ལས་རྣམ་པར་འབྱད་པ 23

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leads to the ripening of a karmic result in a foreign country.²³⁷

“What kind of action leads to a person being happy at first and becoming unhappy in the future? If someone were to ask this, one should reply as follows:²³⁸ ‘Here, a person is stopped by a beggar, for instance, and, asked for alms or a donation, delightedly accepts and then gives with joy but afterward regrets having given. When this person is reborn as a human in a rich and wealthy family, later the wealth is consumed and depleted. Then this person becomes poor, just as in the story of Gopaka.²³⁹ He had offered a milk cow to the fully enlightened Buddha Krakucchanda and his saṅgha of monks. But later, people made him regret it so that he thought, “It was not good to have given this.” Therefore, because he had regrets, wherever he was reborn, he first was rich and then later, due to these regrets, became poor. Later,²⁴⁰ he was reborn in Rājagṛha. His mother died at his birth and people said, “His birth is the reason for his mother’s death! Since he was born under the constellation Mūla,²⁴¹ he will destroy this family.²⁴² He is bad luck!” And so they just discarded him together with his mother in the cemetery. But there, through the power of his merits, his mother’s breasts still produced milk. In this way, he nourished himself, developed fully, and eventually went to the Blessed One and became a monk.²⁴³ Thus, this was the karmic fruit of his action of first offering a milk cow with faith and then later regretting it. His offering with a faithful attitude in the beginning became the very seed of his liberation. But due to his later regret, it is said, he always ended up poor.²⁴⁴ This kind of action leads to a person being happy at first and becoming unhappy in the future.’

“What kind of action leads to a person being unhappy at first and becoming happy later? If someone were to ask this, one should reply as follows: ‘In this case, someone is asked to make an offering, accepts only very reluctantly,²⁴⁵ and accordingly makes the offering only reluctantly,