From Buddha-to-be to Teacher in the Buddha’s own Words

The Awakening - 33
without pleasure, and with complete purity of mindfulness owing to
equanimity, I dwelt having attained the fourth absorption.
12. The Three Knowledges 21
Then with a mind well-concentrated, and complete purity that comes
from a cleansed mind, being passionless, free of defilements,
malleable, workable, steady, impertubable, I directed my mind to
knowledge and recall of previous existences.
I recollected various previous existences, such as: one life, two lives,
three lives, four lives, five lives, ten lives, twenty lives, thirty lives,
forty lives, fifty lives, a hundred lives, a thousand lives, a hundred
thousand lives, innumerable aeons of devolution, innumerable aeons
of evolution, innumerable aeons of devolution and evolution: in such
and such a place I had this name, this family, this class, this food, this
experience of pleasure and pain, this life term; passing away from
there I arose in another state of existence, and in that place I had this
name, this family, this class, this food, this experience of pleasure
and pain, this life term, and passing away from there I arose here,
and so with their characteristics and with their details I recollected
my various previous existences.
This to me in the first watch of the night, was the first knowledge I
attained, ignorance was abandoned, knowledge arose, darkness was
abandoned, light arose, as I was living heedful, ardent, and resolute
in this way.
* * *
Then with a mind well-concentrated, and complete purity that comes
from a cleansed mind, being passionless, free of defilements,
malleable, workable, steady, impertubable, I directed my mind to
knowledge of the passing away and rearising of beings.
With the divine eye which is purified and surpasses that of normal
men I saw the passing away and arising of beings, inferior, superior,
21 MN 36, 85, 100.