Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Karma of Speech Is Hardest to Prevent (口業無門最難遮)
Of the Ten Evils, four are of speech. Karma of speech is the easiest to create. Once anger arises, we create karma of speech. Hatred and cursing lead to negative retributions. So, we should constantly be vigilant.
We often speak of the Ten Evils: three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. The body’s karma is from killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. We have discussed and repented these repeatedly.
Now, the next section will be discussing four types of karma, the karma of speech. There are four types of speech karma. The karma of the body is killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. Karma of speech includes lying, flattery, gossip and harsh words. So, of the Ten Evils, four are related to speech. The karma of mind is greed, anger and ignorance.
What karma does not arise from the mind? But of the karma which can be perceived by others, three kinds are related to conduct and four are related to speech. It is very easy to create karma with words. Simply by opening our mouth and moving our tongue we create karma.
This is because our hearts are often filled with anger or hatred. Once our anger is stirred up, we quickly create karma of negative speech.
Don’t we often hear people say that a certain person is always berating others? Once the words are spoken, they are heard by others. Immediately, those people react, so the anger in their hearts is quickly and reflexively expressed through speech. Once out of their mouths, the words quickly cause reactions in others. It will enter their hearts through their ears.
Words quickly transmit the unhappiness in our hearts. Once evil speech is spoken, it is heard by others, and their reaction comes out through their conduct. It is clear that karma of speech transmits confrontations, disagreements, and inappropriate thoughts in our interactions with others. So, we should be highly vigilant of our speech.
If we hear something unpleasant, if we hear about something which upsets us, or if we hear someone spreading rumors about us, our minds will accumulate resentment. We will naturally be unhappy and start to curse about it. “How could be spread rumors and say such bad things about me? Fine, you wait and see, one day I’ll…” This revenge, this “one day”, may come in this life or the next. So, with resentment in our hearts, negative karma will lead to retribution.
Therefore, we should safeguard our speech. When we open our mouth to speak, positive or genitive speech is a result of habit, and our habits arise from our minds. We have repented the karma created with our bodies.
So, this next passage indicates, “After repenting and making vows, I take refuge with the Three Treasures.”
We need to sincerely pay respect to the Three Treasures with pure mind and body.
The next verses say, “After repenting the three evils of the body, I now repent the four evils of speech.”
Now we are repenting the four evils [of speech]. We should do so with sincerity, and vow to change our habitual tendencies of speaking in an uncultivated manner. Some people have cultivated their speech. They talk softly and gently and are polite. Others have not cultivated their speech, and berate others often, using harsh words and evil speech.
People quickly judge our character and manners by our words. Thus, we should be cautions of the way we speak.
The Sutras indicate, “The karma of speech can cause sentient beings to suffer in Hell or the Hungry Ghost Realms.”
Negative speech also causes descent into the Three Evil Destinies, the Hell, Hungry Ghosts, and Animal Realms. Some people say that they cannot see Hell Beings or Hungry Ghosts.
“Where is Hell?”
“Where is the Hungry Ghost Realm?”
I often use the analogy of Hell on Earth. The Hungry Ghosts in our world are not invisible. Moreover, there are countless different forms of animals that we can see in the Animal Realm. Besides humans, there are many other living beings that we can see and hear. We hear the birds, which are also animals.
When we pass a farmer’s field, we often see cows. There are also dogs and many other animals. They work in proximity with people, who utilize the animals strengths.
For example, people use cows to plow fields and pull carts and so on. Cows and horses are all in the Animal Realm. It would be impossible to describe all of the different species of animals, such as tigers, leopards and bears. Due to karma, they are born with these animal forms.
Evils of speech lead to the Three Evil Destinies. With the greatest evils, one falls into Hell. With average evils, one is born as a hungry ghost. With the least evils, one is born as an animal. And in the Hell and Hungry Ghost Realms, the period of suffering is very long.
There is a story within the Sutras. According to the Buddha, countless kalpas ago in a small city, there was a ruler named Vatsa. One day as he was touring the city, a young bullock, who had not yet had his nose pierced, being too small to work the fields, suddenly went mad and lunged toward King Vatsa, goring him in the stomach and killing him on the spot.
Afterwards, the owner of the animal fearing he’d be held liable, sold it cheaply to another individual. On his way home, the buyer became thirsty and went to drink from a creek. As he was about to scoop up some water, the bull butted his from behind. The buyer fell into the water and drowned.
The buyer’s son was furious that the bull caused his father’s death. So, he was unwilling to raise it, and sold it cheaply to be slaughtered.
After it was killed, it was cut into pieces. A person bought the head, which was the cheapest part. He carried it home on his shoulder pole After walking a ways, he grew tired. So he placed the bull’s head on a tree branch and rested in the shade under the tree. The branch couldn’t sustain the weight and broke. When the bull’s head fell, the horn punctured the person’s head and he died instantly.
A single bull caused three deaths. What was the cause of this? When King Bimbisara heard that the king of a neighboring city-state had been killed by a bull, and that this same bull had killed a total of three people, he also wondered about the cause.
Since he was a pious Buddhist who believe in cause and effect, he recounted this story to the Buddha. After listening, the Buddha smiled and told him the cause. A long time ago, in another past life there were three businessmen who traveled afar to do business. The three of them rented a house owned by an elderly woman, who relied on this rent to live.
One day, after the three had lived in the house for a long time, the woman said to them, “You have not paid me rent in a long time！”
The three men claimed that she was losing her memory. “We already paid you, how can you ask us to pay again?”
They continued to scold the old woman, calling her crazy, forgetful and greedy. They spoke ill words, and continued to curse at her aggressively. Since she depended on the rent to live, she felt she was unjustly treated. Moreover, the three men had continued to insult her, so her heart was filled with hate, resentment and anger. She said, “Fine. Since I’m old and can’t win against you, I curse you and vow to have my revenge in another life.” Thus she became depressed and each day swore to have her revenge in a future life.
Later she passed away, and so did the three men. The old woman went through several lifetimes, dying prematurely in the Animal Realm and Human Realm. These three men also reincarnated. One became King Vatsa, one the buyer of the cow who knelt to drink by the roadside creek, and the other was the buyer of the cow’s head. So these three men were business partners in a past life. Although they were born human in this life, the one with more blessings became ruler of a city while the other two were ordinary farmers or civilians. But all three were killed, one after another, by the same cow. So, this cow was the elderly woman. Her resentment, hatred and vow of vengeance led her to take revenge on all of them at once.
When the Buddha told this story to King Bimbisara, many Bhiksus also listened. Everyone sighed in fear. The retribution of speech karma is inescapable.
So, we must safeguard our speech and not give rise to greed. With cause and effect, the accumulated hate, love and anger between people cause retributions to continue to occur, life after life. It is truly unspeakable suffering.
Everyone, we have talked about the thoughts that arise and lead us to kill, steal, commit sexual misconduct,
lie, speak harsh words, curse, and so on. These all cause entanglements between people. So, in learning Buddhism, after understanding the principles we should constantly repent and remain vigilant. So, please always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)
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