Paramita and Niyata Vivarana – Myths or Realities?

This question really requires the writing of a new post or even several. But I really want to get started on the new project.

Hopefully, someone who is familiar with this topic will answer in detail. But here are some key points:

1. One may even not know who a “Buddha” is when starting this process. As mentioned in the post that Tobias referred to (“Paramita and Niyata Vivarana – Myths or Realities?“), one simply starts cultivating “investigative gati“: one wants to know the real nature of this world, and also wants to find solution to the problem of suffering.

2. That does not happen in a single lifetime or even million lifetimes. It is said that it takes millions of maha kappas (each is many billions of years). It is unimaginable for us.

3. But at some point, it will get “locked in”. At time he/she will definitely become a Buddha in the future. That is the time one gets “niyata vivarana” from a Buddha. (However, when one gets to the Buddhahood, one will be born mostly male. Furthermore, there cannot be a “female Buddha”).

4. Many will of course drop out during that initial phase, before getting niyata vivarana. One’s gati can be drastically changed in a single lifetime if the influence of parents, friends, etc is in the wrong direction.

5. By definition, one will not be able to learn Tilakkhana and comprehend while “locked in”. This is because the determination is to find out by oneself. However, we must remember that very few get “locked in”. Even though there are going to be 5 Buddhas in all in this maha kappa, that is a rare event. Normally, in a given maha kappa, there is only one or none. I mentioned in that post that there were 30 maha kappas before this one where not a single Buddha appeared. So, we must take this opportunity.
By the way, maha kappas is the correct Pali word for the age of a Solar system like ours. maha kalpa is the Sinhala word.