Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

Details of Rebirth 61
The subject of Pisani's book, 107 also, in the middle of a
long series of human existences going back more than
eleven thousand years, recalled a life as a lioness. He did
not feel this existence was inferior to the human, nor that
he was condemned to it as a result of unskilful actions,
but that he chose it as a valuable experience in order to
gain understanding.
The same subject also remembered having been a
tree. 108 Buddhist doctrine denies the possibility of rebirth
as a plant, but admits that there can be spirit beings
whose consciousness is karmically bound to a tree or
even to a mountain (LG 20).
There is one clear case of a preta existence, i.e. a spirit
existence dominated by craving: the Karen house-boy
examined by Francis Story. 109 He had an unusual congenital
malformation of the hands and feet-deep linear
indentations, the right hand being underdeveloped past
the line across the palm, and three toes joined at birth.
Sometimes his right arm would swell and he would feel
severe pain in all the affected parts. He remembered
having been the son of a rich man, who left him three
houses and much silver and other treasure. After his
father's death he lived alone, without servants, in one of
the houses. One night robbers broke in, bound him
tightly with wire with his hands between his legs, and
made off with all his silver and jewellery. He spent three
days dying in agony, with blood dripping from the cuts
in his hands and congealing between three of his toes.
Then he found himself looking at his body; then he
wandered about for a long time, "his whole existence in a
single idea which was like an obsession: the loss of his
wealth and the desire to recover it." Finally he became
aware of living beings, was attracted to a certain young
woman, and was reborn as her child.
While many observations of spirit beings have been
reported by people with psychic powers, it should not be
assumed that all these are pretas. They can include devas,