From the sewer

Tuấn leisurely worked the oar so that the small boat drifted along the creek. On both banks branches hung down close to the water. The ripples made the grassy banks bob. Mỹ asked:

• I see that you love rivers and water very much. Why is that? Your family has always lived in the city, hasn't it?
  Tuấn answered as he rowed:
• I love the water for a sad reason, so I rarely tell anyone.
• Not even me? If you won't tell me, shall I jump into the water?
  Tuấn smiled and said:
• In the old days my father was a worker at the city sanitation company, in charge of dredging the city's drains. You can't imagine how dirty the city's sewer water is. All kinds of terrible rubbish are down there. The workers had to stand soaked in that foul, stinking water to fish out rubbish, scoop up sediment and bring it up to clear the drains so the streets would not flood in the rainy season.
  Every day when Dad came home from work, Mum would hug him and cry, and also to let Dad know that her love for him went beyond the stink still clinging to his body. When I was a bit older, Mum made me hug Dad that way too. At first I was terrified and struggled to get away. Then Dad's eyes were very sad. Only when I was old enough to understand him could I hug him.
  Then Dad died young, because the toxins of the sewer water had seeped into his body. All kinds of cancers appeared. Mum sold sticky rice from a street cart to raise me and send me to school. The two of us missed Dad endlessly. I felt hatred for the people who discharged filthy waste water, which made Dad leave Mum and me so early. That is why I chose to study wastewater treatment.
  I looked for compact, sensible solutions to help households treat wastewater at the source before it goes into the public drains. I lobbied the Government to pass a law requiring every household to install a wastewater treatment system at the source. I lobbied for a long time, and in the end the State listened. Today my company supplies more than 40 per cent of the nation's wastewater treatment equipment.
  Seeing the sewer water so clean now, with fish swimming about freely, I feel I have avenged Dad. Since then I have loved rivers and nature. I believe people do wrong when they take clean water to use and then return dirty water to heaven and earth. People must avoid this wrongdoing and return to nature water almost as clean as the water they originally took in.
  Now that we are comfortably off, Mum likes to practise religion to pray for Dad. I think Mum is the best wife in the world: she loved Dad and stayed faithful to him even though he had to earn a living from a lowly job, and when she was young she was very beautiful. Truthfully, I still don't understand what made Mum choose Dad. Perhaps deep inside Dad there was something wonderful that she admired.
  I haven't married because in my heart Dad is a noble unknown that I have not understood, and Mum is the most saintly woman in the world. I'm afraid that a girl I marry who is inferior to Mum would disappoint me.
  Mỹ lowered her head sadly:
• I will follow your mother and learn, until... 👨‍👩‍👦

People will always bear this wrongdoing: taking the clean water of heaven and earth to use, and then returning to them filthy, stinking water. There are even people so wicked that they throw all kinds of rubbish into the drains, making the sewer water even dirtier.

Because everyone does it, we feel there is no wrongdoing in it and simply pour dirty water into the drains. Wrongdoing does not depend on whether we know it or not. If we do wrong, there is wrongdoing, even if it seems unintentional. Unintentional wrongdoing still brings karmic results as usual.
We do not know that discharging dirty water into the drains is a wrong against heaven and earth because we refuse to understand, refuse to know. With just a little reflection, we would see the wrong in it.

We use plenty of soap to keep our bodies and clothes clean, without caring that waste water containing soap will kill natural water sources. So many rivers and canals have become black and foul-smelling and lost all life, breeding aggressive bacteria, only because far too much soap has been poured into them. A black, stinking river goes on spreading its killing into the soil and destroying the ecology of this Earth.
Filth has become killing and death.

Aware of this wrongdoing, we must resolve to do something to repay heaven and earth by treating waste water so that it is nearly as clean as the water we first received. Whoever understands this responsibility, to treat waste water until it is clean again, is a person with enough ethics to deserve to walk with the world into a bright future.