真心誠意X手繪工坊 Since 2013

Ghosts of Revenge and Reward - Buddhist Stories by Ven. Master Miao Lien

The teachings of the Buddha do not omit any truths. When one cultivates goodness, one may only gain one merit for one good

deed, two for two. However, if one wants to gain ten good effects from a single good cause or hundreds of effects from ten good causes, it must be done with pure motives. This is the only way to gain great merits. Nevertheless, one still needs extraordinary

conditions, for without such conditions, one cannot possibly obtain many merits by doing only one good deed.

This reminds me of an incident that happened in my hometown about fifty years ago, when I was still very young. There was an elderly Buddhist practitioner who attended the same seven-day chanting retreat that I did, and after the retreat he kindly invited me

to have dinner with him in his home. After our delicious vegetarian meal we began to chat. I had noticed a beautiful Buddhist shrine that

he had set up in his house, and remarked that he was very fortunate to be able to practice Buddhism in his home as well as at the temple during our seven-day retreat.

"Oh," he replied sadly, "Although I wish to, I can't practice at home anymore." "But you have made such a beautiful shrine!" I exclaimed.

"And you are still single, living here quietly all by yourself! You have wonderful conditions to cultivate as much as you like!"

"No, it just doesn't work," he whispered. "I can't practice here at all."

I could see how troubled he was, and persistently asked him why he could not practice at home. Finally, he told me a story that he had kept secret for over ten years. He told me that whenever he paid respect to the Buddha or recited a Sutra, a ghost would appear to disturb him. This ghost was not invisible, because the old practitioner could clearly see it. It stood about a head taller than the table where the old man usually laid the Sutra he was going to recite. Whenever he opened the Sutra to begin chanting, the ghost immediately flipped it closed again, and with a frightening voice shouted, "Do not recite!" And that was not all, for whenever the old man prostrated before the Buddha, the ghost would unfasten the ties of his Buddhist robe and yell, "Do not prostrate!"

He also told me that sometimes when he eats, a plump red shrimp magically appears in his bowl! "Of course, I am a vegetarian," he said, "but when I eat, I often find that red shrimp mixed up with the rice in

my bowl!"

"Well, what do you do then?" I asked.

"I just pick it out and throw it away whenever I see it,"

complained the elderly practitioner, "but it just ruins the purity of my vegetarian meal. I think it must be put there by that same ghost, the one that interferes with my Buddhist practice."

The old fellow then went on to say, however, that he was regularly visite by yet another ghost, this time during the sixth-month mosquito season. Our hometown was particularly infested by mosquitoes during that season, but whenever the old man went to sleep, he was never bitten by even a single mosquito. Why? Because once he fell asleep, that other ghost would appear and fend the mosquitoes off!

When the elderly practitioner asked my

opinion about those two apparitions, I explained that one of the ghosts was probably there to seek revenge, while

the other most likely came out of gratitude, to repay him for some past good deed. I explained the situation to him that way, because a ghost that disturbs a person who is prostrating to the Buddha or reciting a Sutra, and tries to foul up his pure vegetarian meal, must be trying to harm that person, and would only do so because that person had harmed the ghost in a previous lifetime. The other ghost, however, the one that drove the mosquitoes away, was certainly doing the old man a kindness, and that could only be because the elderly oractitioner had done a good deed for that ghost in one of its previous lives.

After telling him my opinions about the vengeful and the grateful

ghosts, I said to him, "Rather than talking to me about those two ghosts, why not ask the ghosts themselves what is going on?" That

night, the old man took my advice.

He had invited me over to help him deal with the two ghosts. At night fall, we were sitting on opposite sides of a table in the shrine and reciting Sutras when the old man suddenly whispered to me,

"Master, do you see the ghost?"

" Where?I don't see it! Where is it?"I replied. It turned out that only the old man could actually see the ghost.

"He's right by the doorway, but he's not coming in," observed the old man.

I asked the old man why the ghost wasn't entering, but he did not have an answer. He was just as bewildered as me, because normally the ghost would stare at him from the side of the table when he recited Sutras there.

Later that night, the ghost entered the old man's bedroom and angrily said to him, "There is a Buddhist Master in this house ! Tell him to get out!"

The old devotee replied, "How can I ask him to leave in this snowy weather? He's sleeping in the other room; if you want him to leave so

badly, why don't you go ask him yourself?"

"Oh, but l'm scared to," admitted the ghost. "If I dared to go into his room, I would have done so long ago and kicked him out."

Then, the old man politely asked the ghost,

"Why do you always come to disturb me

when I try to read the Sutras?"

