It has often intrigued me how some Buddhist masters I know ask one simple question of people who approach them for teaching: “Do you believe in a life after this one?” They are not being asked whether they believe in it as a philosophical proposition but whether they feel it deeply in their hearts. The master knows that if a man believes in a life after this one, his whole outlook on life will be different, and he will have a distinct sense of personal responsibility and morality. What the masters must suspect is that there is a danger that people who have no strong belief in a life after this one will create a society fixated on short-term results, without much thought for the consequences of their actions.
Could this be the major reason why we have created a world like the one we are now living in, a world with hardly any real compassion?
– Sogyal Rinpoche
ONE TUSK 
I sure hope that there is a life after this one. I have wasted this life and I wish I could end it, but I have developed a belief that who we become and the tendancies that we develop in this life just before we die become out traits and personalities in the next. Why do I think this? What other explanation is there for people’s tendancies to certain things, certain habits and certain likes. I think that they are a manifestation of one’s previous life.
I was born a certain way and hate myself for it and wish I could end now because I am so ashamed of myself, but I believe that if I end now, I will be reborn in the same state, with the same mind and tendancies and will not be rid of those that have driven me to dispair. Yes, it is a paradox that I have believe that I am in.
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