Some typical examples of cause and effect

Whatever we despise will be lost to us. If we despise friends, later we will suffer loneliness, with no one left to be our friend.

If we do not like children, later we will have none. Once a woman asked: "Master, I have been married for many years and have no children. What should I do?"

We answered: "Listen to this saying of our elders: love children and children will come to your house; respect the old and the old will lend you their years. When you can love children who are not your own, you will naturally have children."

She said: "I don't care much for children. Often, even with the little ones in my own family, I pick them up for a moment and put them straight back down."

That is exactly where her mistake lies. To have children, we must perform great acts of merit for children everywhere. In our village, in every house that has children, we should go and give milk and clothes, and show our affection for the children, and then we will have children. Believe this, because it is cause and effect. It is only because we do not love children that children do not come to our house, and no one is willing to be reborn as a child in our home."

If we do not respect the elderly, we are likely to die young. When we meet elderly people, we must respect them, show them kindness and humour their wishes. Why? Because elderly people have lived a whole lifetime of ups and downs and hardship, and the time has come for them to enjoy some peace. All of us have a duty to love the elderly; it is the moral code of the Vietnamese way of life. When we meet old people on the road, or the grandparents in our own family, who are often hard to please or grumbling, we must still always humour them, always be well-behaved, always answer respectfully, always show love.

If we are unfilial to our parents and treat them cruelly, in the next life we will be orphaned.

What happens in the next life to a child who is unfilial to their parents? If a child treats their parents harshly, in the next life they will have no father and no mother, and will be orphaned early, lacking the warm love of a family.

If we do not love human beings, in the next life we will no longer live among humans. People live together without loving one another, without loving humankind; what then in the next life? They will fall into the animal realm, no longer living among humans but having to live among beasts.

If we cut down forests and do not cherish life, in the next life we will have no life. What happens in the next life to someone who often cuts down forests and does not cherish life? In the next life they will have no life. That is, after death they will wander as a hungry ghost and will not be reborn as a human again. Conversely, someone who knows how to value and protect forests, who loves every green tree and every newly sprouted shoot... will, after death, very easily be reborn in a happy place.

If we have money and squander it, later we will have no money. For example, a few million or a few tens of millions of dong could feed many people for some time, but we take that money to drink, gamble and do wrong things. Some people are so rich they do not know what to do to use up their money; they go to a restaurant and even invite a beautiful girl to sit at the table, then pull out a million dong for her. That is giving to the wrong recipient; such a person will later have no money, because they have squandered it.

If we are miserly and do not give, we will also have no money. For example, we hide a hundred million dong at home, but when we see poor people we refuse to help; later that hundred million will be gone. Both the spendthrift and the miser will have no money. Only a person who uses money correctly, who is both thrifty and generous, who knows how to spend sensibly and wholeheartedly helps those who deserve help, will surely see their money grow gradually, from little to much.

At the beginning it is only ten million; we spend two or three million, or five or seven million, on something, but later we earn back twenty or thirty million. Of that twenty or thirty million, we again use it very correctly, saving, but ready to help when help is needed; although the money is reduced, afterwards it jumps up to fifty million. That is, the more correctly money is used, the more it grows. But if we keep squandering or being miserly, then little by little

that money will be lost.

A beautiful heart gives a beautiful face. Beauty is very important; a beautiful face is very necessary in this life, and is also a source of pride and a blessing of our own. Our heart is the cause; the outward appearance is the effect. A beautiful heart makes a beautiful face. Let us look in the mirror at our own face to know our own heart. If on any day we look in the mirror and see a beautiful face, we know that our heart has been beautiful in the time just past; but if we look in the mirror and see a face like "Thị Nở", we know at once that our heart is very narrow and selfish.

So, to have beautiful looks, we must cultivate a beautiful inner heart. Do not foolishly spend money on cosmetic work; let that money go to good causes, and the face will be beautiful, lastingly so. Each time we give rise to compassion for others, the face becomes a little more beautiful; each time we are angry with someone, it becomes a little uglier. Each time we bow to the Buddha, the face becomes brighter; each time we despise another person, the face becomes uglier. Each time we are arrogant, the face worsens a little, and each time we humble ourselves and respect others, the face becomes a little more beautiful. These are the aesthetic methods. There is no way to beauty like bowing to the Buddha and loving and respecting people. No aesthetic method is as wonderful as this one. Understanding this, we will wisely know how to adjust our own beauty.

