What is happening when this goes on? Is the bhavanga being viewed?
bhavanga is not the storehouse of memories; the object is the previous life death consciousness object. So same object for one’s whole life. One has to view the causation chain of mind back further and further, and it’s the active mind/ other sense door cognitive series which are the wakeful moments of the life.
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Thank you, Venerable. How is this viewed? For example when one is reborn they take the rebirth linking consciousness in the present as object. But for viewing past lives what is the object? How can one see past objects if they are not present? What is the process?
Hmmm? The rebirth relinking consciousness is ready past right? Even for this life.
Present moment is a snap, moment by moment, not the whole present life is present.
If we can recall memories of this life when it’s gone, why not past lives?
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Fair. How does memory work per abhidhamma?
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When one’s mind is malleable and trained one can direct thier mind to recall thier previous existences. It works differently than how people remember things in thier current life because that is depenedent on your current set of aggregates. In your past life you had a completely different set of aggregates and so no mechanism to store memories in the same way you do in your current life. I can literally hit you in your head and you could lose all memories stored in your brain cells from your current life.
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When we refer to memory, we often think of some kind of storage place where past moments are filed away and can be retrieved later. From the perspective of the Abhidhamma, that isn’t how things work. There is no enduring “container” which holds memories at all. Memory is a function, mostly of saññā (perception), which arises along with many other factors to condition it, and not an independent entity. It arises from cittas and cetasikas operating in succession, moment to moment. The illusion of a continuous memory comes from the relentless flow of cittas, each one conditioning the next, carrying along traces of previous experience, but there is no fixed repository within them.
The primary mental factor responsible for memory is saññā (perception). Saññā marks and recognizes an object. It is said to be like a carpenter marking a piece of wood before cutting. It doesn’t just note the present, but it kind of tags the object, allowing it to be recognized later on. When you remember where you live, for example, it isn’t that you’re reaching into a memory bank; rather, a presently arisen citta, which is accompanied by saññā, re-identifies the object based on a past marking of a previous object, which was based on citta which arose with saññā in the past. Along with saññā, other mental factors like cetanā (intention) and manasikāra (attention) shape how strongly an experience is “marked." Intense emotions, for instance, strengthen the saññā, which is why trauma or deep joy can seem so vivid long after the fact.
Interestingly, our “memories” are also largely about the present. Even if you recollect something from your childhood, and the citta in this moment takes as its object a previous object such as a paññatti (concept) from your childhood, the actual memory function is happening now, and it is influenced by situations and conditions that have happened since the original occurence, and by ones that are happening now. That’s why memory can be distorted, forgotten, or even edited. It is simply a present construction that is dependent upon conditions, not a perfect replay of the past. If memories were “stored” somewhere, they would never change, although the initial experiences seem to usually be primary. They would, in fact, always be the exact same replay of the past. We would also be able to retreive and recall all of them, presumably. We know that is not the case.
It’s all a very complex process involving many, many cittas, cetasikas, objects, and conditions, saññā being the primary cetasika to understand here.
R
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Memories stored in brain cells? Actually as explained well by Renaldo memory , sanna, is entirely mentality.
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Memory as humans typically access it are stored in brain cells. which is why you dont remember things as a little kid and why you may forget things due to a head injury or stroke. obviously theres mentality to it in the actual process of memories forming.
and where is this storage place in arupa Brahma realms?
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There’s a claim that real past life recollection via deep meditation produces super clear memory, not just a normal kind of recollection, and there’s certainty that it happened.
There’s also the divine eye, which can see the past of many beings coming and going (rebirth and death) from life to life. So it does seem to point to a universal record somewhere for people with the divine eye to be able to see the same record of the past. Maybe the record is the mind-stream of other beings?
Many philosophers are more of using the model of radio, even though the radio outputs sound, the source of the sound is not stored in the radio. Even though the radio, when spoiled, cannot produce sound, the sound is not destroyed; if there’s another radio, it can be reproduced. So the brain is more of a conduit for the mind, whereas the mind is where the memories are carried on. If memories are stored in the brain, then there cannot be cases of past life recall of children who can spontaneously recall their past lives. It’s because it’s the mind which carries the memories that this is possible.
I am using carrying as in like seeing red in the river of the mind, one can discern that it was poured into the mind sometime ago.
