m birth to birth but
can select any point of time and see at once the whole series of births
extending from it in both directions, backwards and forwards.
Buddhaghosa then goes on to prescribe the method to be followed by a
monk who tries for the first time to recollect previous births. After
taking his midday meal he should choose a quiet place and sitting down
pass through the four Jhanas in succession. On rising from the fourth
trance he should consider the event which last took place, namely his
sitting down; and then in retrograde order all that he did the day and
night before and so backwards month after month and year after year. A
clever monk (so says Buddhaghosa) is able at the first trial to pass
beyond the moment of his conception in the present existence and to take
as the object of his thought his individuality at the moment of his last
death. But since the individuality of the previous existence ceased and
another one came into being, therefore that point of time is like thick
darkness. Buddhaghosa goes on to explain, if I apprehend his meaning
rightly, that the proper recollection of previous births involves the
element of form and the mind sharpened by the practice of the four
trances does not merely reproduce feelings and impressions but knows the
name and events of the previous existence, whereas ordinary persons are
apt to reproduce feelings and impressions without having any clear idea
of the past existence as a whole. This, I believe, corresponds with the
experience of modern Buddhists. It is beyond doubt that those who
attempt to carry their memory back in the way described are convinced
that they remember existences before the present life. As a rule it
takes from a fortnight to a month to obtain such a remembrance clearly,
and every day the aspirant to a knowledge of previous births must carry
his memory further and further back, dwelling less and less on the
details of recent events. When he reaches the time of his birth, he
feels as if there were a curtain of black darkness before him, but if
the attention is concentrated, this curtain is rent and the end of the
previous life is recovered behind it. The process is painful for it
involves the recollection of death and the even greater pains of birth
and many have not courage to go beyond this point. It is not uncommon in
Ceylon, Burma, Siam and probably in all parts of the Far East, to find
people who are persuaded they can remember previous birth
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