Excerpt from Master Lu’s Q&A (268), 27 November 2018
Question:
On the night of 14 November 2018, I was enveloped by a golden light in my dream and was lifted to Heaven. I passed by many Heavenly gates. I saw the Victorious in Battle Buddha in mid-air, radiating a golden glow. Victorious in Battle Buddha was in a golden armour and looked slightly different to the last time I saw him in the heavenly realm. However, He still looked solemn and dignified. Victorious in Battle Buddha was worried that I would become lost without a guide in the heavenly realm, so he came to lead me in the direction of the Hall of Guan Di Bodhisattva.
Just as I was distracted by the beautiful sights and scenery around the heavenly realm – there were rainbow clouds surrounding buildings and palaces of different designs, and inside each of the palaces were different Bodhisattvas, Dharma protectors and goddesses from the Heavenly Realm, Victorious in Battle Buddha sent me a thought message to remind me that if fell because I was distracted, he wouldn’t care. I immediately focused my attention on following Victorious in Battle Buddha, and we arrived at the Hall of Guan Di Bodhisattva.
That day, the Hall of Guan Di Bodhisattva was bustling. Many Dharma protectors and goddesses had come. There was an enormous lotus pond in front of the entrance, and there were wisps of clouds faintly floating inside the pond that showed images of the Human Realm. The Dharma protectors in heaven monitor and protect the disciples cultivating in the Human Realm. Once they discover that a disciple had committed an unwholesome deed, they would immediately report it to Guan Di Bodhisattva. The goddesses in heaven were very beautiful and wore many different coloured light gauze dresses.
The Buddha, Ji Gong Bodhisattva, Guan Yin Bodhisattva, Nanjing Bodhisattva and the Master Lu’s Dharma body were also present. I paid my respect to every Buddha and Bodhisattva there. Ji Gong Bodhisattva asked me, “Last time when you visited heaven, you said that the human mind is the darkest, then what is the whitest in the Human Realm?” I replied, “The human mind is the whitest.” Ji Gong Bodhisattva laughed, “Why do you say so?” I replied, “It’s because the human mind can create wholesomeness.”
Ji Gong Bodhisattva asked me again, “So how is it that the human mind is both the darkest and the whitest? Isn’t that contradicting?” I replied, “It’s because the human mind has been deluded and defiled in the Human Realm, that’s why it creates unwholesomeness and turns black. If one cleanses the defilements and discover their true nature, one will find that our innate nature is wholesome. So, there’s no contradiction.” After I finished, all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas laughed. I don’t know if my answer was right or wrong, so I foolishly laughed with them.
Guan Yin Bodhisattva told me, “All glory, splendour, wealth and rank in the Human Realm becomes empty in the blink of an eye. Humans are greedy for fame and wealth; they don’t cultivate wholesome deeds, instead, they commit different kinds of unwholesome deeds that lead them to the Lower Realms (Evil Paths) where they suffer significantly. Even if you have a human body, you would still suffer hardships, and your life would be full of obstacles. Hell isn’t scary; it is the human mind which creates karma that is scary.”
“Everything is created by the mind; the mind can create both wholesomeness and unwholesomeness. Today, an offender has been transferred to the Underworld from the hell associated with sexual misconduct. Take this order and watch the trial. After you return to the Human Realm, you must quickly write down what you observed and send it to your Master so that the other people understand that fame, wealth and sex are poisons, you mustn’t pursue them excessively. You must warn the people in the Human Realm. Go now.”
Suddenly, a swathe of golden light whisked me off to the Hall of King of Hell in the Underworld. A male offender kneeling on the ground, weeping and wailing. After having a closer look at him, I found his whole body covered in bite wounds from bugs. The offender spoke, “When I was alive, I was a businessman, and there was a period where the business was quite successful. I was married. After my wife gave birth to my child, I began to dislike her. I gave her the cold-shoulder, complaining that she was not as attractive as before. As my business was doing well, so I would go out with my business partners and drinking buddies to night clubs and other places of entertainment to pick up girls.
