How can we save people from creating evil karma?
How can we save this turbulent society?
There is nothing more effective
than to promote the education of causality.
To promote this education,
we must understand these five basic rules of causality.
1. Cause And Its Effect Happen At Different Times
From cause to effect needs a period of time, which can be observed in the practice of farming. A melon seedling planted yesterday takes several months before reaching fruition. There is no way it can be harvested in a few days. Likewise, your good deeds might not immediately bring good rewards. It takes time for the good effects to materialize.
If you do a good deed now and immediately receive a good reward, it is not the result of this good deed but of a good karma from your past, which, helped by your current good karma, makes the effect become mature more quickly.
The good karma you created in the past is the “cause,”
the good karma that you commit in the present
is the “helping-condition,”
and the current reward is the “effect”
of your past good karma.
Conversely, if you presently do good deeds, and you don't receive good rewards but beget bad retribution instead, it does not mean that your good deeds will not have good results. It means that your past bad karma has now matured and appeared first.
The good deeds that you do in the present
act as a “barrier-condition” for the bad karma of your past;
although the power is not enough to completely prevent
the retribution from coming to fruition,
it can definitely weaken the bad retribution,
so that your bad effect is alleviated.
If it wasn't for the good deeds that you are doing in the present,
the bad retribution would have become worse.
This is the intricate relationship
between “cause, condition, and effect.”
Why Do Evildoers Still Enjoy Fortune?
The reason many people do not believe in causality is because they do not understand this universal law. They see evildoers remain at large and escape prosecution, and even bully others and enjoy fortune, while people who have done good deeds do not receive good rewards, still live in poverty, and suffer bitter retribution and indignity. As a result, they deny the law of causality, thinking that there is no retribution for evil deeds, and no karmic rewards for good deeds. In that case, who would be so foolish as to do good deeds?
It seems true that in today's society, most people think it natural to be selfish and egoistic. We view those who do good deeds as fools because we are too shortsighted to understand the principle that
Punishment may come late,
but it will definitely come.
People who have created big fortune in their past lives, despite having committed many sins in this life, can still be enjoying the fortune that they had accumulated in the past, because they have not used up all their fortune yet. After a decade or two, when their fortune is depleted, the dreadful retribution will appear. So,
The law of causality will never go wrong.
2. Cause And Effect Run Through Three Time Periods
These three time periods are the past, the present, and the future.
Nowadays, scientists have confirmed the existence of reincarnation; past and present lives indeed have their cause and effect. So, as Buddha Dharma states,
If you want to know your past lives,
look into your present conditions.
If you want to know your future lives,
look into your present actions.
Cause and effect correspond to each other. Therefore, if you want to know what causes you have planted in the past, all you need to do is look into the retribution in your current life. If you suffer poverty and illness in this lifetime, then in past lives you must have committed the karma of miserliness and killing.
Likewise, this life will have a causal relationship with future lives too.
As stated above, “If you want to know your future life, look into your present actions.'” So there is no need to seek help from a fortune teller. If you want to know what will happen in your future, all you need to do is examine what karma you are creating in your current life. If in this life, you create the karma of:
●Wealth-dāna: Using wealth to help people
●Dharma-dāna: Imparting your own knowledge and skills as well as the truth of life and the universe to others
●Fearlessness-dāna: Enabling people to be rid of disease, fear, or sorrow
then in the future you will receive the effects of wealth and wisdom, as well as health and longevity.
According to the time that the retribution manifests, the effect can be divided into four types:
a) Current Life Retribution
The karma is created in this life, and the effects are received in this life. This is called “instant karma” or current life retribution. Typically, this happens when you create extremely good or evil karma by doing considerably good or evil deeds, and therefore you receive the retribution in this lifetime.
Understanding this principle,
we can absolutely change our destinies by
repenting our past sins and cultivating good deeds.
In Liao Fan's Four Lessons, the author talks about this kind of situation. People who were meant to be poor with a short lifespan became wealthy and lived for a long time after creating a lot of good karma. People who were meant to be healthy and wealthy became poor and short-lived after creating heavy evil karma.
We must know that the current life's effect is called a “flower-retribution.” It is like flowers blooming before a plant bears fruit. The real karmic effect is waiting in future lives, and the severity of this “fruit-retribution” will be even more serious than the “flower-retribution.”
b) Next Life's Retribution
The karmic seeds planted in this lifetime will beget retribution in the next life. This is the most common phenomenon.
c) Later Lives Retribution
This means that after creating karma in this life, the retribution is not received in the same lifetime nor the next life, but is received in the third, fourth, or even later lifetimes.
d) Uncertain Time Retribution
The karma you created in this lifetime can receive retribution in any lifetime, depending on what conditions you encounter. If the conditions appear in this lifetime, you will receive the retribution in this life; if the conditions will appear in a future lifetime, then you will not receive the retribution until that life.
