太子瑞應本起經 1.3

1.3

「吾自念宿命，無數劫時，本為凡夫。初求佛道已來，精神受形，周遍五道。一身死壞，復受一身，生死無量。譬喻盡天下草木，斬以為籌，計吾故身，不能數矣。

"I recall that in my past lives, during countless kalpas, I was originally an ordinary mortal. From the time I first sought the Buddha Way, my conscious spirit received forms, transmigrating everywhere through the five realms. As one body died and decomposed, I received yet another body, through measureless births and deaths. Were one to take all the grasses and trees in the world and cut them into counting-rods, to calculate my former bodies, they could not be numbered.