My wife couldn’t financially support herself, so she had no other choice but to obey my every whim. After I died, the King of Hell summoned a display which showed all the unsightly activities that I did, and I saw how heartbroken my wife was and how she cried and complained to her family and friends. I regret my actions. My wife married me when I was very poor and helped me educate and take care of our child, and we’d been through the toughest times together. I didn’t treat her well; I know that I was wrong. I hope that you can tell all the men in the Human Realm, the women in the night clubs aren’t sincere, they’re only there for the money. After you die, you will be held responsible for all the bad acts that you’ve committed. I feel sorry for my wife who is heartbroken because of me.
“Don’t commit deeds of sexual misconduct, it won’t bring you any benefit. It will only lead you to hell. We men are foolish. We think that these kinds of things are something to be proud of. I was obsessed with women’s beauty and bodies and committed many cases of sexual misconduct. I didn’t know about the Buddha-Dharma when I was alive and I didn’t know that when I die, these kinds of unwholesome deeds would take me to the hell associated with sexual misconduct. After I died, the King of Hell ordered the enforcement officers to take me to the Hell of Eye Shock. I followed the enforcement officers through a dark and narrow path and arrived at a very large and spacious place. The enforcement officers handed me to the officers in charge of the hell and then left. The officers then dragged me and pushed me into a large enclosed area. There were many guards on the outside, making sure that we offenders did not escape. I was shivering all over because I didn’t know what kind of punishment awaits me, and I was fearful.
“The environment was dark and gloomy and there were many other offenders around. There were constant flashes of light and I could hear painful cries shortly after. I walked a short distance and I halted, not daring to move further. Suddenly a light was shining on the top of my head. When I looked up, I saw clips showing all the different women I had intimate relationships with and also all the pornographic videos I watched being played inside my mind. Within a minute, two intense electric currents shot straight into my eyes, which coursed through my whole body, paralysing my whole body and made buzzing sounds. My skin was burnt and started smoking – it was very painful.
If you haven’t been electrocuted before, you won’t understand the pain. When I was alive, I thought that I was a tough guy. I wouldn’t have imagined that the punishments from hell was so excruciating. I couldn’t stop myself from crying and screaming. I don’t even know whether the electric current coursed through my body for 10 or 30 minutes, but it felt like a year-long. It was too painful.” The offender then wept.
After crying for a while, he continued, “I don’t even remember how long I was inside this hell, it could have been a few days or a week. Each time I fainted due to the electric shock, I would wake up and endure the same punishment over and over again. Then an enforcement officer called my name and the electric shocks ceased. I was then dragged out of that hell and escorted to another narrow and crooked path. After walking for a while, I was handed over to another pair of enforcement officers, and I followed them. From a distance, I began to smell something foul like faeces. I was extremely unwilling to take a step further, but the tall and strong enforcement officers forcefully dragged me into a large cavern.
Inside, there was a pool of excrement; it looked exactly like the huge septic tanks we have in the Human Realm. There were many people immersed in it. There were men and women, and you couldn’t distinguish their faces because they were entirely covered in faeces. They were constantly wailing. I was shivering profusely with fear, and the enforcement officers forcefully threw me into the pool of excrement. I tried to endure the foul, pungent stench, which almost made me faint inside the pool of excrement.
“When I was alive, I knew how to swim. While I was swimming inside the pool of excrement, there were enforcement officers nearby just watching us. In fact, it is impossible to swim onto the shore. Our bodies were completely covered in faeces so we were slippery and couldn’t get a grip. After swimming for a while, the pool of excrement began to make me extremely itchy. When I looked closely, I was terrified; there were many small bugs inside the pool which would latch on to our bodies and bite us. The pain shook me right into my core. It was very itchy and painful. When I was alive, I thought that I was very capable of enduring hardships. I never imagined that the small bugs in this hell could make a tough guy like me cry and wail inside the pool of excrement. Nobody cared about us offenders and just left us floating inside the pool of excrement. It was too late for regrets.”
