Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (93)

The Situation When Retributive Results Manifest at the Time of Death

When foolish and ignorant ordinary worldlings (pṛthagjana) see an unpleasant form, they give rise to a mind of anger and resentment, a mind of aversion and disgust, a mind wishing to destroy and ruin, and then they create karmic actions of anger—either striking, or scolding, or destroying. Bodily karma consists of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; verbal karma consists of false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, and frivolous speech; mental karma consists of greed, anger, and delusion—these are the ten unwholesome karma. How are these karmic actions brought about? When a karmic action is created, at the very first moment of its creation it instantly arises and passes away; once the action has been performed, it immediately ceases. The actions of striking and scolding arise and perish as soon as they emerge; when they arise, there is no place from which they come, and when they cease, there is no place where they perish—it is all emptiness.

The ten unwholesome karma do not abide in the east, west, south, or north, the four intermediate directions, above, below, or the center; they have no place of abiding. Yet after the actions have been created, at the moment when the life faculty is about to perish, the karmic retribution manifests, the seeds manifest. The karmic actions of an entire lifetime appear and pass away like a flash of lightning, and one feels that this whole life was just like a dream—nothing more than a dream. The feeling at the time of death is exactly the same as the feeling of waking from a dream: one knows by oneself that this life is about to end, and one also knows what the retributive result after death will be. Yet while we are alive, we never feel that it is a dream; everything feels very real.