Blog Post 24: Deja vu... woowoo or phoophoo?

"Deja vu moments are conditioned from a previous life's existence. They are why you can feel so connected to certain places or certain people the first time that they come into your present life."

In Singha Rinpoche's experience, one must leave déjà vu moments as they are and place no importance upon them.

Our reincarnation's purpose is to start again and not pick up from where we left off necessarily. In reconnecting ourselves to previous lives, we also reconnect to the attachments and anger from those lives. Bringing out all of this old samsara will not necessarily have the best outcome.

What is best is to create good connections with all beings now, in this life. We also need to grow and learn how to agree to disagree, so we may maintain our truth as we connect and coexist peacefully and auspiciously with others. To coexist auspiciously means that there is a recognition that whatever we have now is due to a previous life, and it is our wish to bring it forward to a future existence so that it can be of benefit to all beings. So when these deja vu moments occur, use them wisely and think of them in this way.

To form positive relationships with others, we must first be able to like ourselves. Many people who take the Buddhist vows and begin to practice Buddhism start to complain that they see things about themselves that they don't like. Consider this a blessing. It's like someone has handed us a bright torchlight so we can see all our rubbish. Complaining about it serves no purpose.

Complaining is a worldly competition that gets us nowhere except to trigger more negative karma. Start clearing it out. Start to purify it. Where you choose to put into your own heart is what matters. Open up your heart, offer your old heart, and start to rejoice. Begin to rejoice in everybody's goodness. Speak up and appreciate the other. Everybody loves recognition, genuine care, compassion, support, and a good listening ear that does not judge.

The path to enlightenment lies in the practice of the Guru Puja. Commitment, renunciation, generating the aspiration of the spirit of enlightenment, and the right view. All this sums up Guru Puja. When we do any tantric practice, there is always a dissolution of ourselves. The rest is a continuous accumulation of merit, study, and meditation.

Merit is like probiotics, and study is like the food. Meditation is digestion. With these three together, we will be healthy, will grow, and realign in our body, speech, and mind. This way, life after life, we can let everything start anew.

What we have now is what is best. We cannot eat tomorrow's dinner now, and we cannot replicate the perfect breakfast that we had ten years ago. Life lies in the here and now.

Dharma Teaching by Singha Rinpoche and edited by Sandeep Nath
21 Feb 2021