Reincarnation

During the CNY some Chinese go to temples to pray. I think some of them are Taoists while others don't have any religion and they just follow traditions or they go to pray for blessings. Buddhists don't do that.

But both Buddhism and Taoism believe in reincarnation. Before being reincarnated you lose memory of your previous life. A lecturer in Buddhist Studies once remarked that it would be good if we could retain some memory of our past life.

I think it depends what you could remember. If people could remember about their previous families, then it would be a rather surreal situation. Everyone would be going to look for his previous parents or children.

But it would be good if we remember things that would help us, like fire can hurt us, smoking is harmful or remember some language and maths skills. People would be wiser and make less mistakes.

Or wouldn't it be nice if we were allowed to choose what we want to be in our next life or where we want to be born - like whether we want to be black, white or brown or we can choose to be born in Pakistan.