Selected Discourses from the Pitāputrasamāgama Sūtra

The Buddha said: "Great King, it is indeed so. Foolish ordinary beings, with little learning and no wisdom, develop affection and delight toward agreeable contacts. Their minds become tainted and attached, thus creating such karmas: three kinds of bodily karma, four kinds of verbal karma, and three kinds of mental karma. Having created these karmas, they vanish moment by moment. Once these karmas cease, they do not abide in the east, south, west, or north, nor in the four intermediate directions, above, below, or in between. However, at the time of death, one sees the deeds previously performed manifesting in the mind, like a person recalling a dream upon waking. Finally, when the consciousness ceases, one's own karma manifests before them."

Explanation: The Buddha said: "Great King, it is indeed so. Foolish ordinary beings, with little learning and no wisdom, develop affection and delight toward the contacts they find pleasurable. Their minds become tainted and attached to sensual contacts, thus creating foolish karmas—the three bodily, four verbal, and three mental karmas—and unwholesome karmas arise. After creating these karmas, the karmic actions vanish moment by moment. Once the karmic actions cease, they do not abide anywhere—not in the east, south, west, or north, nor in the four intermediate directions, above, below, or in between. However, at the time of death, one sees the deeds previously performed manifesting in the mind, like a person recalling a dream upon waking. Finally, when the six consciousnesses cease, the karmic retribution manifests."

Foolishness is ignorance—understanding nothing. They do not understand what the five aggregates are, nor do they understand that the five aggregates are illusory. They do not comprehend that all phenomena are illusory, nor do they grasp that this false self is a composite. They do not know how to dismantle it, how to escape the cycle of rebirth in the six realms, how to attain the fruition of a bodhisattva, how to realize their original nature—the inherently pure mind—nor even how to attain Buddhahood. All of this is beyond their understanding. This is called foolishness and ignorance.

For a living being in the present moment, when this lifespan ends, the next period of existence will begin in another place, born into a realm corresponding to their habitual tendencies and karmic forces. Changes in time, location, and physical form are termed "differentiation." After death, beings often undergo complete changes in body, time, identity, location, and living space. Hungry ghosts have their own realm, Asuras have theirs, hell beings have theirs, and heavenly beings have theirs. Animals coexist with humans on the surface of the earth, yet their living environments still differ. When the living environment changes, transforming into a different life form and becoming another kind of living being, this is called "differentiation in birth."