[Supernormal Birth By Transference To A Paradise Realm]

In the first—the transference to a pure paradise—the pro-

‘Alas! how sorrowful it is that I, during all the innumerable kalpas since illimitable, beginningless time, until now, have been wandering in the Quagmire of Sangsa@ra! O how pain- ful that I have not been liberated into Buddhahood by knowing the consciousness to be the self! hitherto ere this! Now doth this Sangsara disgust me, horrify me, sicken me; now hath the hour come to prepare to fice from it. I myself will so act as to be born in The Happy Western Realm, at the feet of the Buddha Amitabha,? miraculously from amidst a lotus blossom.’ 3

[to that Realm]; or, likewise, to any Realm thou mayst desire,—The Pre-eminently Happy Realm, or The Thickly-

That this view is in keeping with the recorded teachings of the Buddha Himself is evident from the Lounaphala Vagga of the Anguttara Nikaya, wherein He expounds the yogic method of recovering memories, innate in the sub- consciousness (see our Introduction, pp. 40-1). Sobhita, one of the Buddha’s disciples, was declared, by the Buddha Himself, to be pre-eminent in ‘ ability to remember former existences’ (cf. Ktaddagga Vagga, Anguttara Nikaya), being credited with ability to recall systematically his former existences throughout 500 kalpas; and, in the same Vagga, the Buddha names, from among His female disciples, Bhadda Kapilant as being pre-eminent ‘in ability to trace lineage of prior skandhas (or human bodies)’.

* See p. 190°.

or The Illimitable Vihara of the Lotus Radiance,! in Urgyan’s presence; or direct thy wish to any Realm which thou desirest most, in undistracted one-pointedness [of mind]. By doing so, birth will take place in that Realm instantaneously.

Or, if thou desirest to go to the presence of Maitreya, in the Tushita Heavens,? by directing an earnest wish in like manner and thinking, ‘I will go to the presence of Maitreya in the Tushita Heavens, for the hour hath struck for me here in the Intermediate State’, birth will be obtained miraculously inside a lotus blossom*® in the presence of Maitreya.