The History of Buddhist Thought c17.41

c17.41

Even after the criminal has exhausted his karma in hell it is very difficult for him to be born again as a man. If there were a yoke with one hole in it floating on the ocean and borne about by the four winds, it would be easier for a one-eyed turtle rising to the surface once in a hundred years to put its head through the hole than for such a being to attain man’s estate. Even when he does so, he is born as an outcast, or in some low rank of life. Rhys Davids preferred to call hell purgatory, but the Buddhist hells are anything but a preparation and purification for a life of bliss. The being, unless there is some still unripened good karma, must start at the end of the scale again.