Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Good Thoughts Can Eliminate All Evil; Evil Thoughts Can Eliminate All Good (心善諸惡滅 心惡善亦滅)
Previously we discussed the Three Poisons. They arise from thoughts and lead to physical actions. Thoughts of greed, anger and ignorance emerge from our minds. Then we create the Seven Branches, 4 of speech, 3 of body. If we do not discipline our minds, we will easily speak harshly, lie, flatter and gossip. These transgressions are easily committed.
The Negative Karma of the Seven Branches.
Body: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct.
Speech: Harsh words, lies, flattery, gossip.
Every time we speak we create karma, even if it is just a casual remark. We might have encountered afflictions which, with the help of circumstances, we were able to resolve. But when we hear something in passing, it stirs up those afflictions again. As we interact with people and things, we continuously incubate those afflictions, so they grow worse, until they weaken or destroy our will to practice.
Sometimes a very small matter, a casual remark, can stop or impair someone’s spiritual practice. So shouldn’t we be careful with what we say? We must be more mindful and speak cautiously. If we are not mindful and are used to creating karma with speech, we may unwittingly cause serious problems. Thus, it is easiest to create negative karma with speech. So we must really pay attention when we speak.
When we commit the four wrongs of speech, not only do we damage blessings & lose virtue, it is hard for the mind to resonate with practice. If we constantly observe our thoughts and restrain our speech, then our minds will be filled with right thoughts and purity.
Why do certain monasteries forbid speech? That practice trains us not to respond so impulsively. Typically we react immediately to what we see or hear. When we hear something, we must be mindful instead of responding, remain silent and carefully contemplate the validity of what we hear. When we hear what others say, we must remain levelheaded and calmly analyze the effects of these words. This is a method of spiritual practice.
When we see others behavior or demeanor, we need to train our minds; we must be patient. We must patiently, mindfully observe. We must patiently, mindfully listen. Whether it is right or wrong, we should be patient. Then we will not respond impulsively. If we react too quickly, we can never take those words back and we may regret it deeply. Therefore some monasteries forbid speech during seven-day retreats, so the focus is on chanting, not speaking. This trains our speech as well as our minds. Do we react impulsively when we listen to others? Do we get angry when we see someone we dislike? Let us examine our minds. Observing silence teaches us to calm down and contemplate whether we may respond impulsively when we hear such things. We must train ourselves to not immediately react and speak out under the influence of our emotions. When we are emotional, we speak with no regard to consequences.
We must be responsible for what we say. For instance, every sutra begins with. “Thus have I heard.” This is Ananda taking responsibility and saying, “This is what I, Ananda, have heard Buddha say at such-and-such a place to such-and-such a person.” This is taking responsibility. Since we are learning Buddhism, we must speak responsibly. We cannot speak impulsively and unintentionally. We often hear others say things like, “I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just something I said. Why did he take it so seriously?” See, these words remain in another person’s heart and become poisonous. You may have said it without any ill intention, but once they left your mouth, those words became poison.
Nowadays, we often hear children recite “Jing Si Aphorisms” such as, “Good words are like lotus flowers. Bad words are like poisonous snakes.” Poisonous snakes symbolize toxins and evil. Sometimes even a word spoken lightly can be very evil and poisonous. We may not mean anything by those words, we may say them intentionally or unintentionally, but others will apply meaning to them. So, we create karma with 4 kinds of speech: harsh words, lies, flattery and gossip.
We must be very careful of the actions of killing, stealing & sexual misconduct, which also originate from our thoughts. If we have lustful thoughts, no matter what those thoughts are, it is the body that creates the wrongdoing. Many families and lives are shaped by lust and desire. Some people insist on getting married despite a history of genetic diseases. We often read about hereditary diseases, such as Ankylosing Spondylitis, which causes inflammation of the spine. Some mental disorders are also hereditary. Today’s studies of genetics have discovered many hereditary diseases. Some people know that they have these illnesses, but they still get married. This is the karma of sentient beings. People know these diseases are hereditary, yet they still get married.
Old veterans who moved to Taiwan from China, wished to have children to pass on the family name. So many of them married women who were mentally challenged or mentally ill. As a result, their children inherited those disorders. Among the families we care for is a group of retired veterans near Shoufeng. The government provided them with farm land after they retired from the military. But they were pretty old when they retired and the land given to them was mostly newly reclaimed land near the river bank that was not ideal for farming. The government gave them each some of this land to farm.
