Lecturer: Master Zheng-Yan
Subject: Carry Out Your Duties with Unity and Mutual Love (合心互愛盡責)
In learning Buddhism we learn to focus the mind. When a man and a woman get married and build their family, they nurture and teach their children by example. Parents are children’s role models. Everyone must knows his or her own duties within the family. The ancients said one must form a family before establishing a career. After one marries and starts a family, he can establish his career. This is true even today.
After we are born, our parents raise us until we reach adulthood. After graduating, one looks for a spouse and marries to start a family. There are many small households now. Once married, the couple moves out and forms their own small household. A family is built by a couple’s mutual love. They are like birds who, after they mate, work together to gather materials and build their nest.
Swallows, for example, will pick up mud with their beaks and bring it to the eaves of a house. They fly back and forth with mouthfuls of mud to carefully build a nest under the roof. Sparrows use strands of grass. They carry the grass strand by strand to build their nest. This is like a couple working together to build their home. It shows the power of their love for each other. When the female bird lays eggs, the male and female birds must cooperate so the mother bird can focus on hatching the eggs. When the eggs hatch, the mother has to find food. She brings things back in her mouth and feeds it carefully to her babies. This is how the baby birds are nurtured.
Besides the parent birds, now the nest has chicks. Such a home is filled with warmth. After the chicks are born, they must be brought up. When their wings are fully formed, it is time for the parents to take turns teaching them how to fly.
Confucius said, “Learn by practicing often.” This is how birds learn to fly. The birds gradually learn through practice. In the beginning, as they spread their wings to fly, they may fall.
They may fall. Yet the parent birds continue to teach them, to help them spread their wings and fly. Though they keep falling, the parents still encourage them to learn. This is how parents should teach their children.
Our society needs happy families. This requires a couple to be of one mind. If there are children, the parents need to be even more united and loving of each other in order to teach their children. Parents are the children’s role models.
If everyone fulfills his or her responsibilities, all families in society would be happy. Then society would be harmonious. This begins with each family, each couple, and each individual’s self cultivation. So to create a loving family, each individual must take care of his or her own responsibilities. Then naturally, we will take good care of our families and educate our children well.
Parents should nurture their children just as birds care for their young and teach them to fly. They must teach by example. A harmonious and responsible couple creates a happy family. If all families are content, society will naturally be peaceful.
As mentioned before, if one is not loyal to one’s spouse, one suffers severe retribution in the Three Evil Destinies of the Hell, Hungry Ghost and Animal Realms. Of the three, Hell is the most agonizing, followed by the Hungry Ghost Realm, then the Animal Realm. This is all a result of actions taken as humans that go against the moral codes of humanity. Much karma is created through killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, drinking or committing the Ten Evils. Whether it is committing the Ten Evils or breaking the Five Precepts, once carried out, an evil is committed. Sexual misconduct is foremost among all evils.
As discussed yesterday, besides suffering retribution in the Hell and Animal Realms, some also suffer when reborn in the Human Realm. Not only will they suffer direct retribution, their spouse and children may cause them suffering. This is all due to karmic force.
After suffering immense pain in Hell and the Animal Realms, one is reborn as a person. Yet, one’s spouse will not be loyal and one will have problematic relationships with their children and in-laws. Then whole family is involved. Even if the couple is very loving, there is still the rest of the family that causes them to worry. In short, this is all Residual Retribution, or Flower Retribution.
When karma is not exhausted, it will attract other complicated conditions which will cause us to worry, leading to Flower Retributions. This is the karmic law of cause and effect. In learning Buddhism, we must understand this.
Then next passage indicates, “Lustful desires create such negative effects, so we should sincerely repent today.”
Indeed, lust creates many negative effects. We really should be faithful. We might have committed sexual misconduct with another person’s wife through seduction or coercion. Sexual misconduct creates discord in couples, breaks up families or brings shame to the family. People in the past had strict moral standards. If one’s wife or child were physically violated, it brought great shame. So causing others shame in this way is an extremely evil transgression. Naturally, such evils lead one into the Three Evil Destinies to suffer. With Residual Retribution, one is reborn as human. There are many suffering individuals in the world. Where did this suffering come from? We should instead ask how we created the causes and conditions for suffering.
The Sutras often talk about Beginningless Time. If we have not done wrong in this life, it is past causes that create the effects we receive in this lifetime. Conditions cannot form without causes, and retributions cannot arrive without effects. It all begins with causes and conditions. So we must thoroughly repent.
The next verse reads, “Moreover, from Beginningless Time until today, we may have stolen others’ wives, abducted women and violated their chastity.”
Having an affair with someone’s wife is called “stealing.” Carrying on this kind of secret, extramarital relationship can be considered a form of stealing. Therefore, on top of the sexual misconduct, there is also the evil of stealing. This is two transgressions put together.
There is also dishonoring a window. In the past, chastity was very important. In ancient times, after a woman was married, if her husband died, and she remained single, never having relationships with other men and looking after her family, she would be recognized by the emperor with a chastity monument. This monument would bring honor and pride to the rest of her community. You can see that the ancients valued female chastity. So if one dishonored a window, one tarnished her chastity, transgressed moral boundaries and broke the law. If we study the writings of the ancient sages, we understand the value of chastity. Being physically and mentally chaste means following moral guidelines. If one fails to do so, one disregards ethics and goes against the law. This is very serious.
So the karma of sexual misconduct is severe. If these thoughts arise in the mind, one dares to commit such deviant actions as violating a widow. So sexual misconduct is foremost among all evils. Some even “defile a Bhiksuni, destroy one’s purity of conduct, force one to lose the way, view practitioners with defilement and mock them.”
These transgressions are even more severe. One should not violate practitioners’ chastity, mock or treat them with improper attitudes. If one destroys someone’s pure practice, it forces them to not abide by proper precepts. Having evil or defiled views or attitudes about practitioners or ridiculing them in speech and actions are both tremendously evil. Bhiksunis abide by precepts and practice purity. If one causes them to have impure thoughts or break the precepts, that is as evil as the Five Offenses. So if we do not always safeguard the mind, a slight deviance can easily lead to the Five Offenses or Ten Evils.
The next passage reads, “We may have dishonored someone’s household, smeared a virtuous and kind person’s name, or engaged in impure acts with Pandaka.”
One who dishonors others lacks shame. We all must have a sense of shame. Without a sense of shame, we may tarnish the reputations of virtuous individuals. Someone may act very properly, but we come up with ways to tarnish their good reputation and ruin their pure, untarnished name. This is like dishonoring widows or defiling the minds of pure practitioners. This is “smearing a virtuous person’s name”
We may have “engaged in impure acts with Pandaka.” Pandakas are men who are not whole. The Lotus Sutra depicts them as individuals who are neither men nor women, who engage in impure acts that bring shame to those who wish to remain chaste or abide by moral values. They may commit serious transgressions.
They are not whole physically and mentally. If we think about it, we will know that this is a retribution caused by lifetimes of sexual desire and impure conduct. Only by hearing the Buddha-Dharma or encountering wholesome religions that educate them with proper principles can people change their attitudes and thinking.
We are very fortunate to be born human and to hear the Buddha-Dharma. So we should always be mindful.
(Source: Da Ai TV 靜思晨語 法譬如水)