諸經要集 18.34

18.34

As the *Lokotpatti-sūtra* states, the Buddha said: 'Suppose there is a Kosalan bushel measuring sesame seeds, filled to twenty bushels, heaped high and not leveled. There is a man who, after the passage of every full hundred years, removes one sesame seed. In this manner, after the passage of each full hundred years, he again takes another grain and casts it elsewhere. Even after all the sesame seeds filling those twenty bushels have been cast aside and exhausted, the lifespan I speak of would still not be finished. Yet taking this number as a rough calculation, it is called one Arbuda lifespan. Twenty Arbuda lifespans make one Nirarbuda lifespan. Twenty Nirarbuda lifespans make one Aṭaṭa lifespan. Twenty Aṭaṭa lifespans make one Hahava lifespan. Twenty Hahava lifespans make one Huhuva lifespan. Twenty Huhuva lifespans make one Saugandhika lifespan. Twenty Saugandhika lifespans make one Utpala lifespan. Twenty Utpala lifespans make one Kumuda lifespan. Twenty Kumuda lifespans make one Puṇḍarīkā lifespan. Twenty Puṇḍarīkā lifespans make one Padma lifespan. Twenty Padma lifespans make one intermediate kalpa.' Furthermore, the *Sūtra of the Questions of the Bhikṣu Nāgasena* states: 'The fires of the mundane world are not as hot as the fire in hell. If a small stone is placed in mundane fire, it will not melt until dusk. If a large boulder is placed in hellfire, it melts immediately. It is also like a person who commits evil and dies in hell: for tens of millions of years that person does not die. It is also like large pythons, flood dragons, and the like, which eat sand and stones and digest them immediately; yet when a woman is pregnant, the fetus within her womb is not digested. All of this is due to the karmic force of good and evil that causes digestion or non-digestion. Good and evil committed by a person follow them like a shadow follows the body. When a person dies, only their physical form perishes, but their actions do not perish. It is like lighting a fire to write at night: when the fire goes out, the characters remain; when fire comes again later, they are realized. The actions performed in the present life are realized in future lives.'