法句譬喻經 28.p1.4

28.p1.4

Accordingly he arrived at the Jetavana, and having paid the usual homage, he explained his circumstances, and how his child had refused to come back with him. To him replied the World-honoured—"Truly you are self-deluded and foolish, for when the spirit of a dead man departs, know you not that it forthwith receives another bodily form, and then all the relative terms of father, son, wife, mother, are at an end, just as a guest who leaves his lodging has done with it as though it were a thing of the past? Sad is your case, and much to be pitied, not to know that such changes will ever go on till you reach a condition of true wisdom, and give up, once for all, every thought about such worldly things as these. In this way alone can you make an end of future birth and death, and become for ever free.” And then he added these stanzas :—