Nama , citta and cetasika have no shape no color; so very, very different from rupa. Thus citta doesn’t take up space, sanna doesn’t have dimensions, hence there are no limits like there would be in a “storage place” .
its stored in the human brain of that lifetime. some people, depending on thier karma have good memories, some bad memories based on the neurons in the brain that life. but of course, recollection of past lives thru abhinna powers and such does not rely on the physical limitations of that particular beings brain chemistry. and when that being’s body breaks up upon death the memories stored in that aggregate’s brain die with it.
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this explains the process of remembering happening now.
Perception, Saññā, and “the Making of Marks” from, Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Explorations of Consciousness and Time
Ven. Nyanaponika Thera
What really happens in a simple act of perception is that some features of the object (sometimes only a single striking one) are selected. The mental note made of that perception is closely associated with those selected features, that is, we attach, as it were, a tag to the object, or make a mark on it as woodcutters do on trees. So far every perception is “a making of marks” (nimitta-karaṇa).
In order to understand how “remembering” or “recognizing”, too, is implied in every act of perception we should mention that according to the deeply penetrative analysis of the Abhidhamma the apparently simple act, for example, of seeing a rose, is in reality a very complex process composed of different phases, each consisting of numerous smaller combinations of conscious processes (citta-vīthi) which again are made up of several single moments of consciousness (citta-kkhaṇa) following each other in a definite sequence of diverse functions.
Among these phases there is one that connects the present perception of a rose with a previous one, and there is another that attaches to the present perception the name “rose”, remembered from previous experience.
Not only in relation to similar experiences in a relatively distant past, but also between those infinitesimally brief single phases and successive processes the connecting function of rudimentary “memory” must be assumed to operate, because each phase and each lesser successive state has to “remember” the previous one — a process called by the later Abhidhammikas “grasping the past” (atīta-ggahana).
Finally, the individual contributions of all those different perceptual processes have to be remembered and co-ordinated in order to form the final and complete perception of a rose.
How could there be any memory of past lives if they are stored in the brain and die with it?
I think Ven. Devananda, the abbot of IIT, did his MA thesis on memory.
As for the process of how to remember the past lives… I think that is not the question but I’ll answer it.
In the Pa-Auk system, the yogi does both rūpa and nāma kammaṭṭhāna usually after jhāna but before paṭiccasamuppāda. Then they are very sharp in understanding material matter and mind-moments. This is a necessary step and also perhaps more important than “purely-perfected” jhāna itself. With that, one learns how to see mind moments through the tool of present-life-past, remembering each and every mind-moment (like remembering yesterday, or a month ago). This is different from the “impossible to see” mind-moments of the present.
It is like going into a video editor and seeing frame by frame for an event that took place in the past (of the present life). The yogi successfully goes day by day, or year by year, until his paṭisandhi moment. Many obviously can recall being a baby or even in the womb, as that is “easy stuff” compared to past lives. Some have told their parents about what happened during the time of being a baby and “weirded out” their parents for remembering it.
Well before this stage, the yogi has actually gone back to his paṭisandhi moment and discerned the 30 rūpa there, actually during the initial learning of the rūpa stage of meditation (before learning nāma).
The past life remembering:
The cuti-citta of the previous life is, of course, just one mind-moment before that paṭisandhi moment.
The cuti-citta of the previous life takes the previous life paṭisandhi and also the bhavaṅga object.
However, the maraṇa-javana of the previous life (near-death moment) takes the future paṭisandhi object (of this current life now).
Therefore, one can recognize the maraṇa-javana of the past life.
The bhavaṅga and paṭisandhi object of this present life may not really be known until the past life maraṇa-javana are known. Even though they are not known or “uncovered,” that object is “known” subconsciously. It will become recognized by the yogi when he sees it in the past life.
I can speculate that this familiarity helps in “linking” the memory of the lives together.
They also look at their body and discern the 5 khandhas. They try to get familiar with the previous life. They look to see if male or female. Then go further as well. It depends on the yogi. Eventually, all 5 khandhas need to become clear. After that they will do the 5th method. Later after they have discerned all lives, they will do the other methods.
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Memory is not self and therefore doesn’t move life to life. Memory of past lives is a different mechanism than how mundane humans/animals experience memory. In the same way that seeing things with Dhamma eyes is different from seeing things with physical eyes.
