Compiled from the handwritten autobiography of Most Venerable Nā Uyane Ariyadhamma Mahāthera [Compiled by Nā Uyana Forest Monastery Pansiyagama, Melsiripura Sri Lanka 60554. Tel: 0718455332. Email: nauyana@gmail.com]
“FOOTPRINTS ON THE WONDERFUL PATH TO BUDDHAHOOD” of the Buddhahood Aspirant, written for the benefit of devotees
Most interesting and exhilarating autobiography I have ever read, – Dinesh Weerakkody
At the request of a devotee, he recorded certain details of his life and informed his monastic disciples that he was “writing down notes of important events in his life,” asking that they not be published during his lifetime.
Those notes provide hitherto unknown facts and are the only source available to us to get at least a brief view of the meditations he practiced, his meditational experiences, the Dhamma knowledge he accumulated and the impressive vipassanā knowledges he attained.
We shall present as best as we can, first the part entitled “Footprints of the Life Journey of a Buddhist Monk”, which contains biographical information written by Mahāthera himself and a brief description of his meditation practice separately. These notes have recorded extremely rare information regarding his meditation experiences.
IV. Dependent Origination: Past Lives
7:05—Sitting meditation. Looked at material-immaterial and internal-external cuti-paṭisandhi96. Saw paṭisandhi very clearly. Paṭisandhi bhavaṅga97 mental object was the great Ruwanweli stupa. In the previous life [I] was a deva who protected the pagoda. Name Maitrī. Before that a hermit. Birth in this life is three-rooted and associated with happiness.
12:45—Sitting meditation. After all attainments of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, then according to mentality-materiality discerned the paṭisandhi citta—previous life as a deva, before that as a brahma, before that life of a forest hermit in India, through vipassanā meditation. 1:30—Walking. Recollection of the qualities of the Buddha.
7:00—Sitting meditation, mindfulness of breathing, four jhānas and explored previous three lives. Deva, brahma, rāja rishi98 of Makhādeva clan, developed four sublime abodes and the perception of impermanence.
5:10—Sitting meditation, mindfulness of breathing, sublime abodes, vipassanā of mentality-materiality. Looking at the sequence of previous lives. Saw deva, brahma, rāja rishi, deva, ordination in the Sāsana of Kassapa Sammāsambuddha and saw that Tripiṭaka Dhamma, jhāna, vipassanā had been developed up to the knowledge of equanimity regarding formations.
7:00—Sitting meditation. After exploring past lives in sequence, practiced dependent origination vipassanā meditation by dividing, such as into aggregates, of life in which [I] was ordained in the Sāsana of Kassapa Buddha.
Day 16. It is Binara full moon day. Early morning in sitting meditation, while practicing vipassanā, was able to see 14 lives up to the life in the Sāsana of Kassapa Buddha, saw clearly a saṃsāric journey with the assurance of certainty of Buddhahood from the time of Dīpaṅkara Buddha. At that time impermanence became the object, respiration stopped and I stayed for a long time in deep concentration.
5:15—Sitting meditation; mindfulness of breathing, divine abodes, mentality-materiality vipassanā of sequence of future lives. Through this, saw ordination in Sāsana of Metteyya Sammāsambuddha and at the end of future 1800 lives, attainment of Sammāsambuddha.
During sitting meditation that morning, while practicing vipassanā on all future lives through dependent origination, with the three characteristics, saw the distant future attainment of Sammāsambuddha in an era where the lifespan is 100,000 years and the extinction of ignorance and other causes; a state of deep concentration resulted.