Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (86)

Original text: 佛言大王。如是如是。愚夫异生。梦为饥逼。啖其苦味。心生恚恼。造是业行。身三语四。意三种行。造彼业已。即便灭谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。最后边际。命根灭时。自分业。报皆悉现前。犹如梦。觉念梦中事。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, it is indeed so. The ignorant ordinary beings (pṛthagjana), pressed by hunger in a dream, ate food of bitter taste, and their minds gave rise to anger and vexation, creating evil karmic actions—three kinds of bodily actions, four kinds of verbal actions, and three kinds of mental actions. From the very beginning of their creation, these karmic formations ceased moment by moment as they were being created. After these karmic formations ceased, they did not abide in the east, west, south, north, the four intermediate directions, up, or down. However, when the final limit of life approaches and the life faculty ceases, the karmic retributions created in this very life all manifest at once, just as one, upon waking from a dream, still recollects the events of the dream.

Original text: 大王。识为其主。业为攀缘。二种相因。初识生起。或趣地狱。或堕傍生。琰摩罗界。及阿修罗。若人若天。初识生已。各受其报。同分心品。相续随转。最后识灭。名为死蕴。最初识起。名为生蕴。

Explanation: Great King, the Ālayavijñāna is the master that gives birth to the five-aggregate body of the next life, and the karmic seeds serve as the object condition. When these two causes and conditions come together, the first consciousness of the next life is born: beings may proceed to the hells, or fall into the realm of animals, the realm of Yama (the ghost realm), or among the asuras; or they may be reborn in the three wholesome destinies of the asura realm, the human realm, and the heavenly realm. When the first consciousness is born, beings begin to each receive their karmic retribution, and then the consciousness on that same material body continues to operate without interruption. When the consciousness ceases at the end of life, the material body becomes a corpse, which is called the aggregate of death; the consciousness that first arises on the material body is called the first consciousness, and the five aggregates of the material body are called the aggregate of birth.