Chapter 4: Understand the goodness and evil at the same time

(Chapter 4) A Brief Talk about The Scripture of Forty-Two Chapters Said by Buddha

Co-translators in the time of Eastern Han Dynasty, China(A.D. 25 - 200) : Kasyapa Matanga and Zhu Falan (Who translated the said Scripture from Sanskrit into Chinese. )

Translator in modern time (A.D.2018: Tao Qing Hsu (Who translated the said Scripture from Chinese into English.)

Teacher and writer for explaining the said Scripture: Tao Qing Hsu

Chapter 4: Understand the goodness and evil at the same time

The Buddha said, “For sentient beings, there are ten things as goodness and ten things as evil. What are the ten things? Three pertain to the body, four to the mouth, and three to the mind. Killing, stealing, and evil sex pertain to the body. Two tongues, malicious speech, lie, and frivolous speech pertain to the mouth. Envy, hatred, and infatuation pertain to the mind. Such ten things are named as ten evil deeds when not following the holy path. If such evils are stopped, they are named as ten virtuous deeds.”

As a human with the physical and mental body, we can do the evil thing, and we can do the good thing. No matter the evil or good thing, we can choose what we want to do. What we have chosen is the basic cause to affect the result of our life.

The invisible Spirit with higher wisdom and virtue is called bright Spirit, who is indeed to exist in our daily life, being beside or behind every one, to record the good deed or evil deed of every one. No matter we are a king or a beggar, the bright Spirit is always there with us.

Unfortunately, most people do not believe such thing, and some of them ignorantly do the evil thing with no shame. I tell a story to you. I am deeply moved by this story when I have learned the Buddha for more than three years.

There is a Bhikkhu who moves and takes a walk complying with the practice of scripture along the poolside of lotus in the forest. He smells the aroma of lotus, feels joyful, and likes it very much. The lotus-pool spirit tells him,” Why you abandon the seat with clean Zen under the forest but steal the aroma of my lotus? All of the annoyance is arisen because of attaching the aroma.”

 

Then, the Bhikkhu sees a man who goes into the pool of lotus, picks a lot of lotuses, and leaves the pool of lotus after trampling and ruining it. The lotus-pool spirit keeps silence without talking.  

 

The Bhikkhu says to the spirit of lotus pool,” This person has spoiled your pool of lotus and takes your flowers. You do not say anything. I just walk along the poolside and you scold me that I steal your aroma.”

 

The lotus-pool spirit says,” An evil person of world is often in the dirty droppings of sin, without clean and without brain. I do not talk with him. You are a good person with the practice of Zen. However, you have broken your good behavior because of obsessing the aroma. That is why I scold you. Such as a black-dirty thing on a clean-white cloth, people would see it and try to clean it. An evil person is such as black ink sprinkled on black clothes, which cannot be seen by people, and who would care and ask about this person?”

This story advise us that it is a good thing and lucky that someone would remind us about our shortcoming. Only when someone cares about us, it would spend its time and energy to criticize us.

   

There are a lot of people who are atheist. Even though they are atheist, it doesn’t mean that they would do the evil thing. Unfortunately, some of the people who are atheist have done the evil things, but they do not think that they do the evil things, such as to bully others. Would the bright Spirit tell them not to do the evil things? As we know from the aforesaid story, it wouldn't. But, I tell you a secret. By many ways, such as Buddhism, the bright Spirit has taught people not to do the evil things. Unfortunately, some of people still do not believe it. 

There is a saying,”Put down the butcher’s knife and stand on the ground to become the Buddha.” It is to advise people not to do the killing, and not to collect the evil karma. Once give up the mind of killing, the mind would be transformed to be the heart of Buddha immediately. 

I tell you a story about stealing. This story impressed me and moved me a lot. 

There was a Buddhist monk who was very poor and lived in a small temple on a mountain. At midnight one day, a thief sneaked into this temple, looked around in everywhere, and could not find any worth. Finally, he had to but stole the clothes of the Buddhist monk and thought to sell it for getting some money. When he prepared to go out, he ran into the Buddhist monk.

The Buddhist monk had seen his clothes in the hand of thief. The Buddhist monk knew that this person was a thief, and he might become a thief because of some hardship in life. So he did not scold him. On the contrary, he told the thief that he is willing to give the clothes to him, and told him that he did not steal his clothes because the clothes was given by the Buddhist monk.

The thief was very moved and felt shame. The Buddhist monk looked at the thief’s back to leave. Then, the Buddhist monk looked at the full moon and said,” I really hoped to give the bright-clean moon to him at the same time.”