3. Small Cause Resulting In A Big Effect
A tiny cause can turn into a huge effect. It is like a small watermelon seed buried in the dirt growing into many big watermelons which are full of many more watermelon seeds. The adage reads, “Give one and beget ten thousand in return.”
Regarding this point, there is a story illustrated in the Buddhist sutras.
The Story of a Brahmin Elder's Offering
When the Buddha was on Earth, an old servant of a Brahmin elder took some spoiled food out of the house and was preparing to dump it out. The moment she went outside and saw the solemn demeanor of the Buddha, deep and profound respect arose from her heart. She wanted to make an offering to the Buddha, but all she had was the spoiled food in hand. How could she offer it to the noble Buddha? Just as she hesitated, the Buddha began to smile and emit light, and happily used His bowl to scoop up the spoiled food from the old woman's hand.
The Buddha turned His head and told Ananda, “This old woman is wholeheartedly devout. Because of the merit of her sincere offering to a Buddha, in the future, she will have fifteen kalpas, such a long time, to enjoy happiness in heaven. And after the fifteenth kalpa, she would descend into the human realm where she would have the karmic condition of being a monk.”
At this time, the old woman's master, a Brahmin elder, happened to walk out of the house. Hearing what the Buddha said, he thought it was very incredible!
The Buddha asked the Brahmin elder, “Have you ever seen other incredible things?” The elder replied, “Yes, one time we had 500 horse-drawn carriages traveling together. Because of the hot weather, we went to find a big tree to enjoy the shade. This big tree could cover all 500 carriages, and there was still extra shade left over. The size of the tree was truly unbelievable!”
The Buddha then asked, “Do you know how big the seed of this great tree was?” The elder replied, “As small as a mustard seed, perhaps.” The Buddha said, “That is correct! This is the theory of a small cause creating a large effect.”
Maitreya Bodhisattva’s Theory
Although the cause of the elderly servant making an offering to the Buddha was very small, it begot a big effect! This principle is based on the speed of the mind, which is way too fast. According to Maitreya Bodhisattva,
In the snap of a finger,
there are 3.2 billion hundred thousand thoughts,
each one shapes a form,
and in every form exists consciousness.
One finger snap contains 320 trillion thoughts; the unit is 100 x 1,000, one hundred thousand; 3.2 billion times one hundred thousand is 320 trillion. In one finger snap, there are 320 trillion thoughts.
In one second, suppose you can snap your fingers three times. 320 trillion times 3, it will become 960 trillion thoughts. In one second, there are 960 trillion thoughts, and each thought is independent. The frequency of this kind of subtle thought is way too high, so Maitreya Bodhisattva said that each thought is extremely fine and there is no way for us to detect and hold it; it is way too fast!
The speed of thought is so fast that within a very short period of time, myriad seeds are planted in our consciousness, and in the future, their effects will last for a very long time. A good example of cause and effect is the story of Maudgalyāyana, as recorded in the Buddhist sutras.
Tragic Retributions for Kalpas from a Single Action
In the past, Maudgalyāyana had one life where he tried to kill his parents. In that life, both of his parents were blind, and his wife was reluctant to take care of her blind in-laws. She tried various ways to make her husband become resentful of his parents, such as saying bad things to estrange them. Finally, she encouraged her husband to kill his parents, and the husband actually gave rise to the evil intention of killing his own parents!
Following the plan, one day, he took his parents out and brought them to a forest. When they were in the forest, he made his parents believe that robbers came. With a wooden stick that he had prepared, he viciously hit his parents, trying to beat them to death. Unexpectedly, as he was savagely beating them, his parents did not call on him to save them, but shouted for their son to quickly run for his life instead, lest he be harmed by robbers. He was so moved by his parents' unconditional love that his conscience came into play; he knelt down in front of them and repented for his wrongdoings.
Because of this evil karma of intending to kill his own parents, his life was shortened, and upon death he fell into the hell realm, suffering a long period of torture. After leaving hell, he still had to endure the misery of the hungry ghost and animal realms. When he finally reincarnated as a human, he was brutally beaten until his bones were pulverized into pieces in each life for 500 lives.
