During the reign of Emperor Wu of the
Liang dynasty, when Buddhism flourished in China, people would
always invite monks to recite Sutras at weddings and funerals.
Times have changed, and now monks are invited to recite Sutras
only at funerals. No one asks them to recite Sutras at weddings
or baby showers. Actually, this is wrong. Whether it is an
occasion for rejoicing or mourning, left-home people should be
asked to recite Sutras and transfer the merit, on the one hand
to save the deceased, and on the other to increase the blessings
of the living.
During Emperor Wu's time, there was a
high monk called the Venerable Zhi. Having attained the Five
Eyes and the Six Spiritual Penetrations, he could clearly
discern causes and effects. One time, a rich man asked him to
recite Sutras at a wedding. Upon entering the house, he sighed
and said:
How strange! How very strange indeed! The
grandson marries the grandmother. The daughter is eating her
mother's flesh, And the son is beating on a drum stretched
with his father's skin. Pigs and sheep are sitting on the couch,
And the six kinds of relatives are cooking in the pots. People
have come to offer congratulations, But I see that it is truly
suffering!
What does this mean? The grandson marries
the grandmother. Would you say this is strange or not? Right
before she died, the grandmother of the family had held her
grandson's hand, not being able to part with him. She said, "You
all have your own families, but this little grandson of mine has
no one to take care of him. Ah! What is there to be done?" Then
she died.
When she arrived at King Yama's court,
King Yama gave her the following verdict, "Since you love your
grandson so much, you might as well go back to be his wife and
take care of him." And so the grandmother was reborn as her
grandson's future wife. The workings of the law of cause and
effect in this world can be quite frightening.
The daughter is eating her mother's
flesh. Outside the house, a girl was eating a pig's foot with
great relish, not realizing that the pig had been her mother in
its previous life. And the son is beating on a drum stretched
with his father's skin. Venerable Zhi then took a look at the
musicians who were beating drums and blowing on their trumpets
and flutes. What excitement! One man was banging away vigorously
on a drum stretched with mulehide, not knowing that the mule had
been his father in a previous life.
Venerable Zhi looked at the people
sitting on the couch and said: Pigs and sheep are sitting on the
couch. Then he looked in the pots and said: And the six kinds of
relatives are cooking in the pots. All the former pigs and sheep
that had been slaughtered before were now getting even and
eating the people who had eaten them before! The six kinds of
relatives who had eaten those pigs and sheep were now being
chopped up and cooked in the pots to pay off their debts.
「眾人來賀喜」，大家都以為這是喜慶之日，但誌公和尚只歎息：「我說真是苦！」其實是人以苦為樂呀！
People have come to offer congratulations, / But I see that it
is truly suffering! Everyone thought it was a happy occasion,
but the Venerable Zhi only sighed and said, "This is really
suffering!" People take suffering to be joy!
大家聽了這段公案後，應該知道殺生食肉的可怕。我們又研究這個「肉」字：
After hearing this story you should understand the horror of
killing and eating meat. Let us look at the Chinese character
for meat (肉).
「肉字裏邊兩個人，裏邊罩著外邊人，眾生還吃眾生肉，仔細思量人吃人。」
Two people (人) are inside the character for meat (肉). The person
inside is linked to the one outside. Living beings eat the flesh
of living beings. If you really think about it, it is people
eating people.
Thus it is best to be vegetarian. However, we shouldn't use
names such as "vegetarian chicken," "vegetarian duck," and
"vegetarian abalone" for vegetarian dishes. If we are
vegetarians, why can't we forget about meat? The mere use of
such names plants seeds of defilement. Vegetarian dishes
shouldn't be called by non-vegetarian names.
Some people who came to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas this
time have vowed to become lifelong vegetarians. This is a very
good thing, because this way one severs unwholesome affinities
with living beings in the six paths. If you don't eat them, they
won't eat you; if you don't kill them, they won't kill you. The
cycle of karmic retribution will thus be purified.
又有人問：吃齋有什麼好處？
"What benefits are there in being vegetarian?" someone asked.
I said, "There aren't any. You're taking a loss while you're
alive." Because vegetarian food isn't as tasty as meat, you take
a loss by being vegetarian during your life. However, if you
don't keep a vegetarian diet, then you will take a loss after
death. It's like a scale. You have to figure out for yourself
which side is heavier and which is lighter.
Why will you take a loss after death if you eat meat? Well, your
body is composed of the foods you eat. If you eat vegetables,
you will smell like vegetables; if you eat onions, you'll smell
like onions; drink milk, and you'll smell like milk; eat cheese,
and you'll smell like cheese. If you eat some garlic, your
breath will smell of garlic. The things you eat become part of
your body. If you eat a lot of a certain thing, your body will
become very similar to it. Therefore, if you eat a lot of pork,
you will become a pig. Eat a lot of beef, and you will become a
cow. This accords with science and logic. The meat you eat
incorporates with your body, and after you die you turn into
that kind of animal. If you smell like a pig, for instance,
after you die King Yama takes a sniff and says, "You smelly
thing, you should be reborn as a pig." The same goes for sheep,
cows, chicken, and dogs. That's what I mean by being cheated
after death.
You can investigate this carefully. Why does a butcher of pigs
have eyes resembling those of a pig? It's because he had been
slaughtered as a pig many times in the past, and now he has come
to seek revenge. Although he is human, his eyes are those of a
pig. Cattle butchers have the eyes of a cow. The law of cause
and effect is never off. There is a verse:
「千百年來碗裏羹，怨深似海恨難平，欲知世上刀兵劫，細聽屠門夜半聲。」
For hundreds of thousands of years, The stew in the pot has
boiled up A resentment very hard to level. If you want to know
why There are wars in the world, Just listen to the haunting
cries that come From a slaughterhouse at midnight.
The grief and hatred brewed up in a pot of meat stew is as deep
as the ocean. It could never be fully described. The wars and
massacres in the world are brought about by the convergence of
the evil karma of living beings, causing beings to undergo
retribution at the same time. If you listen carefully to the
cries of misery coming from a slaughterhouse in the middle of
the night, you will realize the horror of the ceaseless killing
that goes on in there.
Scientists have discovered that people who eat a great deal of
meat tend to get cancer. This is because the resentful energy in
the bodies of slaughtered animals accumulates in the bodies of
those who eat meat and eventually turns into a harmful toxin. We
should cut off this relationship of causes and effects with
animals and stop the vicious cycle of creating offenses against
cows, sheep, chickens, and other animals. Then we will gradually
be able to lessen the inauspicious energy in the world.
At the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, we want to uphold the
Proper Dharma and avert the crisis of killing in the world. We
want to slowly and imperceptibly avert this disaster. Therefore
we advocate: not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual
misconduct, not lying, not drinking, and not taking drugs. At
the very least, we should observe the Five Precepts and maintain
our purity in that regard. Since you have come to this treasure
mountain, don't leave empty-handed!
