Buddhacarita by Ven Asvaghosa - Ancient Buddhist Texts

Buddha-carita, or Life of Buddha - 205
22. ‘If good is caused by good, then evil will be the cause of evil, –
how then could liberation from existence be produced by difficult
penances
23. ‘Others unwisely talk of Īśvara as a cause, how then is there not
uniformity in the world if Īśvara be the uniformly acting cause
24. ‘Thus certain ignorant people, talking loudly "he is," "he is not," –
through the demerits of their false theories, are at last born wretched
in the different hells.
25. ‘Through the merits of good theories virtuous men, who
understand noble knowledge, go to heavenly worlds, from their selfrestraint
as regards body, speech, and thought.
26. ‘All those who are devoted to existence are tormented with the
swarms of its evils, and being consumed by old age, diseases, and
death, each one dies and is born again.
27. ‘There are many wise men here who can discourse on the laws of
coming into being; but there is not even one who knows how the
cessation of being is produced.
28. ‘This body composed of the five skandhas, and produced from the
five elements, is all empty and without soul, and arises from the
action of the chain of causation,
29. ‘This chain of causation is the cause of coming into existence, and
the cessation of the series thereof is the cause of the state of cessation.