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Making Efforts on All Four Fronts To Pay the Bills 2013-01-10
A talk given by DM Heng Jyun
English Translation By Genglin Zheng
Afterwards my brother asked me how I felt about her. I said, “A left home person cannot tell people whether it is good to get married, but you are my brother and I can only tell you this: you are her best choice, but she is your worst choice.” As expected, a month into marriage, this woman began to threaten suicide because she was not able to lead a normal family life. They thought that she had certain illness that would prevent her from getting pregnant, but she got pregnant after they married. Four, five months into pregnancy, she wanted to get abortion because she was afraid that her illness might cause deformity in the baby. My brother called me up, he did not know what to do. In the hope to resolve the unborn child’s bad karma and help with its safe birth, I recited three times 《The Dharani Sutra of the Buddha on Longevity, the Extinction of Offences, and the Protection of Young Children》.
The baby boy was eventually smoothly delivered. He was cute, and admirable. He has blissful looks. 《The Dharani Sutra of the Buddha on Longevity, the Extinction of Offences, and the Protection of Young Children》 has resolved the bad karma of the mother and baby. Many people recite this sutra for aborted fetus or children died young. In fact, people can recite it for longevity and extinction of offences. People can also recite it often to ease their worry for their children’s safety.
Some people say, “We have done a great deal of deliverance, and have done many good deeds, the situation not only did not improve, it deteriorated!” Those people saw only the present moment, they did not look far. This person in question was to suffer for many years. Today you delivered him , you did good deeds for him, even though he is still suffering in the sick bed, but invisibly, the long-term suffering is being changed into short-term suffering, his length of suffering has been shortened. Some people say, “Why the trouble to write Plagues? Look at the Dharma Masters, they themselves got sick, they see doctors, too. If Plagues are useful, would they even get sick?” This girl that is interpreting for me, when she was young, once when her mother took us to see the doctor, she asked her mother, “Mom, is it true that reciting ‘Amitofo’ would make everything better? Then why don’t the dharma masters go ahead to recite Amitofo instead of seeing the doctors?” What would you say if you were the girl’s mother?
Once a doctor said, “Master! I usually felt accomplished in healing my patients. But when I see you left home people, I felt incapacitated, because the majority of your illness is due to karma. I exhausted my efforts, but the progress comes back and forth. It either gets better one day then worse on another day; or else the old ailment is just healed when a new ailment pops up.” In fact, because we have accrued a little bit of merit and virtues, the bill from past karmas comes to us sooner than in the case of other people. Karmas are as deep as the seas. If one hopes to lessen heavy offenses, to undo feud, and to relieve resentment, then aside from seeing the doctor, one should make efforts in all four of these deeds: repentance, cultivation, deliverance, and good deeds. By means of merits from cultivation and sincere repentance, one may hope to obtain the aid for a cure, to lessen heavy offenses, and to resolve calamities and sickness.
He said, “I am in the Buddha Hall from morning till night, I have accrued credits from recitations every day, why would I still need to write plagues? My family members do not practice Buddhism, nor do they practice vegetarianism, they have deep karmas, I need to write plagues for them!” Someone, with good intensions, set up plagues for family and friends; what about himself? “I bow my repentance with everyone else; I need not write my own plagues.” I told him, “Everyone has his own bills to pay; no one else will pay your bills! Even in your next life, these bills will still be yours; the number will only increase instead of decreasing. Now that your karmic creditors see that you had money to do good deeds and to perform deliverance for other people, what do you think he would do? He would mess up your cultivation ----you would feel afflicted as you bow and repent; you might even feel like crying or sleeping while you are in the Buddha Hall.” His Highness Venerable Master Xuan Hua told us not to fight our debts and not paying them back. So don’t you forget your own bills. If you don’t pay them, who else would?
To seek rebirth in the pure land, people should perfect “wholesome roots, blessings and virtues, and the cause and condition” . If we have few karma, at the end of the life, it’s easier to go through the pass of “death”. Otherwise, all kinds of karmas will come up, causing unbearable pains. By then, the hope for rebirth in the pure land becomes one that is far from the possibility of being realized. The methods to pay the bills, according to my shallow opinion, is to “write with all four pieces of pens at the same time”, that is to make efforts on all four fronts: First, with a reverently repentant heart ---- to truly recognize one’s own faults and to remember to cultivate proper dharma (reciting Buddha’s name, reciting sutras, reciting mantras, bowing repentances, and meditation), to practice vegetarianism , and to liberate lives. Secondly, with a cultivator’s heart ---- to resolve to cultivate, to not forget to stay modest and self-motivated, to respect teachers and to be mindful of the way so that the arrogant wisdom would not arise, nor would one get into the state of an arrogant demon. Thirdly, with a salvation heart ---- to deliver karmas and obstacles, to not forget to take precepts as teachers, and to not incur bad karmas one after another. Fourthly, with a heart to cultivate merits and virtues --to do good deeds and practice giving, to remember to cultivate wisdom and virtue, to not be blind to cause, effect, and retributions. May I offer above to all and let us stay motivated.
Amitofo!
