CHAPTER 28SECOND VISIT TO THE PRISON WITH VENOMOUS WASPS Buddha
Tse Kong who manifested on 19th April , 1977. Year of the
Snake
Buddha
Tse Kong: The deities come down to earth to save
humans, select their disciples, and set them on the spiritual path.
Their purpose consists of reshaping men to their early nature and
helping them return to their source, which is God. Their benefactions
and loving care are immense and incomparable; thence, this saying, “A
master for a single day becomes a father for a whole life”. It is
therefore natural to obey one’s master’s counsel and follow his
example. However, there exists a number of immoral people who betray
their religion, hiding behind the deities and borrowing the latter’s
prestige for stealing and embezzling money. In this manner, they more
likely regenerate into pirates than into saints and immoral, and instead
of rising to paradise, it to hell they will go to purge their bad karma.
Their negative “cause” will lead them to considerably bad
“effects”. In fact, all of the servants of deities who violate the
rules of religious order are severely punished by the laws of hell. To
whichever religion they may be converted, they have to obey the
religious order and the rites of this very religion, because no pardon
is granted for their sins which are graver than the laymen’s. Yang
Ts’ien:
I am ready, Master. Where are we going? TK:
We’re going to pay another visit to the “Venomous Wasps”
Prison to see how the religious traitors are rewarded. Shut your eyes.
Here we start... Here we arrive. The
Mandarin:
Happy to see you again, gentlemen. TK:
At this time many people who profit from the deities’names live
on earth. They were the gowns of priests, carve statues of Buddha, but
commit theft and swindling. They have offended the grandeur and prestige
of the orthodox doctrine. We have come here to collect information on
the spot for warning the people. The
Mandarin: Very
fine. If you care to follow me, gentlemen. I will have some sinful souls
come to make an account of their vulgar, despicable actions of their
lifetime. YT:
My best thanks, Excellency! These bees fly about in the prison,
and they attack the sinful souls with their stinging. The victims’
bodies are all swollen, their heads are heavy, and their eyes dimmed. The
Mandarin:
The stings also render them feverish because they are poisonous.
Let me have some of the sinners come. General, let some of them out. The
General: At
your command… Here are three of them. The
Mandarin:
Now, listen. This is the Venerable Buddha Tse Kong, and this is
Mr. Yang Ts’ien, of the Temple of the Sages in Tai Chu. They received
the order to write a book titled “Voyages to Hell”. Tell us the
story of your sins. They need documents for warning the people. YT:
May I ask you the reason why you were sent to this prison? The
soul: I
was a village-chief. The villagers planned to erect a temple. I was in
charge of collecting money, and I took advantage of the opportunity to
embezzle some of it for my personal expenditures. After my death, I
understood that stealing the money dedicated to the deities was a grave
crime and I was condemned to this prison. The venomous wasps are
merciless. Their stings hurt me terribly. Look at me, I pray you, my
body is swollen and red all over, and the wounds torture me day and
night. Whenever the money is destined for the cult of deities, people
must be loyal and upright. They should by no means think of stealing it,
not even a single penny. The stings of these wasps are payment for my
bad karma. I committed no other sin besides this. The
Mandarin:
Your office had afforded you a chance to serve other people and
acquire merits for the benefit of your children and grandchildren. The
villagers had the good intention of building a temple for worshipping
deities and exercising religious faith. You had misused their faith,
your crime is unforgivable. Now, your turn to speak, the 2nd soul. The
soul (female): Amitabha Buddha! I am really miserably,
really! As early as the age of 15, I converted to the service of Buddha.
I obeyed every commandment and devoted myself to the observance of the
doctrine, expecting to attain the spiritual path. However, my
inconsistent nature and my lack of patience finally got the best of me.
I began to subtract the donations offered by devout people for my
personal expenses. I thought very little of buying joss-sticks, candles,
petroleum for lamps, and of embellishing my pagoda. When I was to recite
prayers in a requiem mass for a deceased person, I did my work for the
sake of form. Every family inviting me to recite prayers for the soul
of a dead parent had to pay me my fees according to the number of
prayers and pages in the prayer book. “Like service rendered like
amount of money” was my motto. If it was a needy family, I complied
reluctantly and only accepted the invitation after much insistence from
the master. Reversely, a wealthy family found me very active and zealous
in the performance of rites. My prayers would be longer in order to
please the chief of the household. Because of my vile greed, Buddha
didn’t appear to drive me to heaven, but it was hell that reserved me
its torments. I am extremely miserable. The
Mandarin: You
were a nun who had renounced every worldly thing and adopted the
religious way to regenerate. Nevertheless, you couldn’t eliminate
earthly desires and passions. You received people’s money in the name
of Buddha, but your acts were incompatible with the morality of the
Supreme Buddha. That’s why you are now in condemnation here. TK: To convert to the spiritual path means to abandon all that is soiled of the human world and acquire the purity of the soul. All of the monks and nuns bear the forename of Sa which is the one of Sakya Muni. It is a sacred forename. It is regrettable that you couldn’t overcome the worldly temptations and failed to think of the salvation of humanity. It is necessary to abolish the three consciences and four conjunctures (1) before one can become a Buddha. Unless the three vices (2) are expelled, one is forever subjected to the six ways of transmigration. We warn human beings of all religions that paradise is accessible only to those believers who are delivered from cravings and passions. We therefore advise the people to adhere to the doctrine of a religion - whether it is Catholicism, Buddhism, Islamism, or any other religion - to sever their attachments to the world before they can accede to paradise. It’s quite late. We’ll come back another time. Yang Ts’ien, let’s go home.
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