Reincarnation

The idea of Buddhist reincarnation is simple, we're born, we live, we die and then we're born again. For Buddhists, our response to the process of living and dying is very important. On the one hand, we want to use this life to develop our self spiritually. It is so easy to think that our death is far off and to forget the importance of practice. Since we've been given a precious human birth and have an opportunity to practice the dharma we want to make use of it. So it is important to remember that we will die, the timing of our death is uncertain and therefore it might be today. So we want to earnestly practice each day.

However, there is also a danger that our practice will become too heavy. If we become frustrated or disappointed with our practice then we're missing the point of Buddhism. In Buddhism we strive to be happy. We do this through meditation and learning to let go of our attachments and aversions to the things of this world. Gradually through this process we should be moving to happier states of mind.

If we find that we're not making progress as quickly as we want we need to consider if there are things that we're doing that are sabotaging our practice. If you can't find things to improve then the proper response is to accept where you are currently at. Otherwise we're just creating more wantings which will cause us suffering.

There are also techniques in Buddhism for preparing for the rebirth process and studying how it works.

The Tibetan Rebirth Process

The Tibetan Rebirth process is described in the Tibetan Book of The Dead (Rama recommended the Evans-Wentz version) or the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. The process focuses on the moment of death and the after life bardo experience. It is intended to help a practitioner to control the process so that they have a better rebirth. Rama compared it to cramming for an exam. He felt that the best way to learn the material in a class is to learn it throughout the semester. Then before the final you perform a brief review and you will do fine. If you haven't done all you could with your life it is possible to go much higher by joining yourself with the higher fields of enlightenment in the bardo plane. The Tibetan book of the dead is a trip tick to the bardo planes. Essentially its an instruction guide to meditate and pass through the bardo plane. It's a difficult yoga to practice.

A lot of knowledge of the Tibetan book of the dead is useful to the living because the bardo plane is not something that you are limited to at the time of death. Life is the bardo in a certain sense. The experience of death is the experience of life in a certain sense. The planes of death are also available to the living. The transformations that are available at the time of death are also available to the living. So it's useful in that sense.

Past Lives

Rama also felt that it's possible to recover information from your prior lives. The memories themselves aren't important. But if we've had lives where we learned to meditate deeply, it's possible to remember the skills that we learned in those lives and recover the power that we gained in those lives. These things are normally gained naturally as we practice and they come back at an appropriate time.

Summary

So in summary Rama recommended that we focus on becoming happier in this life. We should use this life to set up the next life so that we progress steadly in our spiritual development.