Bhante, do you think then that recalling past lives (Pa-Auk version) can be distorted by our imagination?
I’ve read contradictory things on the subject. Please, I would like to know the opinion of the Pa-Auk system.
It is difficult to be proven right or wrong. On the other hand , I know several monks who were able verify early childhood memories which should be impossible to verify by normal memory, but verifiable by the parents . Like baby times.
I know 2 and half cases. Not totally sure about the third one but he said he talked with his parents about it.
Parents usually freak out when they hear this … well based on 2 cases I mean…usually … if there were more, there would be similar reactions.
Normally monks don’t go talking about this stuff, even among monks. It gets personal and more personal with past lives, if you go back far enough, the lives are not desirable and embarrassing. How far back? A few lives to five lives can easily lead to woman or animal. Usually not animal the most recent life because need triple root in the current life.
For this reason, the faith goes up because one is “seeing” lives that goes beyond oersonal imagination. Furthermore, finding the cause is essential, and the causes go in reverse order. When you play them back forward, they make sense.
There are other reasons the practitioner knows but I don’t want to say. You can ask a teacher.
Not everyone will have proper vision of lives however there are many steps before this stage happens. So there is quite a weeding process that happens from mere regular people imagining what their lives are like. So a good chunk is probabaly correct. You can find lemons in any reputable new brand of car, but overall, the new cars simply work as they should.
The best thing to do is to just not worry about who is authentic or not and worry about getting to those stages and seeing for yourself.
3 Likes
Thank you so much Bhante for this clear message. We are so lucky that you make yourself available here!
1 Like
So, here, Beth Upton is exaggerating when she emphatically states that it is impossible for past lives to be imagined (with the Pa-Auk method) :
Host: Just ask one question, how does one know that’s accurate? How do you know you’re not superimposing something onto it? Or fabricating something new that that you’re telling yourself was a memory from them? How do you how do you know that it’s accurate or authentic?
Beth: We start by doing the one that we know is true with the recent past. Then what you can imagine is an image, and what you can superimpose or project is an image like in the normal way of memory. What you can’t imagine is mind moments. It’s not an image, it’s not a concept. You could discern it wrong. Like it could be a moment of anger, and you mistake it as a moment of sadness. You could discern it wrong, but you couldn’t imagine it. It’s not an image. It’s not coming from your perception. It’s a mind moment.
Host: But you can’t in the present moment, like fabricate or assign a certain kind of feeling to when you felt at a certain time?
Beth: If you did that, you would also be able to observe your present mind moment, seeing that fabrication doing that fabrication, so what you could create something in the present, like anger, for example. And then you could sort of move it in your perception back as if it were the path. But at that level of practice, there’d be too much awareness on that was what you were doing. It is possible to do in the way of image and concept, like, ‘Oh, I was a fish.’ At that time, it is possible to project your own wanting. People do make mistakes, because perception is so unreliable. That kind of conceptual perception is so unreliable, like dreaming. But when we’re descending on the level of mentality and materiality, we can’t imagine it wrong. The best we can do is badly discern it. Like, ‘Oh, I thought that was a first jhāna mental process. Actually, it was a second jhāna mental process. I missed a mental factor or two.’ We can barely discern if our wisdom isn’t sharp, but we can’t make it up, without awareness that that’s what we’re doing…
I suppose a lot of what she says is true. But about the impossibility of imagining past lives, is she wrong?
Venerable, you seem more nuanced and cautious than she is.
Don’t worry about other people’s experiences or achievement, focus on oneself is better.
2 Likes
It is wise to investigate the characteristics of hypnotism as well.
1 Like
@ekocare So it seems that even with very powerful concentration, we can’t be sure that our minds aren’t imagining past lives very discreetly and subtly without realizing it.
In your opinion, what criteria can help us verify whether our experience is authentic?
A post was split to a new topic: How will we know if our experiences are real?
I have a related question. Are there any meditators in Pa Auk who remembers their past life from the time of the Buddhas or from past aeons? Do they remember what they practiced in those lives? Were there any technological age like this in past aeons? I also want to know how life is like as a Brahma, Deva or Wheel Turning Monarch. Has the meditators met any Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, Arahants or Wheel turning monarch in the past? If so, how did they look like? Have any meditators attain the divine eye and see mount meru and other world systems?
I watched an interview of Beth Upton about this. She said that remembering past lives is similar to remembering what you have done in the past—like recalling what you did two days ago, two months ago, and so on.
She also said that observing your recent past lives can remove your delusion, because not all of them are pleasant—you might have been an animal or something else in those lives.
Even if you were something like a Brahma, it’s already won long life ..
