10 powers of a Tathagata

Ten Powers of a Tathagatha (samma-sam-buddha):

1. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the possible as possible and the impossible as impossible.

2. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the results of actions undertaken, past, future and present, with possibilities and with causes.

3. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the ways leading to all destinations.

4. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the world with its many and different elements.

5. The Tathagata understands as it actually is how beings have different inclinations.

6. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the disposition of the faculties of other beings, other persons.

7. The Tathagata understands as it actually is the defilement, the cleansing and the emergence in regard to the jhanas, liberations, concentrations and attainments.

8. The Tathagata recollects his manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births, three births, four births, five births, ten births, twenty births, thirty births, forty births, fifty births, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, many aeons of world-contraction, many aeons of world-expansion, many aeons of world-contraction and expansion: 'There I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared elsewhere; and there too I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared here.' Thus with their aspects and particulars he recollects his manifold past lives.

9. “Again, with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, the Tathagata sees beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and he understands how beings pass on according to their actions.”

10. “Again, by realizing it for himself with direct knowledge, the Tathagata here and now enters upon and abides in the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints.”

(from Majjhima Nikaya 12, Samyutta Nikaya 12)

References

• The Complete Book of Buddha's Lists -- Explained. David N. Snyder, Ph.D., 2006.
• http://www.thedhamma.com/