At one time the Buddha was staying near Vesālī, at the Great Wood, in the hall with the peaked roof. Then the layman Vāseṭṭha went up to the Buddha, bowed, and sat down to one side. The Buddha said to him:
“Vāseṭṭha, the observance of the sabbath with its eight factors is very fruitful and beneficial and brilliant and bountiful … blameless, they go to a heavenly place.”
When he said this, Vāseṭṭha said to the Buddha:
“If my loved ones—relatives and kin—were to observe this sabbath with its eight factors, it would be for their lasting welfare and happiness. If all the aristocrats, brahmins, peasants, and menials were to observe this sabbath with its eight factors, it would be for their lasting welfare and happiness.”
“That’s so true, Vāseṭṭha! That’s so true, Vāseṭṭha! If all the aristocrats, brahmins, peasants, and menials were to observe this sabbath with its eight factors, it would be for their lasting welfare and happiness. If the whole world—with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, gods and humans—were to observe this sabbath with its eight factors, it would be for their lasting welfare and happiness. If these great sal trees were to observe this sabbath with its eight factors, it would be for their lasting welfare and happiness—if they were sentient. How much more then a human being!”