Chapter 8: Saliva and dust defile oneself

( Chapter 8 ) 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 8: Saliva and dust defile oneself 

The Buddha said,” The vicious person harms the virtuous person, such as spitting the saliva toward the sky, the saliva doesn’t reach the sky, but falls to oneself; to scatter the dust in inversing wind, the dust doesn’t reach the other place, but being brought back to oneself. The virtue doesn’t be destroyed. The disaster absolutely ruins oneself.”  

This chapter is echoing to the chapter 6 and the chapter 7. We could find that if someone wants to humiliate others on purpose, it might spit the saliva toward the counterpart’s face, or toward the ground with the mind of contempt. Mostly, such person is self-arrogant and opinioned. But now, if people want to humiliate others, they use words or pictures on the internet. Such network bullying, it can be classified as mental violence to others. In the history, there always is the real violence, if the evil will of bullying people could not be contented, they use violence to compel others to obey their evil will.     

There is a saying.” Good horse is always ridden by people; good person is always bullied.” Some of the ignorant people think that the Buddha-learner is looked foolishly, and think that the Buddha-learner could not use the violence to kill people or to revenge; so, the evil person unscrupulously bully the Buddha-learner. Usually, the Buddha-learners would refrain themselves, endure the violence, and pity those evil persons, because the Buddha-learners obey the teaching of Buddha and put the Ten Virtues into practice.  

There is a highlight concept in Buddhism. That is, any person has to bear its own consequence of any retribution to themselves due to what they have done the evil thing. So, they have to bear the disasters coming from the nature or from the other persons.

The Buddha-learner, including the Buddhist monk or nun, would not revenge to the evil person, because it is well known that the evil person naturally deserve its own retribution. From the chapter 6, 7 and this chapter, you could find such concept.

Without hatred and revenge, it is one of the practices in learning Buddha. To have the mind of hatred is no light. It would let us do the stupid thing. On the contrary, to abolish the mind of hatred is light. It would give us the wisdom.  

Those who could have the opportunity to read these words said by Buddha are lucky and blissful. Now you have the wisdom. And the wisdom is the immeasurable treasure.   

The Buddha said,” The vicious person harms the virtuous person, such as spitting the saliva toward the sky, the saliva doesn’t reach the sky, but falls to oneself; to scatter the dust in inversing wind, the dust doesn’t reach the other place, but being brought back to oneself. The virtue doesn’t be destroyed. The disaster absolutely ruins oneself.” In a word, it means that to harm others is to harm ourselves; to humiliate others is to humiliate ourselves; to bully others is to bully ourselves; to rebuke others is to rebuke ourselves. It is easy to understand it.