諸經要集 20.7

20.7

As the Madhyamāgama says: At that time, the Bhagavat addressed the bhikṣus: 'Sentient beings wander through the long night of saṃsāra from beginningless time, not knowing the original limit of suffering. Bhikṣus, what do you think? If all the grass and trees of this great earth were cut into counting-sticks of four fingers' measure to count the parents you have depended upon wandering through the long night of saṃsāra, the number of sticks would be exhausted, yet the number of those parents would still not be exhausted. Bhikṣus, such is the wandering through the long night of beginningless saṃsāra, not knowing the original limit of suffering.' The Buddha addressed the bhikṣus: 'In wandering through saṃsāra, the mother's milk you have drunk is more than the waters of the Ganges and the four great oceans. Why is this? In the long night, you may have been born among elephants and drunk their mother's milk immeasurably and innumerably; or born as camels, horses, oxen, donkeys, and various kinds of birds and beasts, drinking their mother's milk in an immeasurable number. Abandoned in charnel grounds in the long night, the pus and blood that flowed from you was likewise so. Or falling into hells, animal realms, and hungry ghosts, the marrow and blood that flowed from you was likewise so.'