Basic Knowledge in the Pure Land Teaching
淨土小常識
Three Kinds of Naturalness (continued)
All ordinary beings accumulate karmic offenses, such as: mental karma , verbal karma, and the karma accumulated through bodily actions and behaviors. When weighing the amount of our good and bad karma, most ordinary beings accumulate less good karma and more bad karma.
As said in the Earth Store Sutra, “All of the acts and thoughts of sentient beings in the Jambudvipa realm are a product of our karma .” So, after death, they are forced by their karma to reincarnate in the appropriate realm. We are not created, manipulated, or judged by a God. It is our own karma that determines our sentence. If you are sentenced to fall into the wretched realms, you cannot say no, because it is naturally determined.
How great is the power of karma? The Earth Store Sutra says, “It can be as huge as Mount Sumeru. It can be as deep as an ocean. It can obstruct us from entering the sacred path.” It is a kind of natural power that drives us from cause to effect without confusion.
Perhaps, it seems that no one knows what we think or what we do at present or in the past; but, that karma still exists in the Dharma Realm, even if we think it does not. When the time comes, the respective effect will arise, and we must bear it.
There are two verses, as follows:
Even if the karma was performed a hundred or thousand eons ago, it doesn’t vanish. When the causal condition ripens, the effect must arise as reward or retribution.
Many of us wish to know the past life causes that manifest their effects in this life. We may also wish to know the future life effects created in this life.
This explains the relationship between cause and effect as they pertain to good and bad karma, and that the karmic force exerted on sentient beings is a natural phenomenon.
(to be continued tomorrow)
133 三種自然 (續)
凡夫都有罪業,一生之中,起心動念的業、開口說話的業、身體動作行為的業,若以善惡來權衡,無疑是善少惡多。
《地藏經》說:「南閻浮提眾生,舉止動念,無不是業,無不是罪。」所以在業力的引動下,死後自然隨業去投胎轉世,這背後不是上帝的創造、安排或審判,而是自我的安排,是自己的業在審判自己。如果應該墮落惡道,想不墮入也不可得,因為是業力自然牽引,勢不可擋。
至於業力大到什麼地步?《地藏經》說:「能敵須彌,能深巨海,能障聖道。」它自有一股力量,能從因向果,絲毫不錯亂。因此,起心動念或許沒有人知道,或者說出去的話、造作的行為已經過去,似乎不存在了,其實它依然存在於法界之中,時間一到,自然就引起相應的果報。有二首偈說:
假使百千劫,所造業不亡,因緣會遇時,果報還自受。
欲知前世因,今生受者是;欲知來世果,今生作者是。
這都在說善惡因果的報應,是眾生業力的自然。
Namo Amituofo!
