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Florin Deleanu wrote: > I also surmise that it would be too much to expect that such cases would > have been carefully checked according to objective (or what we would > call today scientific) criteria. I am indeed unaware of any "scientific" verifications per se being made on traditional Tibetan reincarnates memories. But how would you expect such verifications be made? > I shall be most grateful if someone could kindly direct me to sources, > traditional or modern, documenting cases of historical persons depicted > as being able to control their rebirths, i.e. predicting concrete > details such as the place, time, parents, etc. of their next rebirth and > (after this presumably happens) showing clear signs of remembering > details of the former existence. You may want to look at the following sources: Reginald Ray. "The First Tulku." Vajradhatu Sun (October-November 1980): 29; 36. Reginald Ray. "The Themes of a Tulku¹s Life." Vajradhatu Sun (August 1980): 7, 38-40. Reginald Ray. Secret of the Vajra World. Boston & London: Shambhala Publications, 2002. As far as making predictions about the future life or remembering previous ones, the list below may prove helpful: 1. Ary, Elijah. "Bridging East and West." In Sumi Loundon (ed.), Blue Jean Buddha, Voices of Young Buddhists. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001, 99-106. 2. Bärlocher, Daniel. Testimonies of Tibetan Tulkus : a research among reincarnate Buddhist masters in exile. Rikon: Tibet-Institute, 1982. 3. Chögyam Trungpa. Journey Without Goal. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1985. 4. Brown, Mick. The Dance of 17 Lives. London: Bloomsbury, 2004. 5. Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. My Land and My People: the Official Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet. New York, Boston: Grand Central Publishing, 1997. 6. Midal, Fabrice. Chögyam Trungpa: His Life and Vision. Boston: Shambhala, 2004 Also, you may want to get a hold of a CBC video documentary on reincarnation by David Cherniak. It contains testimonies of such recollections and a discussion of physical marks that some reincarnates are said to have from one life to the next. As far as more traditional sources are concerned, you may want to look also at Dpa' bo gtsug la 'phreng ba's Mkhas pa'i dga' ston, which, if I recall correctly, contains a few passages that may be of interest to you regarding the recognition of eminent sprul sku. You might also look at Leonard van der Kuijp's chapter, "The Dalai Lamas and the Origins of Reincarnate Lamas," in Martin Brauen (ed.), The Dalai Lamas, a Visual History. Chicago: Serindia, 2005, 15-31, which discussed the origins of the figuraition of the Dalai Lamas as manifestations of Avalokitesvara (apologies for the lack of diacritics). > Closely linked to this, information concerning purely doctrinal > descriptions of such ability, cases of children who claim to remember > details of their previous existence(s) without having predicted where > they would be reborn (as some of the /tulku/s and most of the modern > cases examined by the group of researchers led by Dr Ian Stevenson), > non-historical cases of celestial Bodhisattvas or characters in Buddhist > tales, etc. would be of some collateral interest. See Haraldsson, Erlendur and Obeyesekere, Gananath. "Children Who Speak of Memories of a Previous Life as a Buddhist Monk; Three New Cases." In Anne M. Blackburn and Jeffrey Samuels (eds.). Approaching the Dhamma: Buddhist Texts and Practices in South and Southeast Asia. Seattle: BPE Pariyatti Editions, 2003, 223-262. Regards, Elijah Ary Chargé de Conférences Religions Tibétaines Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. ---------------------------------------------- H-Buddhism (Buddhist Scholars Information Network) Web Site: http://www.h-net.org/~buddhism Posting Guidelines: http://www.h-net.org/~buddhism/posting_guidelines.html Account Handling: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=h-buddhism
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