Shortly after he went out [The man had gone a short distance from the house]
To a place in the neighborhood,
Fires broke out suddenly
In the house.

The purpose of the statement that “[the man] had gone a short distance” is to show, by pointing out that it was after he was gone that the fire broke out, that the outbreak [of calamity or suffering] comes from the multitudinous beings themselves and is not of the Buddha’s making. The fact that the Sage’s state of being, stimulated (kan) [in the previous encounter,] shortly disappeared is implied in the statement that “[the man] had gone a short distance.” The effect of the transformative teaching in the past was that the superficial and a nascent beings chose themselves to go astray from the transformative teaching. By going astray from li, they were led into mistake and sufferings; that is what suddenly a fire broke out means.