The King of Hell said to the offender, “When you were alive, you didn’t contain your desires. Excess indulgence leads to the deterioration of one’s health, and you were behaving promiscuously. Did you know that originally you were supposed to receive extremely great worldly blessings? In your previous life, you regularly donated money to the unfortunate, which would’ve caused your wealth in your present life to be sufficient with no worries, and your business would’ve flourished so that future generations would also benefit the fruits of your labour.
It’s a pity that you didn’t cherish your blessings. Instead, you became intoxicated with your desires and squandered your blessings, and you didn’t set an example to your children in performing wholesome and meritorious deeds. You were also fond of eating freshly killed food (the offender regularly ate freshly killed seafood in restaurants and at home. He also killed live rabbits to serve to his family, friends and important guests. It was all projected onto the display).
“You must know that their spirits were filled with resentment when they died, and they occupied your body after death. When you were negotiating business, they frequently interfered with your thoughts so that you would make the wrong decision, causing you to suffer losses in your business. You can’t really blame them, you took away their lives, so it’s normal for them to take revenge. Sentient beings in the animal realm are all offenders like you who had committed many unwholesome deeds and were sentenced to be reborn into the different life forms in the six realms of existence. You don’t have any knowledge of the state of sentient beings, so I won’t say much.”
“You also like to go to night clubs and other places that have extremely high Yin energy; you must understand that the women working at those premises have really dreadful energy fields. You only see their surface beauty, but you don’t know that after they die, they will become very ugly looking spirits. (These women have committed numerous offences; they will descend to hell and get punished after death. Their looks will be horrible. When I visited the Hell Realm, I saw numerous disfigured and defiled-looking people who were once beautiful.)
“Beauty in the Human Realm is nothing but an empty shell to me. All these women came from very poor and impoverished backgrounds and had to sell their body to make money. So, they already lacked worldly blessings, yet you continue to mix with them to satisfy your lust, causing your mind to become devoid of right intention. You only care about indulging yourself, and your mind became dull. That’s why your business and financing ran into a chain of problems.”
“The Underworld not only deduct your predetermined wealth derived from the worldly blessings you cultivated in your previous life according to degree of the sexual misconduct you committed, but you will also be sent to hell for punishment. Only after your negative karma has been clear can you be reborn again. (The King of Hell told me that a majority of those released from hell will be reborn in the animal realm.)
You had cultivation in your previous life and have some karmic affinity with Guan Yin Bodhisattva. It is because of this affinity with Buddhism that you were selected to give your testimonial to Heavenly Child so that she could write it down and make people in the Human Realm aware of what it’s like to be in hell. With this meritorious deed, you still have the chance to be reborn as a human. You must now go back and serve the rest of your sentence before you can be reborn. You don’t have to beg me; you bear full responsibility for the offences you committed.”
Afterwards, the enforcement officers took the offender away. The King of Hell sighed, “This offender was invited by someone from his hometown to attend one of Master Jun Hong Lu’s Dharma Talks in Country X. It’s a pity that he didn’t cultivate. If he understood the law of karma, then he wouldn’t be in this position. People who are too endowed with wealth and worldly blessings generally pay no heed to the Buddha-Dharma and do not know how to cultivate by observing the five precepts and cultivating the ten wholesome deeds. In his previous life, he was a Buddhist whose cultivation didn’t reach fruition. As a result, he was reborn into the Human Realm with riches. But he became deluded and created karma in this lifetime. Now he’s been sent to hell. Since the ancient times, fame and fortune have been a bubble, but the cycle of rebirth keeps turning in accordance with the karma you create, whether it be wholesome or unwholesome.”
I was then enveloped in a golden light and sent back to the Human Realm. When I woke up, I have lots of feelings. All glory, splendour, wealth and rank in the Human Realm makes a person deluded. Observing the scenes of people crying in front of the King of Hell after they were sent to hell upon death really stirred me.
Master Jun Hong Lu’s reply:
People who are lecherous and commit sexual misconduct all descend to the hell. Don’t your dreams seem real? In the future, when you go down, it will be like a dream. In the past, you have already committed many deeds of sexual misconduct. If you continue, you will not rest in peace. You must reform yourself completely.