[Buddha-l] Abdhidharma vindicated once again

[Clough, Bradley]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Lusthaus


I suppose some, trying to jam as much into the account as possible, have 
thrown the jhanas in as well, but the core story is just the three watches, 
culminating in his realization of pratitya-samutpada, consequently elimating 
the asavas (avidya replaced by vidya). If you want to complicate the 
picture, in the Tevijja-vaccagotta sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, when Buddha 
denies being omniscient, he offers instead his tevijja (Three vedas, three 
[types of] knowledge), which are knowing his own past lives, the past and 
future lives of others, and how to eliminate the asavas), which, one 
remembers, are the final three iddhis in the list of (usually) six iddhis, 
and the iddhis are, as mentioned previously, sometimes associtated with the 
arupa meditations, so....

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Just a couple points of clarification here. The six supernormal powers are not called iddhis but rather the abhiññas or "higher/direct knowledges." Iddhi is restricted to the first of the six abhiññas. And the arupa samapattis/ayatanas are not associated with these powers/knowledges. The Pali texts invariably say they are the byproducts of the 4th rupa jhana.

Brad

Bradley S. Clough
The University of Montana