A sense of déjà-vu

    

Are you completely the same person as you were five minutes ago?

    Let us look at some examples here. While you are searching for an answer to the above question, your internal metabolic system keeps functioning without you noticing much and so as your thoughts that keep changing in every instant. Physically and mentally, we just keep changing in every instant.

     Have you ever experienced the feeling of déjà-vu before? Be it in a specific place, of a particular smell, regarding a certain coloring, listening to a piece of music…, there is a powerful sense of "being there and done that before.” I am sure everyone had such an experience before, even though one might not know the cause of it.

     These phenomena are clear examples of the unceasing transmigration within cyclic existence that microscopically take place within our own minds. In Buddhism, this sense of déjà-vu results from one of your past life's experiences brought forth by the seventh vijñāna and generated from the eighth vijñāna [as taught during the third round of the Dharma transmission by the Buddha]. Everyone’s deeds in the current life are somehow influenced by happenings in the past, either from past lifetimes or earlier on in the current life.

     Let's take the case of the talented musician Mozart as an example. He must have been a musician in his past lifetimes as he already demonstrated the gift of music at a very young age. This is because ālāyavijñāna [the eighth vijñāna; the Buddha-nature] serves as a storage space for all seeds of our past deeds. The eighth vijñāna exists permanently and never ceases to function, all the way facilitating sentient beings to attaining Buddhahood.

#Buddhism #Buddha #ālāyavijñāna #Buddhanature #Buddhahood #nirvana #enlightenment #Chan 

#cyclicexistence #transmigration