Lama Zopa Rinpoche

There is no sentient being we have not eaten. In the past, you have eaten me numberless
times; I have eaten you numberless times. This might come as a big shock but that’s what
has happened.
This is the same rationale as when we meditate on the kindness of the mother, how the
mother has been kind to us numberless times. It is very amazing. The only thing is that we
cannot remember our past lives. We don’t even remember coming from our mother’s womb
or the nine months spent in her womb.
During the one-month Kopan course we do a meditation on the continuity of the
consciousness where we think about how today’s consciousness comes from yesterday’s and
yesterday’s comes from that of the day before and how this year’s consciousness comes from
last year’s and the year before that and before that, right back to childhood, right back to
when the consciousness entered the mother’s womb.
After one of these meditations a nun from Israel said she remembered coming out from her
mother’s womb. But most people don’t remember even that, so how can they say that past
lives do not exist? Asserting that there are no past lives because they don’t remember them,
they would also have to assert that they had not existed in their mother’s womb for nine
months. How could they say that? That is completely wrong, completely stupid. Everybody
knows they have come from their mother’s womb.
How can we assume something has not happened just because we can’t remember it? There
are so many things from this life’s childhood that we cannot remember, so using that way of
thinking we would have to assert that we had never done them. Using an inability to
remember as proof of something not happening is very funny logic, very strange logic.
A popular quote says,
You cannot be sure which will come first,
Tomorrow or the next life,
Therefore, do not put effort into tomorrow’s plans
But instead it is worthwhile to attend to the next life. 103
We just cannot be sure which will come first, tomorrow or our next life. Because of that it is
unbelievably worthwhile to work for the next life, to attend to the next life by accumulating
merit to not be reborn in the lower realms. Then, if we were to die tomorrow, our work
would have been done. And even if we do not die tomorrow, our work has still been done.
This is what Lama Tsongkhapa said in Lamrim Chenmo: by practicing Dharma with the
thought that we might die today, if we do die we have made the preparation, and if we don’t
die then we have further opportunities to collect more merit. Therefore, thinking, “I’m going
to die today,” and working for future lives, practicing Dharma to benefit our future lives, is
most worthwhile.
One way that the Kadampa geshes defined Dharma was that it is something that benefits
future lives; something that brings happiness in future lives. If what we are practicing does
not do that, it is not Dharma. Another way they defined it was that if any action of our body,
speech and mind becomes an antidote to delusion, it is Dharma; if it does not become an
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