Knowledge of recollection of previous existence (Buddhism)

Recollection may be one birth, many births, one aeon, many aeons until there is, in the case of Buddhas, no limit. Again, depending on the level of enlightenment, previous lives are seen only with difficulty or clearly.

A beginner, having attained the four jhanas in succession, emerges from the fourth and then adverts to his most recent act, then to the one before and so on, covering a whole night and day in reverse order. This is continued, covering periods for days, a fortnight, years until the moment of rebirth-linking to this existence is reached. Then he removes this and makes the moment of mentality-materiality at the moment of death in the previous existence his object (this may be hard to see, but repetition of the exercise gradually brings success). There is appearance of absorption and the knowledge of past life arises. This develops into knowledge of other previous lives.

Knowledge of aeons or cycles of dissolution and evolution or contraction and expansion infers also knowledge of what supersedes contraction or expansion. Thus each cycle is four aeons. The world cycle may be destroyed by fire, water or air, when all is demolished up to a particular Brahma world. These are the limits on contraction or dissolution. In breadth one Buddha-field is demolished (in the field of his birth, ten thousand world spheres or systems; in the field of his authority, one hundred thousand million world spheres or systems; in the field of his sphere, to an infinite extent, as far as he wishes). The monk is then aware of where he was in a particular aeon of world contraction or expansion, of his name, his mode of life, how long he lived, whether pleasure or pain predominated.

One of the five kinds of direct or higher knowledge developed in Hinayana Buddhism.