世界上最大的仇怨，莫过于杀生。所谓“杀人偿命，欠债还钱”，你杀人之父兄，人必杀你的父兄。这样互相残杀，永无止境。就因为杀生太多的缘故，所以果报来得很快，所谓“现世现报。”

The greatest source of enmity in the world comes from killing. As it’s said,

If you kill someone, you must pay with
     your life.
If you owe a debt, you must repay
     the money.

If you kill someone’s father or brother, then your own father or brother will be killed by others. Such mutual killing goes on and on without end. Because too many lives have been taken, the retribution comes very fast; this is known as “getting one’s retribution in this very life.”

现在的人，为什么生一些奇怪的病症？一言以蔽之，就是从杀生而来的。你杀了众生，众生就来向你讨命债。这种怪病，医生也束手无策。那该怎么办呢？这就要真心忏悔，改过自新，多做利益众生的功德，才能消除宿现业。若是不这样去做，恐怕不容易好的。这是真理，并非迷信。

Why do people nowadays have so many strange illnesses? To put it simply, such illnesses come from killing. When you kill living beings, they come back to demand your life as repayment. There’s nothing the doctors can do to treat the strange illnesses that result. Then what should you do? You should repent with a true heart, reform and renew yourself, and do create more merit and virtue to benefit living beings so that the karma from past and present lives can be eradicated. If you don’t do that, I’m afraid getting well won’t be easy. This is the truth; it’s not a superstition.

一九八四年四月十五日开示