Even Supernal Power Cannot Overcome Karma
Even in his life as Maudgalyāyana, there was no exception. He followed the Buddha as a disciple, attained arhathood, and became Buddha's number one disciple in supernal power. However, when the karmic condition had matured, he became unable to enter samadhi and use his supernal power. His severe karma remained strong. This is the origin of the saying, “Even supernal power cannot overcome karma.”
As a result, he was brutally beaten by a group of heretics until every bone in his body was broken into pieces, and thus he entered nirvana. This story clearly illustrates the principle of a small cause resulting in a big effect. He tried to murder his parents only once in that life. How could it cause such tremendous misery in so many lifetimes?
The reason is because the speed of the mind is way too fast, so even if it is only one evil thought, it results in myriad karmic causes. In that past life, he beat his parents for half an hour. According to Maitreya Bodhisattva's explanation, in a second, if one can snap his fingers three times, then in a second one can plant 960 trillion incidents of extremely evil karma multiplied by 1,800 times for half an hour. The number of evil karmic seeds planted is astonishing!
This extremely evil karma resulted not in just the “flower-retribution”— in which his current life would be shortened and he would be ill — but he also received his “fruit-retribution,” being reincarnated into hell in the next life. After finishing the sentence in hell, he was then reincarnated into the animal and hungry ghost realms for the “remainder-retribution.” And the next five hundred lifetimes as a human, all ending with his bones beaten into pieces, were still the “remainder-retributions” of this one past evil karma that he had created.
One Aftermath Following Another
From this example, we can see how the severe karma can lead to “the flower,” “the fruit,” and “the remainder-retributions.” It is truly like one aftermath following another, with no end in sight. Seeing how fierce this karmic retribution can be, do you still dare be rebellious and hurt your parents? Do you still dare to commit other bad karmas? “Xi Ci” Chapter in The Book of Changes (I Ching), states:
Families that accumulate goodness are sure to have
abundant remainder-auspiciousness,
while families that accumulate evilness are sure to befall
plentiful remainder-misery.
This statement reveals to us that a family which accumulates good deeds will gain extra prosperity and their future generations will be blessed, while the family that accumulates unwholesomeness will have extra sins and bring disaster to their future generations. This passage is an evident testimony
of a small cause resulting in a big effect as well.
Master Yin Guang said that, if there is “remainder-auspiciousness” and “remainder-retribution,” there must be “original-auspiciousness” and “original-retribution.”
The “original-auspiciousness” refers to the person enjoying the good “fruit-retribution” of his own good karma; the “remainder-auspiciousness” is the fortune that he created, becoming the “remainder-retribution” for his descendants. “Original-retribution” refers to a person suffering the evil effect of his own evil karma; “remainder-retribution” refers to his evil effect passing onto his descendants.
Cultivating the Wisdom to Fear the “Cause”
In addition, we must understand that not only is the effect much bigger than the cause, but the longer it takes for the retribution to take effect, the more grievous the retribution will become; like a debt, the longer it takes to pay back, the more interest there will be. So, after we commit a sin, we must quickly repent and start to do good deeds diligently to lessen the bad karma. Or even better, we should accept the consequences as early as possible to lighten our retribution for a grave sin, so as to avoid severe suffering in the future. Buddhism has a saying,
Bodhisattvas fear the cause,
while mortals only fear the effect.
Bodhisattvas are the “awakened ones” who understand the principle of a small cause resulting in a big effect. They know that after committing sins, the future retribution will be extremely horrific, so they remain vigilant and cautious. They do not dare to create bad karmic causes!
Regarding current bad retribution, bodhisattvas know that it is brought about by the bad karmic seeds of the transgressions of their past lives. They understand that, after taking the retribution, the karma will be paid off.
Because of this understanding, they have no fear — they can calmly accept the retribution and will not give rise to affliction. Bodhisattvas accept retribution as it comes and never create new evil karmas. As a statement in the sutras reads,
Let the evil karma be resolved
in accordance with the condition.
Planting no more bad seeds,
we will then not suffer new retribution.
Mortals are often deluded and bewildered. They only see bad retribution as scary, so they spare no effort to escape retribution. Little do they know,
The only way to avoid evil retribution
is to stop creating bad karma.
When a mortal suffers evil retribution, his affliction will arise. In order to escape evil retribution, he might willingly sacrifice others to benefit himself, thus creating all sorts of evil
karmas. After creating new evil karmas, he sees no imminent consequences, so he is not afraid to keep going.
If he continues to create bad karma, the causal effects will become unbearably heavy. This is why Buddhas call us mortals “the lamentable ones.”
A mortal who is unaware of causality is constantly afflicted, he will create bad causes and suffer from bad effects. After suffering, more affliction arises in him, and he then creates more bad karma and suffers more again. Such a pattern repeats itself, making him endlessly transmigrate in the suffering sea of samsara.
