Hi friends,
I am wondering if anyone knows of the sutta where the Buddha says there are beings going up and down in realms but there are more going down than going up. I just can’t seem to find it.
Thank you!
Perhaps you mean AN 3.37?
AN3.37:2.1-5: If only a few humans are paying due respect to their parents … and making merit, then the Four Great Kings address the gods of the Thirty-Three, seated together in the Hall of Justice: ‘Only a few humans are paying due respect to their parents … and making merit.’ Then the gods of the Thirty-Three are disappointed, thinking, ‘The heavenly hosts will dwindle, while the demon hosts will swell!’
Or do you mean the turtle Sutta?
SN56.47:2.1: “That one-eyed turtle would poke its neck through the hole in that yoke sooner than a fool who has fallen to the underworld would be reborn as a human being, I say.
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Then the Buddha, picking up a little bit of dirt under his fingernail, addressed the mendicants: “What do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the little bit of dirt under my fingernail, or this great earth?”
“Sir, the great earth is far more. The little bit of dirt under your fingernail is tiny. Compared to the great earth, it doesn’t count, there’s no comparison, it’s not worth a fraction.”
“In the same way the sentient beings reborn as humans are few, while those not reborn as humans are many.
Sn 20.2
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Assuming that one is reborn from a lesser realm to the human realm, they can subsequently be reborn to a lower realm, right? If one’s kamma leads one to the human realm, it’s very unfortunate to go back and unlikely to be reborn into the human realm.
Do you mean the one he is using darkness and light?
All living beings fall into bad states of existence, being defiled by anger, and so continually suffer the torture of births and deaths.
From chinese Itivuttakas
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Surprised no one has mentioned Dhp 174 yet:
Blind is the world,
few are those who clearly see.
Only a handful go to heaven,
like a bird freed from a net.
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