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Joke · Ajahn Brahm

Suicide note to test reincarnation

As told by Ajahn Brahm in How To See Past Lives & Why Its Important | Ajahn Brahm

1 min read

Content note: suicide humour — do not publish without framing

The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

the best evidence for reincarnation is to die so try that tonight then you'll find out for sure i don't know that they said it was actually true that in somebody's suicide note they said the reason for their suicide i wanted to find out whether reincarnation was true or not apparently it was true though it sounds like a joke but sometimes people are really weird

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 0:07 (to 0:38)

A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Asked for proof of past lives, Ajahn Brahm made a dark quip about finding out by dying, then mentioned an odd note he'd heard of. People are weird, he said, and moved on to safer ways: meditation, regression, spontaneous memories. Take it as gallows humour, never advice. If life feels unbearable, please call a crisis line or talk to someone today.

In brief (our summary)

Asked for evidence of reincarnation beyond meditation, Ajahn Brahm jokes that the best evidence is to die — then adds he has heard of a suicide note saying the reason was to find out whether reincarnation was true.

Teaching point

(Dark joke; not advice.)

When this story may help

  • doubting rebirth

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in How To See Past Lives & Why Its Important | Ajahn Brahm · 2018-09-18 · ▶ watch from 0:07 to 0:38 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, words left exactly as captioned.

The narrative is Ajahn Brahm's own telling, quoted from the talk captions. The summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk. Markdown version

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