When infatuation ceases, determinations will cease. When determinations ceases, the cognition of distinguishing objects will cease. If so, birth, old age, sickness, death, worry, lamentation, and afflictions will all cease.
Master Lianchi's essay on quitting killing
Master Lianchi
People in the world take meat eating for granted, so they kill animals at will, accumulating a wide range of resentment and karma, and it has become a habit and custom, but people themselves don't think there is anything wrong. Someone once said this in the past: "It's really okay to cry and cry over the wrong thing everyone is doing!"
If we carefully analyze the obsessions of the people, there are about seven points, which are listed below, and other mistakes can be deduced as usual.
First. Birthdays should not be celebrated by killing. You will feel pity for your parents on this day in your heart. On the day I was born, my parents worked so hard that they almost died of pain because of me. On the anniversary of your birthday, you should refrain from killing, eat vegetarian food, and do more good deeds so that your parents will be rewarded with blessings. How can you forget the pain your mother has suffered and kill living beings on this day? Killing living beings can only cause one's parents to be implicated and oneself to suffer retribution. It's a pity that many people now celebrate birthdays by killing animals, which is really a sad thing.
Second. Celebrating the birth of a child should not kill. People are sad when they don't have children, and they rejoice when they have children. Did it not occur to you that all beasts love their own young? Can we have peace of mind when someone else's child dies in order to celebrate the birth of my own? When a child is just born, instead of accumulating blessings for him, we kill and create karma. This is too stupid. This wrong thing that everyone is doing is the second thing that deserves to cry and sigh.
Third. Worshiping ancestors should not kill. When offering sacrifices to ancestors, one should refrain from killing to bring blessings to the ancestors. Sacrificing in the way of killing can only bring about karma. Even if all kinds of meat delicacies are placed in front of the mausoleum, the dead cannot eat these foods. There are no benefits, only disadvantages, such things smart people will not do. Many people do this wrong act of offering sacrifices by killing animals, and it is the third thing that is worthy of weeping and sighing.
Fourth. Celebrating a wedding should not kill. In a wedding in the world, from the time when the man and the woman get to know each other to when the wedding is held, countless lives are killed. Marriage is the very beginning of human birth. Killing is the beginning of birth, which is already reversed in principle. Marriage is supposed to be an auspicious event, but isn't it cruel to celebrate such an auspicious event with such a vicious thing as killing? This act of killing a living creature to celebrate a wedding is a fourth thing that deserves a painful sigh.
Fifth. When entertaining guests, one should not kill. Beautiful scenery on a good day, warm hosts and polite guests, the food can be light and delicate, why kill life, why eat big fish and meat, why have the cry of being killed in the kitchen other than meat and wine ? People with hearts, don't they feel sad about it? This is the wrong thing that everyone in the world is doing, and the fifth thing that deserves a painful sigh.
Sixth. One should not kill while praying to the gods for protection. When people in the world are sick, they kill the living beings and pray for the protection of the gods. Do you ask the gods to save yourself from death, seek your own life, and kill other lives to extend your own life? There is no more unreasonable thing than this. An upright person will become a god. Can a god have selfishness? Life cannot continue but killing karma exists. Many similar activities involve killing. This is something that people in the world are not aware of, and the sixth thing that deserves a painful sigh.
Seventh. One should not kill to earn a living. For food and clothing, some people hunt, some fish, and some slaughter cattle, sheep, pigs and dogs, and they make a living by this. But I have seen many people who are not engaged in these industries have the same food and clothing, and have not died of cold or starvation. Making a living by killing is intolerable to God. Not one in a hundred people gets rich by killing. This kind of behavior leads to the cause of going to hell and receiving evil retribution in the next life. No other behavior was more serious than this one. Why not look for other ways to earn a living? This is the behavior that many people in the world are not aware of, and it is the seventh thing that deserves to cry and sigh.
We see that there is increase, decrease, acquisition, and abandonment of ourselves, and we cannot get bored, dissociated from desires, or liberated from our own heart, mind, and consciousness. In the long night of samsara, we protect our bodies and spare our lives, thinking about "I" all the time. For obtaining and taking, say this is "I", "mine". Within ten years, twenty years, thirty years, or even a hundred years of life, our heart, consciousness, and consciousness are trembling day and night when it comes to good news or mistakes. It's like macaques wandering through the woods, going from tree to tree in a split second, climbing branches, letting go of one branch and grabbing another at the same time. Our mind and consciousness are like this, different birth and different death. If we can think carefully and observe all kinds of predestined relationships, and get rid of form, feeling, thought, action and consciousness, we can be free from bondage.
The world is illusory, relative to your heart.
Everything that happens in the world proceeds according to cause and effect.
Nothing happens for no reason.
All inputs have outputs. All actions have consequences. There is nothing without a cause, and nothing without an effect.
The world developed according to the principle of cause and effect has a big cycle. When the consequences of the big cycle appear, a new big cycle begins.
Seeing desirable forms, wanting to cultivate Tathagata's dislike and detachment, right mindfulness and right wisdom: Seeing the form that suits one's own desires, one must practice dislike and detachment taught by the Tathagata (so as not to generate greed), so as to be clear and aware (the object in front of you), clear Understanding (wisdom of liberation).
Seeing the form that is not in line with one's will, to practice not to be disgusted with the Tathagata's teaching (so as not to generate hatred), and to be clear and aware (the object in front of you), clear Understanding (wisdom of liberation).
When the state that is in line with your own wishes, and then the state that is not in line with your own desires, you should firstly practice the dislike and detachment taught by the Tathagata (so as not to be greedy for the state that is in line with your own desires) ), and then practice to be not disgusted (without anger towards the state that is not in line with one's own wishes), but clear awareness (the present object), and clear understanding (the wisdom of liberation).
You should abandon the heart: Regardless of whether it is what you want, what you don't want, or what you want and what you don't want, you must practice the equanimity of "being free from disgust and also free from not disgusting", without attachment.
-"Saṃyukta Āgama 282" (Cultivating the Tathagata's disgust is to cure greed, cultivating the Tathagata's non-disgust is to combat hatred, and cultivating the Tathagata's disgust and non-disgust can cure ignorance.)
Shi Huilin of Tang Ximing Temple, surnamed Pei, was born in Shule. In his early years, he followed Bukong Sanzang as a novice monk. Proficient in the statement of India and the exegesis of China. He wrote one hundred volumes of Dazang Yinyi. In the fifteenth year of Yuanhe, he passed away in Ximing Temple with a life span of eighty-four. See the fifth biography of eminent monks in Song Dynasty.