The vengeful ghost replied bitterly, saying, "It's because you interfered with me in a previous life! You disrupted me when I tried to practice Buddhism, when I tried to recite the Sutras, and when I tried to prostrate before the Buddha! You even obstructed me from becoming a monk. You created barriers for me then. I was not able to eliminate my sins, and could not free myself from the cycle of

birth and death. Therefore, I have suffered ever since, wandering as an angry ghost, and I will have my revenge!" And the poor ghost screamed as it faded away back into the dark wintry night.

So I said to the old practitioner, "Since the ghost is definitely here to seek revenge, we must find a way to disentangle him from the chains of hatred. You must transter some merits to it! And you must repent

sincerely for the wrongs you did in that previous life, and apologize to the ghost for the harm your bad actions caused him! Accrue merits on his behalf so as to help him transcend his suffering. You have

already hindered him in the past; don't further deepen that enmity, but try to dissolve it!" And that was my advice to the old man.

But what about that other ghost, the one that came to help the old man by keeping the

nosquitoes away?

The story was that many years before, when the elderly practitioner was twenty years old or so, his family was quite affluent. One day, the young man had several hundred dollars on him which he was going to do some business with. In today's currency, that amount of cash would be quite a substantial sum! Now, as he was walking down the street, he came upon two women crying. It was an old woman and her daughter-in-law. They were crying so miserably that his heart was moved, and he stopped and asked them, "Why are you two crying so sadly? What is making you suffer so much?"

"Oh, my son left us more than ten years ago to do some business,"

cried the old lady through her sobs, "and he has not sent any word since, and we are not even sure whether he is dead or alive! Now, my daughter-in-law and I can no longer support ourselves, and we will starve to death if my daughter-in-law does not marry again soon!"

And the two women clung together, sobbing even louder than before.

In fact, the daughter-in-law did not want to leave her beloved mother-in-law all by herself. If she did not get married again, they would both starve, but if she did remarry and get enough money to support them both, they would never be able to live together again.

So the old lady sobbed, "If we get the money, losing my daughter-in-law is the price I will have to pay!" And the younger woman wept

bitterly, "If I get married again, I will never see my beloved mother-in-law again!" Life was like that in those days.

So the two women hugged each other and cried inconsolably.

When the young Buddhist devotee realized the situatation, he immediately took all his money from his pocket, and gave it to the two women. He did not hold back even a single penny for his own use! With that money, the daughter-in-law did not need to remarry.

It turned out this helpful ghost was the father-in-law of that despairing girl. He came to keep away the mosquitos from the old man to repay the old man's past kindliness towards his family. After hearing this story, I told the old man to simply ask him to leave, and so the ghost did.

These stories really happened, I was a first-hand witness. I am telling it to you all today, so that you can better understand

the idea of cause and effect. It is definite and clear-cut: "Good deeds bring good fortune, while bad deeds yield only retribution !" So we must do only good deeds and not hinder others.

These days, many people ask if ghosts really exist, and of course they do! In Buddhism we speak of the Six Paths of Rebirth, and the world of ghosts is one of them. In the countryside where I came from, it is very common to hear about ghostly encounters. Some elders can even hear ghosts crying out that someone is going to die, and then someone actually dies a few days later. It is such a common occurrence that people gossip about it over their lunches!

When we examine cause and effect in this material world, we can see that a single good cause yields only a single good effect. No matter what kind of good deed you perform in this world, the benefit you enjoy from it is over very fast. That is because it is an imperfect cause and effect relationship. On the other hand, when we talk about cause

and effect in Buddhadharma, millions of merits are gained by a single good act. And what kind of act would that be? It is just the recitaion of Amitabha Buddha's name, because the name of Amitabha Buddha

in itself embodies millions of merits!

A good analogy of this is the taking of a multi-vitamin pill: just as taking a multi-vitamin tablet can supplement the nutrition that your body lacks and bring you good health, reciting the holy name of Amitabha Buddha will free you of karmic obstacles, give you the merits and wisdom that you would otherwise lack, and end your cycle of birth and death. With a rightful Bodhi mind, your recitation of the Buddha's name can even lead you into Buddhahood and save countless other sentient beings.

This is what we mean by accruing millions of merits by one act of goodness. So I say to all of you in this audience today, if you have

an opportunity to perform that supreme good deed, chanting the Amitabha Buddha's holy name, then please seize that chance and

begin to practice!

What I have said here are facts. Only those who do not believe in cause and effect will say that there are no ghosts, and that when life ends there is nothing thereafter. These are wrong-headed opinions, so do not believe them. Will ghosts cease to exist just because

ignorant people say they don't? Will there be no law of cause and effect just because someone doesn't believe in it? Of course

not! The Law of Cause and Effect is there whether you believe in it or not.

Bless you all! Practice hard, be reborn in the Western Pure Land and accomplish Buddhahood!