However, the veterans felt that living alone after they retired was boring, and they were also getting old. Now that they had land, they wished to marry and have children, so someone would take care of them in their old age and also farm their land. With meager retirement benefits, they asked people to find them someone poor or someone whose parents were eager to marry her off, and thus have one less mouth to feed.
The arrangement worked for both sides. On one side, the parents wanted to marry off the daughter. On the other, the veterans wanted someone to bear their children and continue the family name. They did not mind if the woman was mentally challenged. Since they lived in a rural area and had land, as long as she could eat, work and bear children that was good enough. Thus, many veterans married mentally-challenged women.
There was one mother who did not even realize that she was about to give birth. She was wandering in the streets when she suddenly went into labor and gave birth. She did not understand what was happening. When others saw her, they quickly told her husband and immediately brought her home with the baby’s umbilical cord still uncut. She ended up having 2 or 3 children. The children were also mentally challenged. The wife wandered in the streets all the time and her husband could not farm, because he was continuously chasing after his wife with the children on his back or in his arms.
This was one case we encountered. We began caring for them. Eventually, we sent the wife to a home for the mentally challenged in Yuli. Later, whenever we distributed aid, we saw him with his children. He carried one on his back, pushed one in a cart and held another by the hand. We continued to help them until the children went to school. We cared for them for quite a long time. There are many similar stories among our charity cases.
This is all due to desires of the mind. Sexual desire and lust are difficult to cut off. If everyone in the family behaves themselves, the family is fine. But some married people have affairs. Sometimes the wife cheats, sometimes the husband cheats.
There was a news article about a once-happy family. The couple had only one child. This child used to be well-behaved and was among the top three in his class. But then somehow the husband encountered a farmer girlfriend from his bachelor days and old feelings were renewed. He started an affair with her. When his wife learned of this, she was very angry and wanted revenge. She thought, “Since you’re having an affair, I can do the same.” So she also got involved with another man. Thus their married fell apart. However, they had a child they both loved dearly. What could they do? For his sake and to keep the family intact, they led separate lives under the same roof. However, they no longer loved each other, so they argued and fought every day. Whenever the child returned from school, he could hear his parents arguing, yelling and throwing things, etc.
In the beginning, the child told them, “Can’t you stop fighting like this?” At first, he would ask them. Later, he would just lock himself in his room while the parents fought and threw things outside. Then things got worse. One day, he suddenly rushed out of his room and shouted at his parents, “I want both of you shut up!” The sudden change in their son’s attitude, when he angrily yelled at them and told them to shut up, completely stunned them. They actually stopped arguing. The child then said to his parents, “Stand there and don’t move. Both of you stand still. If you don’t, I will kill myself front of you.” The parents stayed silent and stood there. “Don’t move! I will kill myself in front of you.” That was the first time he said that, and it worked. So the child thought it was effective.
Sometimes, when he heard them fight, he would lock himself in his room. In the middle of the night, after his parents went to bed, he could not fall asleep. So he would get out of bed and wake his parents. “Get up, the two of you.” The parents obediently woke up and asked, “What’s wrong?” “Stand there as punishment.” So the parents had to stand up all night and could not go to bed. This started happening more and more often. If the child saw his parents move, he yelled and threw things.
Because they lived in an apartment, the neighbors could no longer tolerate this family. So they called the police. The police thought the child might be mentally ill so they sent him to a psychiatric hospital. There, a psychiatrist talked to the child, observed his behavior and tested him.
Then the psychiatrist talked to his parents. He concluded that the child was not mentally ill. He was going through a rebellious phase; he did not have a mental illness. His violent behavior was a form of teenage rebellion. It was the mother who was actually mentally ill. Every day, she was being tormented by her child and had to deal with her husband’s infidelity and her own affair, etc. So she had developed a severe case of depression.
You see, this was once a very peaceful family. But they did not take care of their minds. the results are really frightening!
Good and bad fortune in life is determined by the inclination of our thoughts. A good thought can eliminate all evil. An evil thought can eliminate all good.
Hence, the mind is the root of all evils. Ignorance and afflictions are the most toxic things. In our daily practice of Buddhism we must pay careful attention, so as not to allow the poisonous roots in our minds to become entangled. If this happens, we will definitely speak and act wrongly in our lives. So everyone, please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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