BODHISATTVAS FEAR CAUSES, WHILE SENTIENT BEINGS FEAR EFFECTS
Master Jun Hong Lu: There was a quack doctor who misdiagnosed and caused someone’s son to die. To make up for his mistake, he gave his son away to be adopted by this family. After some time, he caused someone’s female servant to die. To compensate, the doctor gave his own servant away.
One night, there was a knock on the doctor‘s door. The visitor said, “Oh doctor, my wife’s stomach hurts terribly. Please come with me to take a look at her.”
The doctor called out to his wife and said, “Dear, please prepare to part.”
We must try to prevent bad things from happening instead of always gearing up to make some impractical compensation. Unfortunately, as humans, it is only after we have erred that we begin to make relentless efforts to put things back in places to make up for our mistakes.
Why can’t we learn from the Bodhisattvas who clearly understand the law of cause and effect? If only we understood the karmic ramifications of what we do today, this would have saved us from the potential retribution.
As Buddhist practitioners, we should be concerned about all of our actions – Bodhisattvas fear causes, while sentient beings fear effects. Humans are fearless in their action – only when retribution comes their way, do they begin to fear. As Buddhist practitioners, we should fear the cause of our action as only then will we be fearless of the retribution.
Source: Master Jun Hong Lu’s World Buddhist Fellowship Meeting, New York, USA, 22 Sep 2014
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