Thinking it is good

A woman, looking uneasy, asked Mr Hải:

• I've heard that you are a wise sage who can explain many complicated things in this life, so I'd like to ask you a few questions.
  Mr Hải smiled and replied:
• In my life I have two great injustices. One is the injustice done by people who dislike me, who keep secretly reporting my meditation hall as a reactionary political organisation, in order to urge the authorities to order it banned. Fortunately the authorities looked into it and left it alone. The other is the injustice done by people who are fond of me, who keep spreading the rumour that I am a sage who has attained the Way and so on, which damages my virtue. I can only answer a few difficult questions because my life has passed through so many difficulties, that's all. So what did you want to ask?
  The woman said:
• I've heard of the law of cause and effect, and I often give money to temples and shrines, but why don't I see any good fortune?
• How much money do you give?
• I change it into small notes and stuff them into the hands and bellies of the statues.
• Small notes stuffed everywhere like that are not offerings but an insult to the sacred beings, so you don't get good fortune; on the contrary you meet even more bad luck. Moreover, you give with a mind seeking wealth for yourself, so there is no merit. Only when we give to a temple or shrine that needs it, and the offering is practical and effective, given without seeking karmic reward, will the merit be very great.

A man chimed in to ask:

• Hải, I too am very sincere towards the deities, and I often go to temples and shrines to pay respects, but why don't I see any good fortune?
• Which temples and shrines do you go to, and at what times?
• I go to whichever temple or shrine is rumoured to be sacred, on feast days when very many people go, pushing and squeezing in to pay respects until I'm drenched in sweat, sometimes with my clothes torn to shreds. I'm very sincere.
• You pay respects according to popular rumour, but you don't understand anything about those deities. If you pay respects at a temple, you must read Buddhist books to understand the life and teachings of the Buddha. If you pay respects at a shrine, you must read a biography of the deity worshipped there, to know who he is and what his deeds are. Only when you understand the deities deeply, and ardent reverence arises in you, will paying respects come from a sincere heart, and then there will be merit.

A girl asked:

• Mr Hải, I've prayed so much at the Temple of Literature, and I still failed my exam. Why?
• Because you wouldn't make an effort to study and master the lessons, wouldn't do lots of exercises, wouldn't help your friends study better, and just relied on the deities, and the deities dislike those who rely on them. Suppose I have several children: I love them all, but whichever one relies on me and won't strive to study and work, I don't like. It's the same with the deities. You make the utmost effort first, and then the deities protect and help with the part you still lack.

A married couple asked:

• We've prayed in so many places and still have no baby.
• It's because no one has agreed to come and be your child. If it is someone of a high level, they consider that you are not yet worthy to be their parents. If someone of a low level is reborn into your family, they will later be a spoiled child who squanders everything.
• Then what should we do?
• You must cultivate deep and thick morality, so that those in that realm feel affection and admiration and willingly come to be your child; then later it will be a precious, outstanding son or daughter.

A man asked:

• Is it good to offer pigs and chickens to the deities, Hải?
• Do you think someone who eats the corpses of animals is a lofty deity?
• No, no, probably not.
• If they are not lofty deities, why get entangled with them? And if they are lofty deities, then offering the corpses of those animals to them is a terrible insult, and brings a grave offence.

Mostly we choose our religious practices through whispers and rumours passed from one person to another, and not by taking the trouble to study carefully. Superstition thereby appears in floods. The country's level of civilisation and progress is also slowed down.