Ekottaragama (Sanskrit fragments) 31.8.17

31.8.17

「比丘當知，爾時，吉祥躬自執草詣樹王所。吾即坐其上，正身正意，結加趺坐，計念在前。爾時，貪欲意解，除諸惡法，有覺、有觀，遊志初禪；有覺、有觀除盡，遊志二、三禪；護念清淨，憂喜除盡，遊志四禪。我爾時以清淨之心，除諸結使，得無所畏，自識宿命無數來變。我便自憶無數世事，或一生、二生、三、四、五生、十生、二十、三十、四十、五十、百生、千生、百千萬生、成劫、敗劫、無數成劫、無數敗劫、無數成敗之劫，我曾死此生彼，從彼命終而來生此，無其本末因緣所從，憶如此無數世事。

“Monks, you should know that then [Maṅgalā] personally took his grass to the king of trees, and I sat on it with upright body and mind. Seated with legs crossed, I set my attention to what was in front of me.

“I then was mentally freed from greed and rid of bad qualities. With perception and examination, I reached the first dhyāna. When perception and examination were eliminated, I reached the second and third dhyānas. With equanimity, mindfulness, and purity, sorrow and joy were eliminated, and I reached the fourth dhyāna.

“At that point, my mind was purified, and I removed the bonds, attained fearlessness, and became aware of my past lives and numberless incarnations. I then recalled numberless events of those eras, whether from one birth, two births, three, four, or five births, ten births, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand tens of thousands of births, an eon of formation, an eon of destruction, countless eons of formation, countless eons of destruction, or countless eons of formation and destruction. ‘I died here and was born there. My life ended there, and I was reborn here.’ Without origin or end to the causes and conditions for them, I remembered countless life events in this way.