Issue 305

What is filial piety? Is it simply buying our parents delicious food and fine clothes? No. These are superficial demonstrations of filial piety. What is the essence of filial piety? It is about complying to our parents’ wishes, e.g. enjoying what our parents delight in, sharing the joy in what they like. “Suppose my father likes to smoke opium. If he smoked one ounce a day, and I smoked two, would that be filial piety?” It is certainly not.
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When I said “comply,” I mean to comply with their wishes, not with their eating habits. If the latter were intended, you might as well tell your father who likes bread and butter, “I like that, too. You have to let me eat first, afterwards, you can eat.” That is contending, not complying. To comply means to accord with another’s wishes. Pay attention to what their heart wishes and do not go against their wishes. That is filiality.

Earlier I said the kindness of parents is “as manifold as the hairs on the head and difficult to repay.” You may be able to count how many strands of hair you have, but you would not be able to repay your parents’ kindness. Last summer I talked about “The lamb kneels to drink its milk; the young crow returns to nurse.” Baby lambs drink their mother’s milk with their forelegs knelt before their mother. In China, crows are called filial birds because the young crows forage for food and return with food for their aged mother who can no longer fly. Even baby crows know to be filial. Crows are birds, lambs are beasts. If we were not filial to our parents, then we would be worse than birds and beasts. Human beings are supposed to be replete with the Five Virtues, namely: humaneness, propriety, righteousness, wisdom, trustworthiness. Having these virtues, how can we not even compare to the crows and the lambs? Therefore, we should be filial to our parents. This is most important.

Someone might ask, “I want to be filial, but now I have left the homelife and my parents are nowhere nearby. How can I be filial?” Leaving the homelife is an act of great filial piety. There is a saying, “When one child enters the Buddha’s door, nine generations of ancestors ascend to the heavens.” If you leave home to cultivate the Way, nine generations of ancestors receive the benefit and may go to the heavens. In this way, you are being filial not only to your parents but to your ancestors and parents of lives past.

However, you must cultivate. If you do not do so, your nine generations of relatives will fall into the hells, where they will wail and moan, “We had a descendant who left the homelife to cultivate, and because of him we could have ascended to the heavens. Who would have thought that he is so lazy, sleeping all day and not cultivating. Now our offenses cannot be pardoned, so we fall into the hells once again.” The mere act of leaving the home life is not sufficient to cause your nine generations of ancestors to be reborn in the heavens. If you do not cultivate, they will not ascend to the heavens; but if you do cultivate, you are practicing great filiality crossing over to your parents.

Speaking of which, I have been in the Buddha Hall today for a lengthy period of time and there’s one Sramanera who has not been up. Even I, the teacher without fiery temper, was on fire. “How can a monastic be so lazy?” I thought. He was not bad though; he did not rebut at all. Upon investigating, I found out why. Let me tell you, this Sramanera is not lazy; he was too famished to move. It’s not laziness. It’s starving to the point where he doesn’t have the energy to move. Why was he famished? It’s because no one made him offerings. After going many days without any offerings, he tried doing alms rounds but no one gave him anything. He was very upset. When he came back, he decided not to eat. It’s been six or seven days and he has not eaten anything, so today he was too famished to get up. Since I did not know that he received no offerings, I scolded him severely.

Later, I inquired as to why he was so lazy. He said “No one made offerings to me and without food, I have no energy.” Upon hearing this I replied “Oh! I have wrongly blamed you. If you feel too weak, then you can rest and sleep inside. Do what you need to do. I’m giving you an expedient.” It’s not easy being a teacher. Sometimes you don’t know what is the best way to teach and transform a disciple. I have severely scolded a hungry disciple. However, this disciple has some skill, a bit of cultivation. Otherwise, how can he go on without food for six to seven days and still follow the general assembly in reciting sutras, doing repentances, and listening to the lectures? That’s not possible. So now, my fiery temper is gone and I am glad I have a hard-working disciple. I hope all of you will emulate this Sramanera who had enough patience to withstand my scolding.

In addition, do not keep in mind the thoughts “I did not eat for a day/ I did not eat for two days/ I did not eat for three days/ and on to five days and six days”. Forget it. Having eaten or not is the same. Don’t pay attention to whether you have eaten or not. If you can forget that, then you are really cultivating the Way. If you are not truly cultivating the Way, you could not forget. When you truly cultivate the Way, you will have genuine samadhi. With real samadhi, you will be oblivious to my scolding as well as beating. Questions like “Who’s hitting me?” or “Where am I?” do not occur because there is no “I (self)”. When there is no self, there is true samadhi. If there’s still an “I”, notions of “you hit me”, “you scold me”, “I haven’t eaten” exist. This way, your samadhi power cannot be produced. You must forget the self in order to develop your samadhi power. When your samadhi power is produced, then you have real skill.

