Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence (Bhikkhu Bodhi)
• "A Hole 2" (SN 56.48) Dutiya Chiggala Sutra (Sutta Friends)
• Chiggala Sutta: "The Hole" (Ven. Thanissaro, accesstoinsight.org)
• The Playboy (masturbation with Chester Brown)
• *"Subhuman rebirths"? (niraya or "downward path" of animals, asuras/demons, hungry ghosts, and the many hells or naraka in Buddhism)

Flipside: A Tourist's Guide to the Afterlife

CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Rich Martini (FlipsideTheFilm.com); Rinpoche Zasep

(barnesandnoble.com)

This is the companion video to a talk at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice, California. Hypnotherapist Scott De Tamble briefly explains what "between life therapy" is, as taught to him by Michael Newton. He offers to do a between life session with someone in the audience, who became upset while listening to an account of an American Indian past life memory that included a massacre. De Tamble offered to help her get to the root of her emotional memory. 

The woman had read Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife but had never before met the author. After the session she said she had other visual memories regarding this past life. The session was conducted in front of a public audience on July 14, 2012. Sound quality suffers because no filming session was planned, and the bookstore was open throughout.

But the evidence for rebirth is not limited to hypnosis. There is a growing body of scientific evidence, in spite of it being a filtered and forbidden topic of study. Wisdom Quarterly frequently speaks of the amazing work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. The evidence in Buddhist texts goes even further.

(Univ. of Virginia) Scientific evidence with Dr. Ian Stevenson, M.D.

PLEASE COME AGAIN: The Reincarnation of Zasep Tulku Rinpoche

 

Wheel of Rebirth (Hanciong/flickr.com)

(ITM WORLD VIDEOS) Tibetan Buddhism on Rebirth: What happens when we die? Let's ask someone who has traveled the Bardo (Tibetan, the "between") and returned to talk about it.

Rinpoche Zasep is a Vajrayana Buddhist lama born in Tibet in 1948. He currently lives in British Columbia. At an early age he was recognized as a tulku, an incarnation (the 13th) of Lama Konchog Tenzin of Zuru Monastery. In 1959, during the genocidal Chinese invasion, he escaped from Tibet and continued his education for 16 years in India under the tutelage of many greatest teachers.

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