Reincarnation holds a particular fascination for many. After all, if I am someone, then what will happen to this someone after death, and what - if anything - was it up to before this birth?

And as usual, it can be very helpful to see what is going on here now.

What I find is that any fantasies I may have about these things (have to create them intentionally since I am not very interested in it!), mirror something here now. That is the case whether someone else tells me about past/future lives, or it comes up for myself in dreams, regression therapy or some other way.

The characteristics and dynamics of those stories mirror something here now. And also, when I take stories about past and future lives as real, I take stories alive here now and tell myself they are (a) about the past or future, and (b) are about something substantial and real. I project characteristics and dynamics out into those stories, and I project a mental field activity out in the past/future and as substantial and real.

In general, stories about reincarnation mirrors how we - and content of experience in general - continually dies as what it was and is reborn as something else. In that sense, the process of reincarnation is happening here now, always.

And more in particular, whatever I imagine into past or future lives - who I was, what life I lived and so on - also mirrors something here now. Typically, it mirrors my fears (shadow) or my hopes. Qualities and characteristics present here now, which I am not completely aware of so can more easily see out there in someone else, in the past or future. (Usually things that are here, but do not fit my conscious self-image, who I am in the world.)

So it can be very useful to work with imaginations around reincarnation, and I find that I can do it in any of the ways I work with anything else.

I can dialog with figures - who I was or others in that life. Who are they? What do they want? What do they need? What do they want to tell me? How can I help them? How can they help me? What can I learn from them? How do I relate to them? How can I relate to them in a more skillful way? How can I notice them more in my own life, or bring them more out? What is a healthy expression of the qualities I see in them?

I can do tong-len with these figures, especially the ones that suffer.

I can find the figures that appear as demons to me (troublesome) and go through the feeding the demons process.

I can allow the experience that comes up, as it is, including any resistance to it. I can find myself as that which already holds and allows all of it. And I can do it with kindness and compassion for my human self who may have trouble dealing with it.

I can find any beliefs I have around particular stories about past lives, and inquire into them. What happens when I hold onto those beliefs? Who am I without them? What is the grain of truth in their reversals?

I can explore it through the sense fields. When I activate stories about past or future lives, what do I find in the different sense fields? What do I find in the mental field? Can I see it all happening within and as this timeless present, as activities in the mental field - sometimes combining with sensations and other sense fields?

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Some of the things I notice when I do tong-len…

• It works with projections. Whatever I see over there - and especially shadow material - I find right here. I find in myself the suffering I more easily see in others. And I also find right here the causes of suffering, confusion and all its expressions.
• I see all of that as not or less personal. I see that it is shared, it is a part of human life. I also see that it is all an object, content of experience, coming and going on its own.
• There is a shift from a sense of I-Other split to a sense of us. We are all in the same boat here. We all experience confusion and its many effects.
• In the taking in of suffering and giving of clarity, there is a shift from confusion to clarity. I gradually get familiar with and come to trust that shift. I know, deeply, that it is possible. This helps me remember in daily life, and invite it in.
• There is an opening of the heart towards others and myself. A shift into kindness. Holding us all, including my own human self, in kindness.
• There is a shift into a sense of nurturing fullness, and out of reactiveness.
• There is a shift into a more receptive view, and out of rigidity.
• There is a release of identification with content, and an easier shift into finding myself as Big Mind/Heart. I see content as shared and coming and going on its, and there is less of a sense of a separate I.
• There is a shift into more engagement in daily life. There is a release from fear. Less sense of separation. A shift into kindness. And all of this is naturally expressed in engagement.

Tong Len is one of the most powerful and simple practices, one of the many from the Tibetan tradition.

1. Breathe in the suffering of others in the form of black smoke.
2. Allow it to transform in yourself, from darkness (suffering) to golden light (clarity and wisdom).
3. Breathe out clarity and wisdom in the form of golden light, and see how it transforms those receiving it.

It is often recommended to start with oneself and those close to oneself, and then expand out to the whole Earth and universe. It is profoundly transformative.

I sometimes find that if I stay with the focus on the inbreath for several breaths, and then the outbreath for several breaths, it helps me deepen the experience. I can then shift to the exchange following every breath.

There is often some resistance when people first encounter this practice. And this resistance comes from awareness being exclusively identified with the small self. From this view, there is this one small self wanting to resist the suffering of others and hold onto the little clarity and wisdom it seems to have. When it awakens to Big Mind, we see that nothing really happens. You - as Big Mind - already is all the suffering and all the clarity and wisdom.