So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants, “Mendicants!” “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:

“I shall teach you rebirth by choice. Listen and apply your mind well, I will speak.” “Yes, sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this:

“Take a mendicant who has faith, ethics, learning, generosity, and wisdom. They think: ‘If only, when my body breaks up, after death, I would be reborn in the company of well-to-do aristocrats!’ They settle on that thought, stabilize it, and develop it. Those choices and meditations of theirs, developed and cultivated like this, lead to rebirth there. This is the path and the practice that leads to rebirth there.