4. Good And Evil Karma Do Not Offset Each Other
In our world, we often say, “The merits offset the faults”— but this is not true with the law of causality. To do goodness is planting good seeds in our hearts; this is “good cause.” To do evilness is planting evil seeds in our hearts; this is “evil cause.” Good seeds and evil seeds cannot offset each other. When all conditions are in place, each will have its own effect.
Although good and evil cannot offset each other, they will affect each other. Doing good deeds and planting good causes now is an “assisting condition” to the previous good karma that you had planted; it will increase its effect. And it will also work as a “buffering condition” to the previous bad karma, weakening its effect.
So after your good deeds, if you continue to do good, your previous good causes will receive more and more “assisting conditions.” They will become more and more powerful, and the good effects you receive will become better and stronger. Just like “Xi Ci” Chapter in The Book of Changes (I Ching) denotes:
One will not achieve prestige
if he has not accumulated ample goodness.
A Grave Sin Can Be Given Light Retribution
Only by accumulating good deeds continuously can a good reputation be realized. Relatively, after doing evil deeds, if you repent and diligently do good deeds, the power of your bad seeds will be weakened little by little, and the evil retribution you receive will be lessened. This is “a grave sin is given light retribution.”
There is a very well-known example in history about Master Xuan Zang*, which perfectly interprets this concept. Master Xuan Zang became ill shortly before his death. He suspected that his ailment had something to do with possible mistakes in his translation of Buddhist sutras. That night, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva came to his dream, telling him that it was a lightened retribution for his past lives' grave sins; much of the grave karma that he had committed in past lives was eliminated
through this one disease due to the merit he had planted by translating Buddhist sutras.
On the other hand, the current evil karma you are creating is an “assisting condition” to the evil seeds of the past, it will strengthen the influences of the evil seeds and weaken the effect of the good seeds that you planted in the past, becoming an obstacle in your life.
So after you create evil karma, if you continue to do bad deeds, your previous bad karma will receive more and more assisting-conditions; their power will become stronger and stronger until it reaches what we call “wickedness to the fullest” and finally results in irreversible evil retribution in the future. According to the “Xi Ci” Chapter in The Book of Changes (I Ching):
One will not perish if he does not accumulate evil.
Only by continuing to accumulate evilness
will he cause self-destruction.
Relatively, after doing good deeds, if you then do a lot of bad deeds, the strength of those good seeds will also be weakened, and the good effects that you receive will become weaker.
*Master Xuan Zang, 602–664, Tang Dynasty, was one of the greatest translators in Chinese Buddhism history. He went on a pilgrimage to India between the ages of twenty-eight to forty-three and brought back to China a massive number of Buddhist sutras. Then he spent the rest of his life translating them into Chinese, which had a great impact on Chinese Buddhism and society. Under Emperor Tang Tai Zong's request, he recalled his journey. It was written down by his disciple and became the book of The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. This book has become an important historical document about ancient India. One of the four greatest Chinese novels, The Journey to the West, is based on his story.
Reincarnation: Difficult to Elevate, Easy to Fall
A book titled The Statistics of Historic Stories in Causality tells us that quite a few practitioners in their previous lives had achieved great success. Unfortunately, their achievement was not as good in the following life. This indicates to us that it is difficult to elevate, but to fall downwards is extremely easy. The statistics generated from the stories of the book mentioned above offer us an inference that the horror of the six realms of reincarnation and the relationship between good and evil karmas are indeed worth contemplation.
In fact, the rules of causality are extremely intricate. It is not something that can be explained in just a few words. Even bodhisattvas and arhats* have no way to understand it fully. Only Buddhas can.
*Arhat is a Sanskrit word for one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved nirvana. Mahayana Buddhist traditions have used this term for people who advance far along the path of Enlightenment but have not reached full Buddhahood.
5. Causality Is Not Illusive, Karma Will not Be Undermined
Even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas,
the karma created will not vanish;
when the conditions are in place,
the effects will come back upon you.
The seeds of good and evil that we have planted will fall into the fields of our alaya consciousness. Alaya-vijnana* is like a vast warehouse where the karmic seeds are stored. They will
never be lost and will never deteriorate. How troublesome this is!
These seeds have become karmic causes. Even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas, when a long time has passed, once the appropriate conditions are in place, these karmic seeds still manifest their effects, and you will receive the effects. You must wait for the retribution to take effect, because only then can this karma be resolved.
