The law of cause and effect exempts no one

The law of cause and effect is boundless and endless: the more deeply one understands it, the more one benefits. Saints who have attained the highest realisation understand cause and effect even more deeply, while ordinary people like us understand it only at a basic level, yet it is always of essential value to our lives.

The law of cause and effect is an absolute principle of the universe. However lofty our practice, we remain subject to the law of cause and effect; no one escapes it and no one has the right to escape it. This is different from worldly law.

In the world, someone may make a law and yet not obey it. For example, a king orders that no one may enter the royal garden. Everyone must comply, but the king himself does not. This shows that human beings can set rules and have the right to exempt themselves from them. The law of cause and effect, however, was not established by anyone. It is a principle of the universe, and no power can go beyond this natural principle. Even a person of the highest rank and authority, whose power covers the whole world, is still governed by the law of cause and effect. It is precisely because there is cause and effect that this person holds power over the whole world; it did not come about by chance. That is, they planted a cause worthy of enjoying that fruit of merit.

It is natural that a poor person with little merit, who constantly meets hardship and misery, is governed by cause and effect, but even a person of great merit cannot escape it. As for practitioners of high attainment and great virtue who live a saintly life, they are not people who intend to escape cause and effect; they are people who always live in accord with it and restrain themselves at every moment, because they know that every cause they create has a corresponding effect. In principle, planting good causes always brings good results and planting evil causes brings evil results, but the law of cause and effect is far more severe than that: planting one cause does not give one effect but a thousand, or ten thousand. Sometimes a single word brings blessings that a whole lifetime cannot exhaust, wealth and high position that ten lifetimes cannot use up. And sometimes a single unintended word can bring a fall into the animal realm, with ten lives passing before one becomes human again.

Because we do not fully understand cause and effect, we often do not know how to restrain ourselves and do not control our actions and words. We treat one another badly, scolding whomever we please, deceiving whomever we please, despising whomever we please... But if we knew how perfectly fair the law of cause and effect is and what severe karmic results it brings, we would know fear and restrain ourselves, and we would live only to love, to sacrifice and to serve, no longer daring to live for ourselves alone.

Why must it be so? Because the cause of selfishness leads to a wretched, painful and miserable result... We know the suffering that awaits those who in their hearts seek only their own joy, live for themselves and scheme for their own gain. Either they will become a person who meets a great deal of hardship, or they will become an animal, or a hungry ghost, or fall into hell. If we know cause and effect, then whenever we say something we will be careful with every word, treat everyone with care for fear of hurting them, and always want only to bring joy to others... and then, if in the future we return as human beings, the result awaiting us will be a person of glory and happiness. If we do not return to the human realm, we will be born in the heavens as a radiant and peaceful Saint. When we deeply understand this law of cause and effect, we hold the key that guides our lives to the place we long to reach.

The Sutras tell a story. While the Buddha was sitting quietly before the great assembly, thunder and lightning suddenly broke out in the sky, and a golden knife appeared in empty space, fell and cut the Buddha's foot, leaving a scratch. The Buddha then rubbed his foot with his hand, and the wound disappeared. The assembly was both alarmed and astonished: the Buddha is a venerable one with immeasurable merit, so why should he still have to undergo such a strange karma?

The Buddha said: karmic results are fair and exempt no one, not even the Tathagata. Then the Buddha told by what cause and condition he had to repay this small bit of karma. About five hundred lifetimes earlier, the earth too was in a period of civilisation, not one of backwardness. That is, our earth goes through many phases, flourishing and then declining. In one life when the earth was civilised, people could build boats and ships and travel and trade busily. The Buddha's former self was a traveller on a boat crowded with some 500 passengers. He seemed an ordinary traveller, so no one knew who he was. He was extremely skilled in martial arts, with a clear and sharp mind and a heart full of compassion. He carried his luggage on his shoulder and stepped aboard with everyone else.

On that boat that day, there happened to be a band of robbers disguised as travellers. When the boat had sailed far out to sea, they drew their knives and killed the captain. They then forced everyone to hand over all their luggage and valuables, and the few who cried out or hesitated were immediately cut down with swords. Knowing clearly that the twenty robbers intended to kill all five hundred passengers, leaving no one, once they had taken all the gold and silver, he decided to act. First, he urged the robbers to stop and not to sow evil, because if they killed 500 people and took all their belongings, the result would be falling into hell life after life. At that time, although he was not yet a Buddha and not a practising ascetic, he knew cause, effect and karmic results well.

Of course, the robbers did not listen to his advice. Compared with twenty burly robbers with weapons in their hands, that young, unarmed traveller did not frighten them. They laughed arrogantly and said, "In this world, the strong win. There is no moral principle, no law of cause and effect, no hell at all," and one of them drew his sword. Being exceptionally skilled in martial arts, in an instant, with a few moves, he seized the sword and killed that robber. The remaining nineteen drew their swords and surrounded him. In a flash, the young traveller defeated the twenty robbers and saved the 500 people on the boat. Everyone was overjoyed, thanked him and continued the journey.

Killing 20 robbers to save 500 lives brought very great merit, but the karmic result appeared only when he became a Buddha, and then only as a slight scratch. What is notable is that what scratched his foot was not some base person but a sword from the heavens, which appeared so that he could repay a little karmic result. That is, the law of cause, effect and karmic consequence exempts no one. Let us not think that because our practice is advanced we are no longer governed by cause, effect and karma. If even the Buddha had to undergo it, how can we avoid it? Therefore we must know which causes to plant in order to obtain the results that our lives truly long for.