[309] "Even though the worthy Kassapa says this, still it seems to me thus: 'There is no other world (paro loko), there are no beings spontaneously reborn (opapātika), there is no fruit or result of deeds well done or ill done.'"
"But is there, chieftain, a method … ?"
"There is, worthy Kassapa, a method …"
"How so, chieftain?"
"Here, worthy Kassapa, I see ascetics and brahmins who are virtuous, of good character, who wish to live and do not wish to die, who desire happiness and recoil from suffering (dukkha). It occurs to me, worthy Kassapa: 'If these worthy ascetics and brahmins, virtuous and of good character, were to know thus, "It will be better for us when we have died and gone from here," then these worthy ascetics and brahmins, virtuous and of good character, would right now drink poison, or take up the knife, or hang themselves and make an end, or hurl themselves from a precipice. But since these worthy ascetics and brahmins, virtuous and of good character, do not know thus, "It will be better for us when we have died and gone from here," therefore these worthy ascetics and brahmins, virtuous and of good character, wish to live and do not wish to die, desire happiness and recoil from suffering.' This too, worthy Kassapa, is the method by which it seems to me thus: 'There is no other world, there are no beings spontaneously reborn, there is no fruit or result of deeds well done or ill done.'"
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.