May 22, 2024 at 6:47 am
#49863
Keymaster
This is a deep issue.
- It is impossible to figure out WHEN any given mind got covered with defilements.
- The Buddha declared that tracing back to such an instance is impossible. Right after attaining the Buddhahood, he recalled his past lives at an unimaginably high rate for a long time (probably a few days? I don’t remember where that account is in the Tipitaka). But he said he could not find a “beginning.”
- The verse, “Anamataggoyaṁ, bhikkhave, saṁsāro,” OR “Bhikkhus, this rebirth process has no known beginning” appears in several suttas. See, for example, “Tiṇakaṭṭha Sutta (SN 15.1).”