"Oh! wise man, grievous is rebirth in a new existence, and the dissolution of the body in each successive place where we are reborn. I am subject to birth, to decay, to disease, to death,—it is right, being such, that I should strive to attain the great deathless Nirvāna, which is tranquil, and free from birth, and decay, and sickness, and grief and joy; surely there must be a road that leads to Nirvāna and releases man from existence. For as in this world there is pleasure as the correlative of pain, so where there is existence there must be its opposite the cessation of existence; and as where there is heat there is also cold which neutralizes it, so there must be a Nirvāna that extinguishes (the fires of) lust and the other passions; and as in opposition to a bad and evil condition there is a good and blameless one, so where there is evil Birth there must also be Nirvāna, called the Birthless, because it puts an end to all rebirth."
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The Nidanakatha (or the Three Epochs) #16
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Jataka tales
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