Child’s question: Do you remember any of your past lives?
Thich Nhat Hanh’s response: Yes. When I practice looking deeply, I see that one time in the past I was a rock, a tree, a squirrel, a bird, a fish, a cloud, and a river. If I continue to look deeply, I see that I am still a rock, a cloud, a mountain, a river, and a squirrel;
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Child’s question: Do you remember any of your past lives?
Thich Nhat Hanh’s response: Yes. When I practice looking deeply, I see that one time in the past I was a rock, a tree, a squirrel, a bird, a fish, a cloud, and a river. If I continue to look deeply, I see that I am still a rock, a cloud, a mountain, a river, and a squirrel; I continue to be them. I have been all these kinds of beings and so have you. We continue to be all of them. They are still in us. We inter-are with them.
You may think that you are only a human being. But if you look deeply, you can see that you are also a cloud. Drinking a cloud is what we do every day, but we don’t realize it. The cloud becomes the rain; the rain becomes the water; and you drink a cloud in the form of tea, or water, or juice. With the practice of looking deeply, we can see our former lives. We continue to carry our former lives with us in the present moment.
Reprinted from Is Nothing Something?: Kids’ Questions and Zen Answers About Life, Death, Family, Friendship, and Everything in Between (2014) by Thich Nhat Hanh with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, www.parallax.org.
