འཕགས་པ་སྤབས་པའ་བླ་གྲས་ཀྱས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 10

10

Oxen, cattle, lions, foxes, snakes, pigs, or dogs,
They eat grass, flesh, and foliage,
And constantly carry the burdens of others until exhaustion.

“Driven by hunger, they eagerly prey on one another.
Even after millions of eons, they will never be freed from this state.
Just as a one-eyed turtle living in the ocean
Could not stick its neck through a floating yoke,

“Because of their hundreds of downfalls
They will not easily obtain the states of gods, humans, or great lords.
They will be delivered by a sublime and limitless matrix of the Buddha’s light rays
And the light of the mighty bodhisattvas.”

Then the Blessed One said, “Pratibhānamati, beings who engage in the following five actions are reborn as hungry spirits. What are these five? (1) The first is being stingy and craving. (2) Next, because they esteem extremely ignorant spiritual teachers and their ilk, they block their own happiness. (3) Because they are inclined to unwholesome ways, they are jealous. (4) Because they are excessively stingy, they are in no way generous towards brothers, sisters, children, wives, servants, laborers, wageworkers, friends, government officials, kinfolk, relatives, the venerable, mendicants, priests, and the poor. They cannot even give anything to their own mothers and fathers, nor do they care for those who are in need of care. (5) They are also not respectful, nor do they venerate spiritual teachers or regard them as precious. Pratibhānamati, beings who engage in these five actions are reborn as hungry spirits.”

Then the Blessed One expressed this in verse:

“Defeated by the adversity of privation, they are unable to give away their wealth.
They only wish to take from others.
They are keepers of a treasury whose doors are tightly shut.
Thinking it ought to be guarded, they do not care for even their closest kin.

“These squanderers of others’ wealth always live in anxiety.