རྒྱལ་པ་ལ་གདམས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 4

4

While good deeds lead to higher realms and liberation,
Bad deeds lead to the suffering of the lower realms.

“Even before death, this body is impermanent.
From a small child you grow into a youth,
Then on to adulthood, middle age, and old age.
If the body were permanent,
How could there be such phases?

“The objects of experience, those that bring pleasure and pain, are also impermanent.
Those who have power and wealth may become miserable and destitute,
And those who are miserable and destitute may become powerful and wealthy.
The enjoyments of youth are ravaged by illness, aging, and death.
All these worldly phenomena are impermanent.”

King Bimisāra asked, “Blessed One, what are the sufferings of beings in saṃsāra?”

The Blessed One replied,

“For beings in saṃsāra there is never any lasting happiness.
The main kinds of suffering are four: birth, aging, illness, and death.

“The sufferings of beings born in the hells are like this:
Merely seeing the guards of hell and the fires of hell
Sets off great wails of fear and terror.
Counting the cost to oneself and feeling deep remorse about one’s former actions
Are of no use whatsoever.

“Some obtain massive bodies with tender skin,
Subject to intense and violent sensations.
Some have bodies that burn in a blazing mass of fire.
Some are crushed likes seeds in rooms with iron walls,¹⁹
Rolling back and forth, and burning all over.

“Others are thrown headfirst into huge iron cauldrons
Where they cook like grains in a boiling soup.
Some are gashed by saws and pounded in mortars.
Some are kept in dwellings and houses and roasted alive,
Scorched by glowing embers, hot ashes, hot water, and such.
There are tortures more numerous than can be conceived.

“Where a single day and night is a hundred eighty thousand human years,
They stay in such hells for an eon.
Even though they long for death, death does not come
To those whose karma is not exhausted,
Until the time when the world itself disintegrates
And a new world is born again.

“Those born as pretas are tormented by hunger and thirst,