For instance if you have Alzheimer’s disease at the end of your human life and were reborn a deva, since devas remember their prior existence, they would remember their prior life as a human and what merit they did to get this or that in heaven, even though for several years before they died they couldn’t remember any of that due to the limitations of their human brain at the time.
The reason humans don’t remember their existence as a baby is not because babies cannot form memories. Human babies can and do form memories, you cannot remember being a baby because those memories are overridden as your brain forms. Thus making those memories “inaccessible” to the normal physical memory of humans just as the sight of devas and yakkas are inaccessible to the physical eyes but of course can be seen with Dhamma eyes.
When one remembers their past life, its is relying on the citta to look into the past rather than accessing memories from your current body’s brain cells.
Human memories also get distorted all the time. How many times do you remember a scene from a movie you watched a long time ago and then watch the movie again and realize you remembered some details wrong? If a human misremembers a bad deed they did at the end of their life and then goes to king yama when they die, they will remember what actually happened rather than what they “remembered” happening when they were alive because the memory is from the citta and not from their human brain’s memory cells which is the normal way most humans access memory.
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If the body including the ‘brain’ is drugged, drunk, diseased, tired, or aging, memory may be affected. This only shows a relationship but certainly does not prove that memory itself is a little/big thing stored in the brain.
In Theravada the brain is rupa, materiality. Only citta and cetasikas experience objects, whereas rūpa does not know anything; citta experiences one object and then falls away, succeeded by another citta. Sanna arises and falls away with the citta and experiences and marks the same object.
It is a tough question to answer and if you meet people who can do it, you don’t get an abhidhammic explanation. Some people can remember their past life even as children and they remember it just like we all remember stuff. I have met a few. Some of the stories are not ones you want to make up. e.g. A novice in a monastery in Mandalay who remembers dying as a woman giving birth and bled to death. He was reborn in the same village and even remembered his previous husband who was still alive etc. Freaked everyone out. But they had to accept it was true as this kid knew too much. Then there are some others I know who got their memory of past lives from meditation when their minds were still. One told me his method was to look at strong habits and thoughts in his current life. Focusing on these tendencies and why they existed brought up visions of past existence when these tendencies developed. E.g This person has a photographic memory and high IQ in his past life he memorised texts and things and would not get up from his seat till he had mastered them. In this life he can read something once or twice and not forget it for years. Others I know as they meditated these visions would appear in their minds quite clearly and repetitively whenever they meditated and mind was still. Some say this is the object of the bhavanga consciousness as it has the same object as the death consciousness of previous life. They clearly see a vision of what they were doing and thinking at that time. One monk I knew had been a monk in his previous life and was born in another village nearby. In his meditation these visions would appear of a monastery and a pagoda. He ended up finding that pagoda in this life and he knew about texts and where they were that no current monk knew about. He also had a set of meditation beads in that past life as a monk. He found that as a novice his teacher had a set of beads that he always wanted to use. Later he realised he had given those to that monk. ( sounds like a tibetan tulku story doesnt it). Anyway don’t over think it, but real people recollect their past lives in various ways but all I have met see them as visions like your everyday memories.
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Well, probably the most successful “method” is Pa-Auk. And it is Abhidhammic.
The problem with spontaneous remembering or non-systematic remembering is that it can get filtered by your perception. Yes, your cases might be verified, but that does not mean everyone can do that. The same is true with the Pa-Auk method; very few make it to the past life stage. However, many, many yogis around the world have done so with the Pa-Auk method. That number dwarfs the non-Abhidhammic methods you mention. In fact, there was no method; they just remembered. It is true that those who died when they were young or in tragedy are often connected to those who “just remember.” But there is no systematic method by the non-Abhidhamma people who remember.
Take this book Lifetimes. He is a PhD, yet claims that men are only men; animals remain animals. What actually was the method? He asked his students to “just remember.” So they did. Men remembered male lives and females remembered female lives because they could not imagine something outside of their own existence. (I have some insider info on this teacher and his students.) Was it false? I don’t know. I think it could be that maybe some could see a past life, but since they were not systematic, they may have remembered a previous male and human life, but not necessarily the most recent life, or knowing which generation it was, or assuming it was the most recent when it might have been 4 generations down the road.
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