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Buddhist Dialogue with Science
By Timothy
Harada
In the field of psychotherapy, the growing practice of past life regression therapy had a great take off after prominent psychotherapist, Dr. Brian L. Weiss released his best selling book, Many Lives, Many Masters in the late 1980s. Since then, past life regression therapy has become openly and widely practiced in psychotherapy. What was actually discovered was that it had been widely practiced for many years. In fact, other psychotherapists had published books about past life regression therapy prior to Dr. Brian Weiss as far back as the 1950s. However, for some reason, none of the previously published books on the practice received the same acclaim as Dr. Weiss’s book. Consequently, many psychotherapists, even though they had been doing past life regression therapy for many years, in the closet, were still unwilling to risk their careers by publishing what they believed would be very controversial in their field. However, after the tremendous success of Dr Weiss’s book, hundreds of psychotherapists finally gained the courage to open their many years of case studies to public scrutiny, by publishing them in peer journals and books. Now, luckily, one can find many books from noted psychotherapists on this growing practice.
If one takes this growing field seriously, this could be a case of science illuminating the understanding of Buddhism or visa versa. Though few psychotherapists will claim that their studies of past life regression cases are sure proof that reincarnation exists in reality, these therapists’ studies of what appear to be past lives, can help someone studying Buddhism understand what may have occurred to Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree, when he claimed to have reached enlightenment. Like Dr Weiss’s patients, Shakyamuni also claimed to have seen into many of his past lives. In modern regression therapy, a doctor, through hypnosis, helps his or her patient experience a regression-a reliving of a past experience. Sometimes this is simply the reliving of repressed memories from this lifetime, but often it goes back to the memory of past lives. Unlike modern regression, which is done with the aid of a licensed hypnotherapist, however, Shakyamuni said he was able to see his own past lives through his own self-guided meditation. In fact, most of the stories in the Buddhist sutras are stories of what Shakyamuni referred to as his many past incarnations. NEXT>>>
The
views expressed in Mr. Harada's article are his
and not necessarily those of the publisher or editors of FortuneChildBooks.com.