Reply To: Determinism

#50342
Lal
Keymaster

Yes. The sutta analyzes various other cases that lead to different types of ditthi.

  • What you quoted above “By dint of keen, resolute, committed, and diligent effort, and right application of mind, they experience an immersion of the heart of such a kind that they recollect that past life, but no further. “

That whole section needs to be explained in detail.

  • This is about a yogi who had been born a Brahma in the previous life, and believed Maha Brahma created him in that previous life.
  • After dying from that realm, he is reborn a human and cultivates pubbe nivāsānussati ñāna. To quote: “Agārasmā anagāriyaṁ pabbajito samāno ātappamanvāya padhānamanvāya anuyogamanvāya appamādamanvāya sammāmanasikāramanvāya tathārūpaṁ cetosamādhiṁ phusati, yathāsamāhite citte taṁ pubbenivāsaṁ anussarati, tato paraṁ nānussarati.” OR “By dint of keen, resolute, committed, and diligent effort, and right application of mind, they experience an immersion of the heart of such a kind that they recollect that past life, but no further.” See “Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1).”
  • Then he can recollect only that previous birth as a Brahma and comes to a wrong view of Partial Eternalism. That particular yogi can only see that single Brahma birth as a previous birth.
  • In the section I referred to in my previous comment, the sutta describes three sets of yogis who could look back at their past HUMAN LIVES for three different time ranges. Please read the sutta carefully.

Anyway, this is a complex sutta and requires a detailed analysis. This is my last comment on this issue. I don’t have the time necessary to analyze the sutta in detail. The sutta provides a thorough analysis of how the two main wrong views of sassata ditthi and uccheda ditthi branch out into 62 wrong views.

  • The bottom line (as I understand) is that without the cutupapāda ñāna, a given yogi cannot look at ALL his previous lives. Only Ariya yogis can have the cutupapāda ñāna.