Telling wrongdoing from merit in a new age

Today, new technology gives people very great opportunities to create merit, but also to create wrongdoing very quickly. Instead of the karmic result ripening after many lives of rebirth, it now arrives swiftly, within a few years. Wrongdoing and merit have grown so large that time cannot wait.

For example, a factory succeeds in producing goods for society, but secretly discharges its wastewater into a river, poisoning the water and killing fish in huge numbers. What is the cause and effect? By cause and effect, for the goods they produce for society, they have taken the profits and enjoy them, living in wealth and comfort. But for ruining the river and killing so many fish, the first karmic result is that their entire fortune will collapse. Surely that enterprise will later decline little by little and eventually go bankrupt. So we see that some people are very rich in the early stage, but afterwards everything collapses swiftly, and this is precisely the reason.

Our ancestors had a saying: "First, ruin the mountain forests; second, offend the River God", meaning that these two things cannot make a person rich. We see that in the past, people sawed down forests with hand saws, and sometimes a single tree took three days to fell, so over their entire working life in the forest they cut down hardly any trees. The karmic result that came to them would also make them poor, but the poverty came gradually, slowly, and then stopped. Now, with the powerful help of machines, in one day they fell several hundred trees; the destruction of nature is so terrible that the karmic result comes very fast: they become rich very quickly, but the collapse is irresistible. It is not that they did evil in a previous life and became poor in later lives; they become poor immediately, within a few years, once their old merit has run out. So the question of recognising wrongdoing and merit in this age is often different from the cause and effect of wrongdoing and merit that we compare with earlier ages.

Today, if we use the new technology skilfully, merit accumulates upon merit; conversely, if we are careless, the wrongdoing is heavier. For instance, today, without any standing in society, a person need not stand up before the public to teach the moral principles of the ancients, the teachings of Buddhism or of Confucianism: an ordinary person can freely put forward a personal view through the internet (that is, we have a website or set up a Facebook page), and if many people watch it, accept it and share it widely, our merit increases at an unimaginable speed.

In this age, it is very easy to create great wrongdoing, and also very easy to create great merit. All it takes is for our writing to be thoughtful, profound and ethical, and to move the reader, giving them a little more belief in wrongdoing and merit in this life, so that they live by it and know how to correct themselves just a little, that is, speak a little less harshly of others, grasp and grab a little less greedily, and we gain a great deal of merit. Or if what we say makes many people learn to love one another, our life has more merit. Our own life naturally becomes luckier afterwards. This is very strange, and the opportunity is opened equally to everyone, restricted to no one. Anyone with wisdom, moral character and moral principles can tell everyone good things about this life, and a new door will open: new wrongdoing and merit for ourselves.

Or take a person who has the talent to write computer game programmes. If from the start the writer intends to build addictive elements into the game, players will certainly devote all their time and energy to it. Worse, it can lead to social evils such as the tragedies of a grandchild killing a grandfather, or parents killing a child, to satisfy an addiction. The karmic result for the writer is terrible. However, the nature of a game is neither wrongdoing nor merit; it depends on how we use it. If, with the same techniques, the writer turns the game into online lessons such as foreign languages, mathematics, physics or life skills, to be studied for a limited time (30 minutes), then surely a good karmic result awaits them. So the technology of the new age gives us the opportunity to create great things, but whether it becomes wrongdoing or merit is up to us. If we are skilful, this new technology gives us the opportunity to perform very great meritorious deeds; conversely, if we are wicked, that technology gives us the opportunity to create extremely heavy wrongdoing.

There are people who understand that detergents and soaps clean people but pollute the environment, so they invest in making products that both satisfy human needs and do no harm to the environment (that is, clean people while keeping the environment clean). They make cleaning products from plant extracts that clean very thoroughly and whose wastewater can even be used to water plants; that is, they do not destroy or kill life but create life... This is a revolutionary technology that saves the world and saves the environment. Some cleaning products that meet these requirements already exist, and we should support them in order to save this world.

In an age of scientific progress, people easily become utilitarian. Belief in gods and saints, in moral character and in cause and effect disappears, because nowadays whoever is capable wins and whoever is shrewd succeeds. It is precisely while material life is changing that whoever keeps complete reverence for the Buddha keeps the soul of the world, because the Buddha is the absolute spiritual and moral refuge for humankind. A person who keeps reverence for the Buddha and shares it with those around them will help the world stop chasing material comforts, to look back and turn toward what is noble, serene and peaceful. This is a very great blessing.

As for those who, for profit, poison consumers by soaking food in harmful chemicals, putting those who eat it at high risk of cancer, such a person incurs two karmic results:

First, because they poison others, they will fall into the realm of hungry ghosts (pretas), always hungry and thirsty.

