The Buddha: The Sutra of Causes and Effects of Actions

Namo Buddha, namo Dharma, namo Sangha! Thus have I heard:

Once the Buddha was at Sravasti town, in the garden of Jeta, with many monks (sramana) and countless bodhisattvas and gods (devas), and they were with countless other worlds in company. The Chief Sovereign of the World (Lokajyestha) was expounding the Law and the assembly was listening with pure minds.

Thereupon Ananda, on account of these human beings, addressed the Buddha thus:

“Chief of the World, now I see that each creature is born alike among people. There are handsome and ugly, strong and weak, rich and poor, happy and sad, noble and base, and their voices are not alike and their words diverse. There is the person who at one hundred years does not die and there is the one who dies at thirty; there is the one, not yet of full age, dies in the womb. There is the person who is handsome but poor, and there is the base and ugly, but who is rich; then there is the noble and strong without dignity and without rank, and there is the weak with dignity and rank, but unhappy. There is the person whose life is long and who is happy, and there is the one whose life is short. Continue reading »