[nilliraq]

Hi Bothi,

The questions you ask here have been debated countless times and it's very difficult to arrive at a resolution. Simply put, interpretations differ. Perhaps the best thing to do is to look at the relevant scriptures and decide for yourself.

The key passage is the one which records the Buddha's successive stages of realization on the night of his awakening. There were three:

1. During the first watch of the night, he directed his mind to his "past lives" (or "past abodes", in an alternate translation). There is argument as to what this means. I go with the simplest explanation, i.e. that it means literal past lives in the round of rebirths.

2. During the second watch of the night, he directed his mind to "the passing away and rearising of beings" in accordance with their kamma -- in short, what is referred to as "kammic rebirth".

Note that neither #1 or #2 were the ultimate, liberating insights, and there is argument over whether there is anything distinctively "Buddhist" about them (since rebirth and kamma are found in some other Indian religions as well). And note also that both still involve a concept of self. As you suggested, attachment remains.

3. During the third watch of the night, he realizes dependent origination -- or, in the Mahayana take on it, full understanding of sunyata (emptiness). This is the world-transcending knowledge which brings release.

Now, does this mean that #3 alone is what mattered, and we can jettison the first two as so much lokiya dhamma or residues of prior spiritual traditions? Or are the three intertwined, so you need to go through the same sequence of realizations as Siddartha Gautama did? I won't attempt to provide an answer. The suttas are there for anyone to read and form his/her own judgement.

When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of recollecting my past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two... five, ten... fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction & expansion: 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus I remembered my manifold past lives in their modes & details.

"This was the first knowledge I attained in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose — as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute.

"When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away & reappearance of beings. I saw — by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human — beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: 'These beings — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech & mind, who reviled the Noble Ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, & mind, who did not revile the Noble Ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus — by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human — I saw beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.

"This was the second knowledge I attained in the second watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose — as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute.

"When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. I discerned, as it had come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, 'Released.' I discerned that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'

"This was the third knowledge I attained in the third watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; knowledge arose; darkness was destroyed; light arose — as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, & resolute."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....019.than.html