It’s good to think about the whole issue of past lives as a general principle, without getting into the details, because it’s one way of getting out of our own individual stories right now.

"Ajaan Fuang once said that it’s a good thing most of us can’t remember our past lives because we could very easily get fixated on all the wrong that was done to us, all the issues that never got settled. And we might want to go back and settle some old scores. Of course, there’d be no end to that. After all, the people whose scores got settled would probably want to settle some scores with us, because the other part of potentially remembering your past lives is remembering all the wrongs you did, the ways you harmed people, that you’d be ashamed to think about now.

But just the thought of that possibility leaves us with an important lesson. No scores are fully settled. Things don’t come to closure. This is the nature of samsara: It just keeps wandering on and on and on. No story comes to an end. We watch plays, read books, where events come to a satisfying closure, and part of us would like to see that in our own lives as well. But one of the facts you have to accept when you come to the practice is that there is no closure. And the more the mind insists on trying to find closure, the more it weighs itself down and keeps itself entangled in that ongoing wandering on.

So when we think about the whole issue of past lives, it’s good to think of it as a general principle, without getting into the details. It’s useful because it’s one way of getting out of our own individual stories right now, the narratives we bring from this lifetime, concerning our parents, our relationship to them, our relationship to friends, people who’ve done us wrong, people who’ve mistreated us, how we’re going to respond to that.

Look at the Buddha’s own night of awakening as a good paradigm for how to deal with these things...."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Blood You’ve Shed"