The Related Suttas Collection 7.12

2. Lay Followers

With Udaya

At Sāvatthī.

Then the Buddha robed up in the morning and, taking his bowl and robe, went to the home of the brahmin Udaya. Then Udaya filled the Buddha’s bowl with rice. The next day … and the day after that … Udaya filled the Buddha’s bowl with rice.

But when he had filled the Buddha’s bowl for a third time, he said to the Buddha, “This insatiable ascetic Gotama keeps coming back again and again!”

“Again and again, they sow the seed; again and again, the lord god sends rain; again and again, farmers plough the field; again and again, grain is produced for the nation.

Again and again, the beggars beg; again and again, the donors give. Again and again, when the donors have given, again and again, they take their place in heaven.

Again and again, dairy farmers milk; again and again, a calf cleaves to its mother; again and again, oppressing and intimidating; that idiot is reborn again and again.

Again and again, you’re reborn and die; again and again, you get carried to a charnel ground. But when they’ve gained the path for no further rebirth, one of vast wisdom is not reborn again and again.”

When he had spoken, the brahmin Udaya said to the Buddha, “Excellent, Master Gotama … From this day forth, may Master Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”