Chapter 7: Evils back to the evildoers

(Chapter 7) 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 7: Evils back to the evildoers

The Buddha said,” Someone heard that I obey the Dao and put the grand benevolence into practice so it scolds 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.” 

Recently, there is the news about the suicide to death of student. The reason of her suicide is because her classmate scolds her in the internet. There is also the news about the suicide to death of adult. The reason of his suicide is because many people scold him grave dereliction of duty in the internet. It is pity; they did not read this chapter. If they have read this chapter, their heart would be strong and never be affected by the scold in the internet.

There is a say,” When people scold others with one finger, the other four fingers are now toward themselves. “ It also means it is equal to scold themselves when people are scolding others.” There are a lot of negative emotions and words in the internet to respond to the news. It is like garbage and totally lack of constructiveness to the society or to the person.

When a low-level person rebukes us, then, we rebuke back and attack back to him. You know, at this moment we would find that we have lowered our level to be equal to the person who rebukes us. You see, the Buddha never did such stupid thing. On the contrary, he kept silence when a low-level person rebuked him.

Scold with evil heart to others is also bully, which could be happened in any where and in any age, including in family, in school, and in work place. You know, an ignorant person would easily scold others with evil heart. Usually, such person is inferiority and thus become arrogance so to scold others. In fact, they are pitiful person, if we know it.

If we are scolded by such person, and our heart is weak, we would be easy to be hurt, and then, might to harm ourselves, or to have the hatred heart to harm them or to attack them. The most worse is to vent our resentment to the innocent people. There is a research that those who bully others have ever been bullied in their past time. In such situation, no matter the scolder or the person being scold, or the innocent people are pitiful persons.

So, how to stop being the pitiful person? How to avoid being the innocent people? How to be a person with wisdom? As the mentioned above, first, to keep silence and don’t respond to them, when someone scold us with evil heart. Secondly, with our wisdom, compassion and knowledge, we would have the ability to help them be a good person.   

You see, the Buddha said, ”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.” Let those pitiful persons know these words. You know that there is no copyright for what the Buddha said. So, just feel free to quote it.    

As we have mentioned in the chapter 6, the Buddha said,” He came to do the evils, yet do the evils by oneself to itself.” It also means that such person could not avoid any disasters of retribution. So the Buddha said,”Be cautious not to do the evils.” From this, we could feel the Buddha’s compassion and wisdom.