Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (99)

The Karmic Retributions of the Ten Unwholesome Deeds All Manifest at the Time of Death

Original text: 佛言大王。如是如是。愚夫异生。眼见是色。迷惑不了。造痴业行。身业三种。语业四种。意业三种。最初造作。刹那灭谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。最后边际。命根灭时。自分业报。皆悉现前。犹如梦觉。念梦中事。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, indeed it is so, you have spoken correctly. When ignorant ordinary beings see evil forms with their eyes, anger and vexation immediately arise in their minds; aversion and the wish to abandon arise, and they want to destroy the evil form and denounce its various faults. In this way they create volitional formations of anger and resentment—three kinds of bodily karma, four kinds of verbal karma, and three kinds of mental karma. The volitional formations initially created perish moment by moment, and these volitional formations do not abide in the east, west, south, or north, the four intermediate directions, up, down, or in between. When the final limit is reached and the faculty of life perishes, the karmic retributions of one's own making all manifest in full, just like awakening from a dream and still recollecting the events of the dream.

The volitional formations initially created perish moment by moment. After this karma has perished, it does not abide in the east, west, south, or north, the four intermediate directions, up, down, or in between—karma has no place where it abides. For example, the verbal karma of my speaking had no place of abiding before it arose, and when it vanished there was no place it could go; yet after my faculty of life finally perishes, this verbal karma manifests, and I know it and go to receive retribution in accordance with that karma.

At the time of death, one's own and others' karmic retributions manifest, just like recalling the events of a dream after waking. When one is about to die at the end of life, the deeds of an entire lifetime flash through the mind, like recollecting the events of a dream. After that, there is only receiving retribution in accordance with karma, delusively undergoing the suffering of transmigration through the six realms of rebirth.