Therefore, as long as we are still within the six realms of reincarnation, we can never escape the cause and effect of our karma. That is why only deluded and bewildered people dare to create bad karma. Awakened bodhisattvas will absolutely not dare to create bad karma, because they understand that the retribution of causality is exceedingly exact.
*The alaya-vijnana is the foundation or basis of all consciousness, and it contains impressions of all of our past actions. These impressions become “seeds” in our consciousness, and from these seeds, our thoughts, opinions, desires, and attachments grow.
Can a Buddha Evade the Universal Rule of Causality?
Even after you become a Buddha, you will still receive the retribution of the evil karma that you had created. Shakyamuni Buddha, in His later years, had severe back pain. The pain came from his bad karma in a past life long ago when he was a wrestler. Having been deceived by his opponent twice, he held a grudge in his heart. In one match, he broke his opponent's spine and causing his death.
The extremely vicious deed also resulted in his own life span being shortened, so he died young. Upon death, he fell into hell and endured extreme suffering. After he left hell, he still had the painful “remainder-retribution” for his terrible deed, and when he was back in the human realm, he always had the residual impact of back pain for lifetimes. Even kalpas later, during the lifetime when He became the Buddha, this remainder-retribution was not yet completely resolved, and He still had to suffer the effect of back pain.
The Buddha also demonstrated retribution from other bad causes. His feet were stabbed by splinters from wood chips, which was the remainder-retribution from a previous life when he had used spears to stab other people's feet.
On another occasion, during a three-month summer retreat, the Buddha could only eat the grains meant for feeding horses because the food supply had run dry. That was because, in a past life during the era of Vipassi Buddha, he was a heretic leader; due to his jealousy of Vipassi Buddha receiving people's offerings, he criticized that the Buddha only deserved to eat horse food. The remainder retribution of this verbal karma caused Shakyamuni Buddha to eat horse food for three months
in His life.
When King Virudhaka of Kosala tried to obliterate Shakyamuni Buddha's clan, the Buddha successfully
stopped the king's attacks three times but was still unable to change the doomed, disastrous karma of His family. At that time, the Buddha had a headache for three days, because in a past life he had used a stick to beat the head of a big fish three times.
All these tell us that the universal rule of cause and effect is not a falsehood, and even a Buddha cannot avoid it.
Can Sukhāvatī Rebirth Shield Us from Causality?
What about Pure Land practitioners who are reborn in Sukhavati, the Pure Land of the Ultimate Bliss? Does it mean that after being born into Sukhavati, you no longer owe a debt, even if you previously killed someone? Does it mean that you can now avoid paying back your debt?
No, absolutely not!
The effects from a heavy sin may be lightened,
but they can never remain unresolved!
Sukhavati is a very good environment for us to cultivate. It provides us unlimited time to cultivate until we become a Buddha. Amitabha allows us to postpone receiving our bad retribution, but nowhere does the sutra say that our bad karma can be erased — that would be impossible!
Even after we become a Buddha in Sukhavati, when we go to other worlds to liberate all beings, we will still have to deal with the bad effects when our evil karma matures. But by that time, you would have become a Buddha and have crystal clear insight into the retribution of causality. Your heart would remain still as thusness (referring to noumenon, self-nature, true heart, truth, Buddha nature, Dharma body, etc.), you would be liberated and at ease; you would not feel suffering or affliction from the retribution.
As Pure Land practitioners, we also have to eradicate evilness and practice goodness earnestly. Do not have the misconception of thinking that we can have our own way and fear nothing since we have Sukhavati and Amitabha Buddha to rely on. If you become idle and commit bad karma, you will suffer
enormous retribution in the future! Because the law of causality is the universal truth; it is the law by which the universe runs. This truth is not far away; it happens right here in our daily lives. But,
He who does not believe in causality
cannot see the causal phenomenon happening around him.
Once he understands the rules and believes in this truth,
he will notice that the retribution of cause and effect
occurs in everything around him.
Everything is correlated with the rule of cause and effect.
In conclusion, the education of causality can save people's hearts from depravity. The theory of causality is profound and vast. The above is merely a fundamental introduction to the law of cause and effect. Hopefully, it can help everybody understand the basic concept.
related post: Afternote～The Method Of Reciting Amitabha
Source Of Information:
《The Scientific Proof Of Causal Reincarnation》, by Dr. Zhong Maosen (Venerable Ding Hong), translated by Mahayana Pureland Team, published by Mahayana Pureland Organization, distributed by: Persatuan Penganut Agama Buddha Amitabha Malaysia, 90 & 92, Jalan Pahang, Gombak, 53000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.)
*** The information provided above does not contain personal opinion of this blog.
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