Beings who are not filial to their parents, even to the point of harming or killing them…Those who kill their father or mother, for example, will fall into the Relentless Hell where for thousands of billions of eons they will seek escape in vain. It will be difficult for them to escape the hells.

Beings who shed the Buddha’s blood, slander the Triple Jewel, and do not venerate Sutras, will fall into the Relentless Hell where for thousands of billions of eons they will seek escape in vain.

Beings who shed the Buddha’s blood…Here, we are referring to those beings who have not committed offenses. Nonetheless, let’s suppose these living beings commit offenses categorized as shedding the Buddha’s blood. What is meant by shedding the Buddha’s blood? Now that Shakyamuni Buddha had entered nirvana, how can we shed the Buddha’s blood? We do not live in a time when the Buddha is in the world and we have never seen the Buddha, how can we shed the Buddha’s blood? When the Buddha was in the world, shedding his blood means injuring the Buddha’s physical body. After his nirvana, it means destroying images of the Buddha, or dismembering an ear or a finger. Burning paper images of the Buddha is also equivalent to shedding the Buddha’s blood. Originally, these offenses cannot be absolved through repenting and reforming, but there are exceptions such as when one is intoxicated, crazy or mentally ill. However, you cannot use mental illness or intoxication as an excuse to intentionally commit these offenses. Doing so will incur offenses. Only karmic offenses committed unintentionally are considered slightly lighter offenses.

When the Buddha was in the world, he had such great spiritual powers. Who could have shed his blood? The Buddha had certified to fruition. Who could have hurt his physical body? Sometimes even the Buddha gets injured unexpectedly. The Buddha’s cousin, Devadatta, opposed everything the Buddha did and invariably tried to ruin him. If the Buddha expounded on this dharma, Devadatta would destroy it. If the Buddha expounded on that dharma, Devadatta would trash it. In short, he said that everything the Buddha do is wrong.

How did Devadatta undermine the Buddha? Devadatta bribed a poor woman to take part in his plot against the Buddha. As is the case with many impoverished ones, the poor woman’s resolve was weak and she would do anything for money. Devadatta had her tie a pillow around her waist underneath her clothes and in this condition go to the Buddha’s Dharma assembly and accuse him of fathering her unborn child. Devadatta promised her a large sum of money for making the Buddha lose his credibility to his disciples. This woman followed Devadatta’s instructions. However, the Buddha used his spiritual powers to make the pillow fall to the ground, proving on the spot that she was dishonest. Devadatta used various means to ruin the Buddha.

Another time, Devadatta saw the Buddha walking by the edge of Vulture Peak Mountain. He wanted to crush the Buddha. Using his spiritual powers, Devadatta pushed the mountain with his palm to cause an avalanche. Rocks fell and hit the Buddha. A Vajra knight and guardian spirit of Vulture Peak, named Bei La, saw this happening. From afar, he used his Vajra pestle to strike the mountain back to prevent a large boulder from hitting the Buddha. In doing so, the boulder crushed to tiny fragments which scattered everywhere. One of the fragments struck the Buddha’s little toe and cracked a bone. This is called shedding the Buddha’s blood. At that very moment, a fiery chariot emerged and carted Devadatta to the hells.

Hence, as soon as Devadatta shed the Buddha’s blood, he was carted to the hells alive, in his physical body. The retribution incurred by those who burn and destroy images of the Buddha, dismantle temples or ruin stupas is similar. They are equivalent to Devadatta’s offenses. They are offenses of shedding the Buddha’s blood.

What is meant by “Slander the Triple Jewel“? Buddhists must remember not to commit this type of offense, that is, to speak evil of the Triple Jewel – the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. In the Bodhisattva precepts, there is one precept that prohibits people from speaking of the offenses of the Fourfold Assembly, namely: bhiksus, bhiksunis, upasakas, and upasikas. Not only should people who have taken the Bodhisattva Precepts refrain from speaking of the faults of bhiksus, bhikshunis, upasakas and upasikas, they should not participate in conversations of such nature, like they did not hear the conversations at all. If you participate in such conversations, you commit the offense of slandering the Triple Jewel and speaking evil of the Fourfold Assembly. The best thing to do in a situation like this is simply keep your mouth shut, remain silent.