Second, because they cause others painful illness, they will writhe and cry out, tormented by disease. But death is not the end. While the karma remains, even after death the illness continues in that realm.

What Is the Karmic Result for Those Who Do Not Believe in the Spiritual?

In fact, in observing the movement of galaxies and stars, scientists have found that the material world makes up only 10% of the immense universe; the remaining 90% is called dark matter. This is a headache for many great scholars because it is extremely mysterious. Its presence governs the movement of celestial bodies. In truth, this is the spiritual world, from the hells to the heavenly realms. This is what the Buddhist sutras mentioned thousands of years ago. So those who deny the spiritual lose half their lives, because more than half of this universe is the spiritual world. And the cause and effect of denying the spiritual, the karmic result, is that later they become foolish, even mentally ill, sometimes lying in one place living a vegetative life; because denying the spiritual element of the universe means denying the Gods and Saints. So at times thoughts offensive to the Gods and Saints arise in them, and that is why they receive very heavy karmic results.

The Karmic Result of a Life of Meaningless Indulgence

We remember the famous saying of Patriarch Baizhang: "A day without work is a day without food"; and a day in which we do nothing of benefit to people is a dangerous day.

Because on that day we still owe a debt to life; we still breathe, still eat, still drink. So at every moment of life, when we let a word go from our mouths, let it be for the benefit of people; when we use transport, let us be doing rightful work in service and contribution. Do not waste time and money living in idleness, enjoying pleasures and meaningless trips. Rather, live each day to practise, to serve and to contribute. That is how we turn simple actions into great karmic results.

The Karmic Result of Squandering

Whatever we waste, we lose what we once enjoyed. For example, today the fanatical fan is no stranger. Hundreds of people are willing to queue in the sun to see an actor or singer they idolise. They give their whole heart and feeling to a hero on the screen who, in reality, may indulge in debauchery and have a scandalous private life. Wasting the soul and heart on something unworthy will make our soul arid, and we ourselves will degrade into something as dull as a tree or a stone.

So let us admire people who are truly worthy. For example, illustrious scientists who have made great discoveries for humankind; politicians and leaders who sacrificed their whole lives for their country; and true practitioners of brilliant virtue; then the karmic result that returns will lift our soul, raising it to a great and boundless soul.

And if someone has loving parents but looks down on them and betrays them, in the next life they will be an orphan, alone; or if someone has teachers and ancestors but is not loyal and filial toward them, in the next life they will have no chance of being taught by anyone. Likewise, those wealthy people who spend their money wastefully will surely see their descendants reduced to dire poverty. Conversely, if we use it properly, that money will multiply into blessings for the future.

In addition, in recent years the earth has had record heat because the sun is burning more strongly. If each year the temperature rises by a few degrees, then we need not wait a billion years: within the next 10 years life will disappear from this planet because the sun has been angered. The main reason is that people have defied heaven and earth. For example, in the cold season we soak in very hot baths; in the hot season we go into a room and turn on the air conditioning at a very low temperature, consuming the environment's energy.

So each of us should practise living in harmony with nature. If it is too hot outside, we should set the air conditioner a little higher, without too great a difference from outside, so that we do not commit a wrong against heaven and earth. There are so many poor people who must struggle and endure, day after day, bone-chilling cold or sun that burns skin and flesh, while we indulge too much; that too is a wrong. When we live in harmony with nature, with heaven and earth, this earth will be less harsh.

Furthermore, in this new age there is a problem that pains those who think. Travelling at sea, people have discovered currents that were previously very hard to see: only experienced fishermen or sailors knew that at that place, at those coordinates, there was a current. Today, no experience is needed to know, because we can see streams of rubbish drifting along the currents. So many animals have died from swallowing the plastic bags and the packaging and wrappers we use every day. Material life has left filth on the land, the water and the air.

Unwittingly, day after day, each of us is quietly creating wrongdoing. So we must have enough knowledge and enough clarity to see the potential wrongdoing and merit in new technology, and so build a noble life, less dependent on material things, with a spiritual dimension and turned toward liberation. Later, whoever becomes a successful businessperson should create services and products that can be reused and do not become waste. Be a producer, a business, with a conscience. Wrongdoing and merit are practical actions in this life, not something remote. We need to be thorough and to distinguish clearly. Everyone must understand wrongdoing and merit more carefully than in the past. And we must understand science and technology in order to weigh wrongdoing and merit against them. From there, let us choose for ourselves a way of life and a path suited to a civilisation of knowledge, simple and healthy, to build a beautiful world close to nature.