At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. Suppose a person was to make the whole earth into clay balls the size of jujube seeds. They’d lay them down, saying: ‘This is my father, this is my grandfather.’ The whole earth would run out before that person’s fathers and grandfathers. Why is that? This transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. For such a long time you have undergone suffering, agony, and disaster, swelling the cemeteries. This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.”

Linked Discourses 15.3 Chapter One Tears

At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, this transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving. What do you think? Which is more: the flow of tears you’ve shed while roaming and transmigrating for such a very long time—weeping and wailing from being coupled with the unloved and separated from the loved—or the water in the four oceans?” “As we understand the Buddha’s teaching, the flow of tears we’ve shed while roaming and transmigrating is more than the water in the four oceans.”