Udaya Sutta: Breaking the Cycle (SN 7.12)

Again and again, the seeds all get planted;

Again and again, the rain-god sprinkles rain.

Again and again, the farmer farms the field;

Again and again, the food grows in the realm.

Again and again, beggars do their begging;

Again and again, the givers give out gifts.

Again and again, the giver who has given;

Again and again, goes to a better place.

Again and again, he tires and he struggles;

Again and again, the fool goes to the womb.

Again and again, he's born and he dies;

Again and again, they bear him to his grave.

But one who's wisdom is wide as the earth

Is not born again and again,

For he's gained the path

Of not becoming again.

slightly modified from Andrew Olendski's translation

Space

Our minds tend to get caught up with thoughts of attraction or aversion to objects, but the space around those thoughts is not attractive or repulsive. The space around an attractive thought and a repulsive thought is not different, is it?

Concentrating on the space between thoughts, we become less caught up in our preferences concerning the thoughts. So if you find that an obsessive thought of guilt, self-pity, or passion keeps coming up, then work with it in this way—deliberately think it, really bring it up as a conscious state, and notice the space around it.

Ajahn Sumedho

Infinite Regress

Two young boys were playing together. One asked the other, “We stand on the ground and the ground holds us up. What does the ground stand on?” “Oh, my father explained that to me,” the second boy said. “The ground is supported by four giant elephants.” “What do the elephants stand on, then?” “They stand on the shell of a huge turtle.” “What does the turtle stand on?” The second boy thought for a long time and then said, “I think it’s turtles all the way down.”

-Unknown