ABSTRACT
Outside a temple in Kyoto I sat on the long stairs climbing the entrance, listening to the chanting inside. I had a vivid sense that I had been there before; indeed, that I had lived a life here before. It was a classic déjà vu experience. What if this experience was an unconscious epiphany that recognized the historical precedents for my emotional experience? What if we all have a sense of having lived a past life somewhere else, as someone else, because we have? What if, in other words, my Western self experienced its Eastern self, once known thousands of years ago?
