The Cycle of Existence and Three Spheres : หน้า 87/263

suffering completely, with no more attachment for the Three Spheres¹. Put another way, their practice entails extinguishing the three sorts of craving which keep them prisoner in the thirty-one realms. In teaching on the subject of the three sorts of craving as the reason why living beings are the prisoners of rebirth in the Cycle of Existence, the Lord Buddha taught in the Dhammapadathakathā², in brief, as follows: One day the Lord Buddha went on almsround in the city of Rājagaha, and seeing a female piglet, smiled to himself. Ānanda noticed the Buddha’s smiling and asked the reason. Later, the Buddha revealed the story of the past that that piglet had previously been born as a hen in the yard of the monk’s almonry in the time of Kakusandha Buddha³ and had regularly overheard the preaching of monks on the practice of insight meditation and had been filled with faith thereby. Passing away from that lifetime, the hen was reborn as a royal princess family by the name of Ubbari. One day, the princess entered the royal lavatory (cesspit) and saw a pile of maggots there. The sight stimulated her to wise recollection and she attained the first absorption. Passing away from that lifetime, the princess was reborn in the Brahmā-world. Passing away from the Brahmā-world, she was born continuously in the Cycle of Existence until she came to be born as a sow in the time of our present Buddha. Hearing the tale of the ¹. The Three Spheres [bhava] (which are groupings, in turn of the 31 realms of existence) comprise: 1. Kāma bhava (the sphere of those looking for happiness via sense desire; 2. Rūpa bhava (the sphere of those looking for happiness via the form absorptions), and; 3. Arūpa bhava (the sphere of those looking for happiness via the formless absorptions). ². DHaA.iv.46ff. ³. Kakusandha Buddha was one of the five Buddhas to be born in our present epoch. The complete list of Buddhas in our epoch in order is as follows: Kakusandha, Koñāganama, Kassapa, Gotama and Metteyya.