fiziwig
moderator emeritus
I ran across an interesting story of a young Sri Lankan boy who was able to chant ancient Buddhist texts at the age of two. His foster father recorded his chanting. This is my own transcript of a portion of a talk by meditation teacher Joesph Goldstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldstein) which touches on the subject of rebirth and he plays a recording of the child chanting Buddhist texts in the ancient Pali language. The talk, can be streamed or downloaded from http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/6144/
The recording of the boy chanting the ancient Pali Suttas is found at time 33:00 in the recording. I have transcribed the portion of the talk that precedes the recorded chants. Most of the talk is NOT about rebirth. Here is the section that is at around time 26:50. You can just read the transcript below, or you can stream the talk and follow along in the transcript.
--quote--
...There is this world and the other world. Now this is a statement about rebirth and about other planes of existence, and for most of us this is probably outside the realm of our own immediate experience. It's also outside the realm of mainstream western thought. So it may be, at least for some of you it may be difficult to sign on to these teachings, you know, of rebirth, and past lives, and future lives, and all the different realms of existence. For myself it was a very gradual opening to even considering the possibility of this. I came to Dharma practice,... I studied philosophy at college, western philosophy, and I had no belief at all when I came, went to India after the Peace Corps. No belief at all in past and future lives, in different planes of existence. But over time, several things happened which began to open my mind to the possibility of it.
First, the more I practiced and studied, so much of what the Buddha taught did resonate with what I was actually experiencing, so I began to think, well, if he was right about so much, maybe he's right about the other thing he's saying. And, so just based on what I could verify by myself I just began to consider, well, I should keep an open mind to the things that I can't verify. I began to practice what the poet Coleridge called "the willing suspension of disbelief". I saw that just as we can become attached to our belief systems, we can become attached to our disbeliefs. And so I began to see that, and just loosen that up a little bit. Just stay open.
Second thing that happened was that I met teachers like Dipa Ma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipa_Ma). An amazing woman who had such deep practice and was able to see in her own meditative experience the truth of these teachings of past and future lives, and other realms. And of course this is not a proof of rebirth, but in my great trust of her, it again just opened my mind to the possibility of it.
In the same vein, in our first teacher training program here at IMS (Insight Meditation Society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight_Meditation_Society) we had a young Sri Lankan man who I had first met in Sri Lanka when he was a young boy. It's quite remarkable, his story. At about the age of two, and this is kind of an interesting commentary on Sri Lankan Buddhist culture, he was living with foster parents. And his foster parents were very devout Buddhists, and at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, at two years old, he would be meditating, you know, with his foster father, for twenty minutes or so, and then at the end of the sitting, without being able to read or write, you know he was two, he began to spontaneously chant complex Pali Suttas, complex Pali discourses (the oldest of the Buddhists texts in the ancient Pali language) and in a melody that was an ancient way of chanting that was not even used any more in Sri Lanka.
And then, as he got older, and began meditating more, he had active memories of his former life, and one in particular as a monk with the great Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhaghosa) who lived in the fifth century, and who compiled "The Path of Purification". Evidently there were a whole group of monks who had memorized either all of the Suttas (Sanskrit: "Suttras") or some section of them and in that life he said his name was "Muditaghosa". So he was one of those monks. And has he began remembering this past life he said that's how he was chanting. He was chanting based on the memory of that lifetime and so his chants were just coming out.
So I thought to play a few minutes, uh, ... his foster father started taping his chanting starting when he was three years old. And so there's some recordings of this very young boy chanting these Suttas. So I thought to play just, you know, a few minutes of it. It's quite remarkable.
-- end quote--
Chants are found at 33:00 into the mp3 which can be streamed or downloaded at http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/6144/
If you stream the talk you will have to hit "pause" on the popup streaming player window for a few minutes to let the download catch up before you can slide the slider to the 33 minute mark to listen only to the chants.
Part two follows...
The recording of the boy chanting the ancient Pali Suttas is found at time 33:00 in the recording. I have transcribed the portion of the talk that precedes the recorded chants. Most of the talk is NOT about rebirth. Here is the section that is at around time 26:50. You can just read the transcript below, or you can stream the talk and follow along in the transcript.
--quote--
...There is this world and the other world. Now this is a statement about rebirth and about other planes of existence, and for most of us this is probably outside the realm of our own immediate experience. It's also outside the realm of mainstream western thought. So it may be, at least for some of you it may be difficult to sign on to these teachings, you know, of rebirth, and past lives, and future lives, and all the different realms of existence. For myself it was a very gradual opening to even considering the possibility of this. I came to Dharma practice,... I studied philosophy at college, western philosophy, and I had no belief at all when I came, went to India after the Peace Corps. No belief at all in past and future lives, in different planes of existence. But over time, several things happened which began to open my mind to the possibility of it.
First, the more I practiced and studied, so much of what the Buddha taught did resonate with what I was actually experiencing, so I began to think, well, if he was right about so much, maybe he's right about the other thing he's saying. And, so just based on what I could verify by myself I just began to consider, well, I should keep an open mind to the things that I can't verify. I began to practice what the poet Coleridge called "the willing suspension of disbelief". I saw that just as we can become attached to our belief systems, we can become attached to our disbeliefs. And so I began to see that, and just loosen that up a little bit. Just stay open.
Second thing that happened was that I met teachers like Dipa Ma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipa_Ma). An amazing woman who had such deep practice and was able to see in her own meditative experience the truth of these teachings of past and future lives, and other realms. And of course this is not a proof of rebirth, but in my great trust of her, it again just opened my mind to the possibility of it.
In the same vein, in our first teacher training program here at IMS (Insight Meditation Society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight_Meditation_Society) we had a young Sri Lankan man who I had first met in Sri Lanka when he was a young boy. It's quite remarkable, his story. At about the age of two, and this is kind of an interesting commentary on Sri Lankan Buddhist culture, he was living with foster parents. And his foster parents were very devout Buddhists, and at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, at two years old, he would be meditating, you know, with his foster father, for twenty minutes or so, and then at the end of the sitting, without being able to read or write, you know he was two, he began to spontaneously chant complex Pali Suttas, complex Pali discourses (the oldest of the Buddhists texts in the ancient Pali language) and in a melody that was an ancient way of chanting that was not even used any more in Sri Lanka.
And then, as he got older, and began meditating more, he had active memories of his former life, and one in particular as a monk with the great Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhaghosa) who lived in the fifth century, and who compiled "The Path of Purification". Evidently there were a whole group of monks who had memorized either all of the Suttas (Sanskrit: "Suttras") or some section of them and in that life he said his name was "Muditaghosa". So he was one of those monks. And has he began remembering this past life he said that's how he was chanting. He was chanting based on the memory of that lifetime and so his chants were just coming out.
So I thought to play a few minutes, uh, ... his foster father started taping his chanting starting when he was three years old. And so there's some recordings of this very young boy chanting these Suttas. So I thought to play just, you know, a few minutes of it. It's quite remarkable.
-- end quote--
Chants are found at 33:00 into the mp3 which can be streamed or downloaded at http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/96/talk/6144/
If you stream the talk you will have to hit "pause" on the popup streaming player window for a few minutes to let the download catch up before you can slide the slider to the 33 minute mark to listen only to the chants.
Part two follows...
:cool
