“Mendicants, these four individuals are found in the world. What four? The dark bound for darkness, the dark bound for light, the light bound for darkness, and the light bound for light.

And how is an individual dark and bound for darkness? It’s when an individual is reborn in a low family—a family of corpse-workers, bamboo-workers, hunters, chariot-makers, or scavengers—poor, with little to eat or drink, where life is tough, and food and shelter are hard to find. And they’re ugly, unsightly, deformed, sickly—one-eyed, crippled, lame, or half-paralyzed. They don’t get to have food, drink, clothes, and vehicles; garlands, fragrance, and makeup; or bed, house, and lighting. And they do bad things by way of body, speech, and mind. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell. That’s how an individual is dark and bound for darkness.