Furthermore, some ascetic or brahmin—by dint of keen, resolute, committed, and diligent effort, and right application of mind—experiences an immersion of the heart of such a kind that they recollect their past lives for as many as ten eons of the expansion and contraction of the cosmos, with features and details. They say, ‘I know that in the past the cosmos expanded or contracted. I don’t know whether in the future the cosmos will expand or contract. The self and the cosmos are eternal, barren, steady as a mountain peak, standing firm like a pillar. They remain the same for all eternity, while these sentient beings wander and transmigrate and pass away and rearise.’ This is the second eternalist doctrine. Furthermore, some ascetic or brahmin—by dint of keen, resolute, committed, and diligent effort, and right application of mind—experiences an immersion of the heart of such a kind that they recollect their past lives for as many as forty eons of the expansion and contraction of the cosmos, with features and details. They say, ‘I know that in the past the cosmos expanded or contracted. I don’t know whether in the future the cosmos will expand or contract. The self and the cosmos are eternal, barren, steady as a mountain peak, standing firm like a pillar. They remain the same for all eternity, while these sentient beings wander and transmigrate and pass away and rearise.’ This is the third eternalist doctrine. This is unsurpassable when it comes to eternalist doctrines.

1.13. Recollecting Past Lives