“Remembering past lives is not necessary for the practice for enlightenment because you don’t need to know what you were in your past lives to become enlightened.”

“Remembering past lives is not necessary for the practice for enlightenment because you don’t need to know what you were in your past lives to become enlightened.”

Question:  Ajahn mentioned that the memory is not in the body. Does it mean that memory is part of the mind?

Than Ajahn:  Yes, sañña is part of the nāma-khandas. The mind has four-khandas: vedanā, sañña, sankhāra, viññaṇa. Vedanā is feeling, sankhāra is thought, sañña is memory, and viññaṇa is consciousness. These four-khandas stay with the mind and don’t die with the body. Some parts of the body rely on bodily functions to work, like the brain which sends messages to the mind, so when the brain stops and cannot send messages, it then cannot remember some of the things that the body sees or hears, because the brain doesn’t tell the mind what it is seeing or hearing. The work of the memory is dependent on two parts, on the body and on the mind. However, even without the body, you can still recollect what you did in the past, like recollection of past lives, which do not need the body for.

You need a calm mind to be able to retrace your past lives. If you forget what you did yesterday, you may be able to retrace and remember it by sitting in meditation, this is the function of the mind. When you have to use the body to remember things and when the body doesn’t remember then you cannot remember it. So this is something different between the physical and the mental. If it is purely mental, then you can still remember it.

If you have a strong memory, you can remember your past lives, like the Lord Buddha.  He can remember whether he was this person or that person in his past lives, and he can remember when he did certain things in his past lives. But not everyone who meditates will have this ability. This depends on each individual’s ability to recollect past lives. Some people don’t have that strong ability, so they cannot remember their past lives. Some people do, some don’t, so this is considered to be a special ability. Remembering past lives is not necessary for the practice for enlightenment, because you don’t need to know what you were in your past lives to become enlightened.

By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

Youtube: Dhamma in English
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g