The wisdom of seeing the past lives is found in the suttas as pubbenivasanussati nana.
Is there any mention about a wisdom of seeing the future ? Or about anyone seeing the future ?
(In the Brahmaajala sutta, the wrong views about the future are arisen only due to predictions.)
thereâs a sutta where the buddha sees that devadatta is going to be reborn in hell, before it actually happens. the abhinna on the divine eye, which sees the future rebirth (or not) of beings according to their kamma, doesnât say you have to wait until they die, sit like a hawk and watch what happens to them and where they go. one with the divine eye can see the future, but the future is not not fixed. for example, one might see today, that trump is going to be reborn in certain hell, but maybe if one checks in with the divine eye in 10 years, trump perhaps made some major life changes to alter his karmic destiny, and he has a different type of rebirth instead.
itâs just that weâre used to seeing time a certain way, so we read the suttas a certain way. but if you go back and carefully read other cases besides devadatta, the divine eye is projecting into the future, not looking into the past to see where beings were reborn after they died.
Then why cant he see that life changes with the divine eye ?
It seems like the divine eye is the wisdom which is projecting into the future, but it doesnât seem like a pubbenivasanussati like one by one approach.
Because of the inherent uncertain and unreliable nature of all things dependently originated in the context of lack of knowledge and vision of the four noble truths:
âMendicants, suppose a stick was tossed up in the air.
Sometimes itâd fall on its bottom, sometimes the middle, and sometimes the top.
Itâs the same for sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving.
Sometimes they go from this world to the other world, and sometimes they come from the other world to this world.
Why is that?
Itâs because they havenât seen the four noble truths.
What four?
The noble truths of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.
â SN56.33
The only certainty of an liberated individual related to the knowledge of his own awakening. In EBTs it is usually rendered as knowledge of destruction of the taints, or in short knowledge of the destruction (khayeñÄáča).
Because in the process one may acquire, via recollection of previous lifetimes, a very deep understanding of how beings fare through rebirths according to their choices and behaviors, it is possible to say what is the most likely trajectory another is going vis-a-vis a specific pattern of behavior.
How about thisâŠ,
BUDDHAâS DISCOURSE ON THE END OF THE WORLD; OR, THE SERMON ON THE SEVEN SUNS.
Yes that prediction is noteworthy.
that this alone is enough to weary and disgust one therewith and emancipate therefrom. The Sermon of the Seven Suns (Anguttara VII. 62)
That is also noteworty.
Buddha made the prediction that: - In the distant future, daughters that are too young to have husbands, desire to be married and start a family in their young age. Some have indulged prior to their marriage without shame. Once they are pregnant they will find a way to abort their fetuses (similar to the adolescent in todayâs society).