It is very difficult to know for sure. There were cases where the memories of babies were remembered. That is easier to confirm. The main thing is that it is used to see anicca dukkha and anatta of the past life realities and to gain profound vipassana wisdom.
The best thing to do is to practice rather than asking all of these questions.
2 Likes
Yes there are meditators at Pa Auk who remember their past lives and claim to have been around at the time of Gotama Buddha and others previously. They remember what they practised in those lives. None recalled technological ages that I know. Some had very long lives in Brahma or Deva worlds. None have told me about meeting a Wheel Turning Monarch. Some were animals at the time of the Buddha. Some are a bit harder to pin point. No one ever told me what the Buddha looked like I didn’t ask. I don’t know if the stories are true or not. I just know the stories. I have left it all in my to decide later tray. I was given great access until I asked too much and then I got shut down. They examine each of these lives according to dependent origination and also apply the 3 characteristics of anicca, dukkha, anatta to the 5 khandas in each life. So in the end… that is what count.s
That’s interesting. Thank you for sharing. I hope I was a human, deva, or Brahma during the time of the Buddha. That would be so amazing. Well, I think what’s important now is to focus on my present life than to speculate about my past lives. I hope I will be able to see my past lives one day.
Hope you did merit in the past, and hope you realise that if you invest in kusala Dhammas now it will reap immeasurable happiness in the future for 5 khandhas down the road of time. Keep sowing good seeds and keep reaping happiness.
2 Likes
Thank you. I also hope you also realize the path, fruit, and Nibbana and gain immeasurable happiness.
1 Like
Can u tell us about kamma nd result someone has seeing…
Like is someone has seen that they made this and this merits and they got this and this effect..
what is immeasurable merit ??
How to make it ?
Mostly Pa-Auk focuses on the kamma-vipāka for the paṭisandhi.
The other cause effects are just nāma-rūpa stuff in the present life.
While that might seem simplified, the course does get quite complex.
1 Like
Yes this is a key element of Pa Auk Method that I see no where else and it is really important. I am travelling a bit and busy and with poor internet. Do a search online for a book called “The workings of Kamma” from Pa Auk Monastery. I will try to upload a copy.
Basically in Pa Auk method the key difference between it and all other methods is the emphasis on discerning the links of Dependent origination over the 3 times of past, present and future. This is taught as the only genuine version of the insight nyana called paccaya parrigaha nyana.
So you have to perceive the cause of your own birth to be able to have this nyana.
This entails directly seeing the ignorance that caused the actions your took in your past life that led to your rebirth consciousness in this life. Examples are given in that book. But you are doing them all in this very life now.
For example you take the 5 precepts everyday in your mind and reciting some pali and you dedicate that merit with the intention that by the power of that merit you will attain nibbana.
If at the time of death that is your linking consciousness you will be reborn as a human or deva etc according to your ignorance and experience the fruits of those actions you did in consequence of that kusala effort you took in your mind and life.
You will see clearly in meditation the Avijjā: Ignorance (of the Four Noble Truths) (in the past)
- Saṅkhāra: Volitional formations/Karma ( in the past )
- Viññāṇa: Rebirth Consciousness (in the present)
- Nāmarūpa: Name-and-form (mind and body) (in the present)
- Saḷāyatana: Six sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) (in the present)
Such is the outline: A lot of the examples at Pa Auk of real meditators are of simple buddhist actions such as offering light and flowers etc to the Buddha or alms to monks or other generally ordinary kamma with ordinary desires such as wanting to be wealthy or beautiful etc. People do meritorious actions for all sorts of reasons. These actions they see are the cause for their present rebirth, mind and body and 6 senses. Usually a meditator will need to see this over a few past lives. They also are taught to see the types fruits there current actions could produce.
I found this very fascinating at Pa Auk and it is an important aspect of that method which is worth examining and I might write some more about it later.
2 Likes
Ok I found some internet to upload the book, which I haven’t read for a very long time.
I will see if I can find some examples in there. To point you to.
1PAS-02-The-Workings-of-Kamma-2nd-Rev-Ed-pamc-032018.pdf (6.6 MB)
1 Like
Better still you should read the introduction to this book. Actually everyone here should likely need to read the introduction to this book. Not just because I wrote it but because I deliberately wrote this section to briefly explain what is the mode of practice at Pa Auk. Discerning Dependent origination starts on pge 20 and should be a precise starting point for you all. Ok so you read correctly. I wrote that book during my life as a monk. In 1998 and I havent read it again for a long long time. But if I do say so myself this is the clearest introduction to Pa Auk method that I have ever seen. 
1 Like