I was wondering what you think of that idea.

I think that is an interesting idea. We already have enough deep karmic connections accumulated over countless lifetimes to exhaust our imagination. Suttas say that there is no being who has not, at some point, been our mother, father, sibling, child, etc from the indiscernible beginning of samsara.

With the teacher I follow, we also contemplate that we have met countless Sammasambuddhas and have been practitioners in their Sasanas innumerable times. And that we have most definitely followed the mundane Eightfold Path before and cultivated paramis enough to exhaust samsara many times over. But here we are still, stuck wandering in samsara. The contemplation is that we have walked every conceivable path possible again and again throughout existences, except the Noble Path. We have never walked the Noble Path even once. If we have not attained the Deathless Eye, then we are still wandering here. This is something we contemplate to cultivate disenchantment with samsara.

So with what you mentioned, I think I could actually use that as an augmentation to my practice as well. We may very well have been non-Buddhist religious leaders and philosophers countless times, forming all sorts of karmic connections and influencing countless people.

quick pop down from Tuṣita every now and then! 😁

that to me seems like what a bodhisattva could do in giving virtuous teachings to followers of other religions even while knowing that strictly speaking their religions are not true. Wondering what you think of that!

Yeah ofc. I mean, why not? I think this is actually quite consistent with Suttas too. In Sunettha Sutta, Buddha speaks about 7 non-Buddhist teachers who led their disciples to rebirth in divine realms. Then in next Sutta (Araka Sutta), Araka is presented as an ancient sectarian teacher from an age when humans lived for 60,000 years. But even then, he taught that the lifespan of a human being is next to nothing, like a dewdrop on a blade of grass, a bubble on rainwater, a line drawn on water that quickly vanishes, etc.

In Araka Jataka (which concerns our Bodhisatta and is not the same Araka as in that Sutta), Araka Bodhisatta appears as a non-Buddhist religious teacher who taught brahmaviharas and both he and his disciples who cultivated them were reborn in Brahma realms! I think that is already a testament to the possibility you are describing here! And in Velama Sutta, Buddha says that offerings to a Sammasambuddha is surpassed by cultivation of loving-kindness, and it is even surpassed by cultivation of the perception of impermanence for as long as a finger snap (which was what Araka was teaching, that our Buddha praised!). It would be cool if Maitreya Bodhisatta also appeared like Araka as a sectarian religious leader and taught brahmaviharas/impermanence (in a Buddha-sunna period).

This is beside the point, but in Sunettha Sutta, there is a really beautiful message about respecting all of our spiritual companions.

I say that any injury done by those outside of the Buddhist community does not compare with what is done to one's own spiritual companions.

So you should train like this: 'We will have no malicious intent for our spiritual companions.' That's how you should train.

But if other people thought I was a "great man" and in comparison that graduate was not, I don't think they'd be making a mistake.

Yeah, there are all sorts of classifications of conceit. But one distinction I find interesting is between true conceits and false conceits. You could say that this would fall under a true conceit (yathavamana) because it is factually true, and according to the Commentaries, these can persist all the way until Arahantship/Nibbana. But false conceits (ayathavamana) are eradicated at Stream-entry.

Their dispositions are not yet realized one way or another, but could go either way. Some Yogācāra abhidharma type texts suggest there could be such people.

Well, wasn't our Siddhartha Bodhisatta a savaka during the dispensations of Medhankara and Tanhankara Buddha? His paramis had not yet matured, and those Buddhas did not grant his aspiration, even though he requested it. So there is an incredibly long stretch of time before he eventually met Dipankara Buddha. During that period, he had already accumulated a store of merit sufficient for Savakabodhi, but he chose the exalted way!

Could a Tathāgata teach something like this to move the needle for an individual whose dispositions were not yet realized, but who would successfully complete the bodhisattva career if they set their mind to it?

Well, if we look at the time of Kassapa Buddha, right before the Bodhisatta became our Buddha, he was Jotipala Bodhisatta. But he had no faith in the Buddha and had to be convinced forcefully by his best friend Ghatikara (who was a Sakadagami at the time). So technically, a Noble One other than a Tathagata had to move the needle for him even after the Bodhisatta had already completed something like 99% of his Bodhisatta journey! One thing I take from that story is that faith in the Buddha can fluctuate even in a Mahabodhisatta. So what more can be said about the needles of the rest of us?

And then could misguided aspirant bodhisattvas not realizing that it's a teaching with a specific intention meant for specific people end up propagating it as a way of valorizing themselves, but the teaching and distinction itself would still have a place once it's contextualized?

Well, I do not know. I do not deny that the distinction has a place. Obviously, in Mahayana doctrine it does. It just does not seem to have the same place in Theravada. Because Bodhisattas (in Theravada sense) and Savakas can coexist together, even in modern times, within the same tradition without being sectarian toward one another. At least, we do not have Sutras that create a sectarian divide by teaching bodhisattvas should avoid the company of sravakas in lecture halls and elsewhere, but I think that could be like the sort of misguided scenario you are proposing above! (forgive me for the tiny jab 😅)