Doing good deeds means we will not be unemployed. When we are unemployed, we look for ways to do good deeds, and later we will have the chance to find work. But when we have a job and are indifferent and irresponsible, later we will lose it. So we must be diligent and dedicated in our work and, at the same time, do more good deeds, and our lives will gradually go smoothly.

Why Are Gentle People Still Wretched?

From another angle, we ask why some gentle people are wretched, while some fierce people are rich. There are many kinds of gentleness; do not assume everyone who is gentle is good. Some people are gentle but passive and indifferent: they harm no one and also never help anyone, so it is right that such a person is poor. If someone is cursed to their face and does not bother to answer and is not angry, they are indeed gentle. But if they see someone writhing, about to die, and just stand looking without helping at all, that too is "gentle", and gentleness like that leads to a lot of hardship.

So how should we be gentle? Gentle, but also good, and helping others. If we are gentle but, seeing others suffer, do not help, and are indifferent and passive, it is right that we meet with poverty and suffering. A gentle person who turns a blind eye when seeing others in trouble will meet with an even more terrible result.

Take a person who is very gentle: whatever anyone says, they smile, and they never get angry with anyone. One day, crossing a bridge, they suddenly see a child fall into the river. They look around, see no one, and do nothing at all, and do not shout for help, so the child slowly sinks and drowns. Such a person has eyes like a blind person's and a mouth like a mute's. Although gentle as earth, seeing someone in danger and not helping, not doing anything at all, they will have a very hard time in the next life.

Consider another person, who is also gentle because they practised in a previous life, but in the life before that they had created karma. This person was healthy in the first part of their life, and at twenty or thirty joined a gang that broke into houses and robbed at knifepoint, sowing a great deal of karma. At thirty-five they came to know the Way, repented, put down the knife and went to a temple to practise, punishing themselves, enduring hardship to do heavy work such as splitting firewood, cooking rice, and carrying basins of earth to fill in the damaged places on the road. Thanks to those seeds of practice, in the next life this person became gentle but was bullied and beaten by others, repaying the karmic results of having been a robber earlier in life. This is the case of someone who is gentle in the later stage but was fierce before, so now, though gentle, they still have to repay the karmic result, and only afterwards does good fortune come. This explains why some people are gentle yet suffer.

In short, there are three cases of being gentle yet still suffering:

• Gentle but indifferent and passive.

• Gentle but not helping people in trouble.

• Gentle but having had a fierce period before.

And Why Are Fierce People Wealthy?

Because this person looks fierce but within has enthusiasm. When someone in the village has a house with a leaking roof and leaning posts, this person is the first to help: gathering some bamboo from one person and some bricks from another to rebuild the house properly.

So although still fierce, that person has to be rich first; when they come to repay the fierce karmic result, that will be reckoned later. This case is the opposite of the gentle person who does nothing at all. For although this person is fierce, they have an enthusiastic heart in helping others.

Or there are fierce people who have a chivalrous streak. For example, a rough-looking man with a bristling beard, but if anyone in the village is bullied, or if he hears that thieves and robbers are coming to ravage the village... he always grabs a stick and goes first to defend the villagers. Precisely because he has the merit of protecting the village, this person, though fierce, is rich.

The same goes for people who work in the police: they often have faces that look "tough" and "fierce", but they have the merit of protecting the peace of the people. If a person is a true police officer, by the end of life they are rich, and in the next life they are rich too: fierce but still rich, and not at all through bribery.

As for a fierce person who in a previous life helped others but was arrogant and contemptuous, in the next life they are rich at first but in the end poor. Helping people makes one rich, but with a heart of arrogance one becomes a fierce person. Rich but fierce, and then poor afterwards.

We have analysed together some rules of cause and effect so that from now on we know how to set a direction and steer our lives to where we wish. If we want to be beautiful, we must love others and live gently. If we want to be rich, we must use money correctly and sensibly... We will take this moral principle of cause and effect, and this reverence and faith in the Buddha's teachings, to many people, and make everyone come to revere and believe in them.

First of all, we must help our children and grandchildren, neighbours, relatives and friends, so that everyone believes in cause and effect and everyone believes in the Buddha's teachings; then this life will become a beautiful paradise. Let us all join hands and put our strength together to build a warm and happy society, and a flourishing and developing Buddhist Dharma.