法苑珠林 70.25

70.25

Furthermore, the Sūtra of the Eight Teachers states: The Buddha expounded the teaching of the eight teachers to a brāhmaṇa. The Buddha said: First is ferocious violence that slaughters sentient life. Such a person is either executed by their enemies or punished and executed by the king's law, bringing ruin upon their entire clan and entering hell at death. Roasted, boiled, and flogged amidst myriad changing poisons, they seek death but cannot die; only when the offense is exhausted do they emerge. They may become hungry ghosts, or they become animals, butchered, severed, skinned, and torn apart, dying repeatedly under changing blades, their spirits drifting and continuing to slaughter one another in turn. I saw that the offenses of those who kill are like this; not daring to kill again, this was my first teacher. The Buddha then spoke a gāthā, saying: