Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Father and Son Collection

Original text:佛言大王。如是如是。愚痴异生。寡闻无智。于可意触。而生爱乐。心生染着。造如是业。身业三种。语业四种。意业三种。造作彼业。刹那迁谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。至命终时。见先所作。心想中现。如彼睡觉。忆梦中事。最后识灭。自业现前。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, it is indeed so. Foolish and ignorant ordinary beings (pṛthagjana), of scant learning and lacking wisdom, give rise to love and delight toward agreeable contact; their minds become defiled and attached, and they create such karma—three kinds of bodily karma, four kinds of verbal karma, and three kinds of mental karma. Having created those karmic deeds, the karmic formations cease and pass away moment by moment. After those karmic formations have ceased, they do not abide in the east, south, west, or north, the four intermediate directions, up or down, or in between. But at the time of death, one sees the deeds one formerly performed appearing within one's mind, just like a person waking from sleep who recalls the events of a dream. When the last consciousness ceases, one's own karma manifests before one.

Foolishness is ignorance (avidyā): not understanding anything—not knowing what the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) are, not knowing that the five aggregates are illusory, not knowing that all dharmas are illusory, not knowing that this false self is a combination of elements, not knowing how to break through it, not knowing how to escape the cycle of the six realms of rebirth, not knowing how to attain the bodhisattva's fruits, not knowing how to realize one's original face, the self-natured pure mind, and even not knowing how to become a Buddha—knowing none of this at all. This is called foolishness and ignorance.

For a living being currently alive, when this span of life ends, in the next period of time, in another place, one will again be born in the realm that corresponds to one's habitual tendencies and karmic force. The change of time, place, and physical body is called "different" (anya); after death, sentient beings usually have their body, time, identity, location, and living space all changed. Hungry ghosts have the space of hungry ghosts, asuras have the space of asuras, hell beings have the space of hells, and devas have the space of devas; animals are together with humans, also on the surface of this earth, but their living environment is still different. When the living environment changes, one switches to a different form of life, becoming a different kind of living being—this is called "different rebirth" (being reborn as a different being).