After few months, the thief came to the temple and knelt before the face of the Buddhist monk, to repent his fault, to ask for the forgiving by the Buddhist monk, and to ask for the Buddhist monk to recruit him as a disciple. The Buddhist monk had felt his sincerity and finally accepted his repent and agreed to accept him as his disciple.

Evil sex is involved in lewdness, unusual sexual acts, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and sexual violence. Extending the meaning of evil sex is included homosexual love and the sexual relationship outside the husband and wife.

Homosexual love has already existed since the ancient time. In the Chinese article at the ancient time, it has ever been mentioned. In the modern time, homosexual love is always the controversial social issue. According to my knowledge from the scripture of Buddha, the Buddha does not agree to the homosexual love. No matter we are the homosexual love or not, no indulging in the love and desire is the right thing.

In the viewpoints of Buddhism, after dying of doing the evil sex, the retribution of doing the evil sex is in the animal path, such as to be the bird, pig, camel or donkey, not in the human path. It means that being the animals are foolish and ignorant, and they would have rare chance to hear the teaching of Buddha. 

“Two tongues” means that someone instigates something on purpose in order to alienate and spoil the harmony relationship of two persons or a group by the vicious remark, and thus causes the suspicious of each other or the un-peace of a group.

“Malicious speech” exists in our daily life, such as to bully others by words or to curse people, which we can find that in the community of Internet or in the response to the news or articles on Internet. We also can find some malicious speech in newspaper or in some post on social media, which is in specific position, especially, in political consciousness or political purpose. In the country of free speech, any malicious speech is tolerated, even if it’s not like malicious speech.

Why people have the malicious speech? If we think it deeply, we can find that those who have the malicious speech are the ignorant person and self-fear in mind. In fact, they are pitiful and foolish. But, do we have thought how we help them not to do such stupid thing? Do you know? Some of them are in the high education and position and their malicious speech is very “elegant” and seems very “reasonable.” What a pitiful is that a lot of people who are in the high education and position are also persuaded by the malicious speech. This kind of harm and disaster to the whole world is more beyond the personal bully.

You know that the evils would back to the evildoers.

In the Chapter 7 of this scripture: the Buddha said,” Someone heard that I obey the Dao and put the grand benevolence into practice, so to scold the Buddha. The Buddha keeps silence, doesn’t respond to him, while the rebuke stopped, and asks: if you bring a gift to someone, who doesn’t accept it, does the gift return to you?” A disciple replies:” It would be returned.” The Buddha said,” Today you scold me, I do not accept it. You have disasters by yourself to let them return to you! Such as an echo responds to a sound, a shadow follows a shape, it is finally unable to be avoided and departed. Be cautious not to do the evils.”

What a surprise me is that those who tells a lie have the higher education and position, and their motive is to protect their own personal advantage in life and in position. Sometimes we can find that these persons who tell a lie are no different from the poor who tells a lie. And we also have found that these persons usually fall down badly from the top of their good life and good career.

According to the research for the character of the global leader from the ancient time to the modern time, honesty and not to tell a lie is one of the qualities of a good leader. In the Business, we can find that the quality of the billionaire boss or leader is honesty. If they dare to deceive the client or consumer, how could it be possible for them to be the Billionaire? So the thinking and our attitude would decide whether we are a rich or a poor.

What is the meaning of the frivolous speech? Mostly, it means that someone speaks of something without using its brain and the content of spoken is no advantage for people’s life. Furthermore, it is also means that someone uses the sweet words or rhetoric to deceive or lure people in order to achieve its personal purpose or advantage.

Most people would meet the frivolous speech at least one time in the whole life. The lucky people would leave with no harm. However, a lot of people might be harmed in physical or mental body, or the lost in wealth.

Then, we might have a question. Why those people want to do the frivolous speech? It is also related to the following three evil deeds, and the greedy mind. If people are due to the mind of envy or hatred, they might use the frivolous speech to destroy the counterpart. If people are due to the mind of infatuation or greedy, they might use the frivolous speech to achieve their personal purpose or advantage. 

Now, to think about it, are we the people who do the frivolous speech or the people who is harmed by the frivolous speech? No matter which one we are, it is pitiful. But, if we are the people who are harmed by the frivolous speech, let us be strong in heart now, and forgive those pitiful people as possible as we can.

As the aforesaid, the mind of envy, hatred and infatuation, would cause the harm to the people. And finally the disaster would back to itself. About the mind of envy, the story of Snow White is impressed me.

If such ten evils are stopped, they are named as ten virtuous deeds. In Buddhism, to do the ten evils would collect the evil karma and go to the path of hell, hungry ghost and animal after dying. To stop doing the ten evils would collect the good karma and go to the heaven after dying. As we know, there is the retribution in present life. Of course, there is the good repay in present life if we collect the good karma.