Her husband stormed out and went to the market, where he started looking up his mother’s old friends. He eventually found her, and when he brought her home, his wife fell to her knees and begged her husband’s forgiveness.
Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law turned to her son and said that his wife hadn’t done anything wrong. Instead, she'd left because she didn’t like being cooped up and wanted to be near her friends in the market.
Not only that, a few minutes later, when her son wasn’t looking, she gave her daughter-in-law a bankbook with the daughter-in-law’s name on it. It showed a sizable amount of money in the account, enough that her husband wouldn’t think twice about it.
When her mother-in-law left the house, she already had a plan. She rented the cheapest backroom available, and then, while continuing to sell bean sprouts, she did every other kind of odd job she could find. She lived like this for a year, saving every penny she could, because she didn’t want to see her son’s family break apart.
The wife realized what her mother-in-law must have gone through to save that kind of money, and it was a life-changing event for her. She hugged her mother-in-law, awed by such unbelievable kindness, and it was a long time before her tears stopped.
∴
What would have happened if the mother-in-law had let herself give in to frustration and resentment? Could things have turned out this well?
If you dislike someone and carry around harsh thoughts toward them, ultimately you are the one who will suffer the most. So, in all of the things you do, and in dealing with the things that confront you, maintain a kind and gentle frame of mind.
No matter how angry or betrayed you feel, do your best to avoid speaking or acting rashly. Think about the situation from the other person’s perspective, and deeply reflect upon your own behavior and assumptions.
This is the wisdom that can change the world. If you can live with this kind of wisdom, how could your family and society not become happy and peaceful?
A single, tiny thought can change the world. This is why I’m often telling you that everything begins with the thoughts one person gives rise to. Could there be anyone whose thoughts don’t matter?
29
The Man with Two Sets of Parents
A thousand years ago or more, in the Korean kingdom of Silla, there lived a husband and wife who were servants to a nobleman. Thus, by birth, their son was also a servant.
One day during a typhoon, the husband went out to ensure that their master’s fields weren’t being washed away. While checking the dikes, he was swept away by a raging stream and drowned.
The nobleman was a kind-hearted person, and couldn’t help reflecting on his servant’s many years of service. The man had always worked hard, taking care of whatever needed to be done. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t his job, nor did he avoid the difficult jobs or leave his work for others to do.
As the nobleman considered his servant’s many contributions, he decided to give the man’s son a large piece of farmland. With this land the son would never again have to work for anyone else. But to the nobleman’s surprise, although the son gratefully accepted the land, he continued to show up for work every day, all the while still taking good care of his mother.
Several months later, a sunim passed by collecting donations for a temple. As the son listened to him chanting, something stirred deep within him. He decided to give the sunim the entire piece of land in the name of his father.
His mother tried to dissuade him, saying, “What about your future? This land is your chance for a better life.”
The son replied, “I was given this land because of father’s sacrifice, so now I think it should be used for his benefit.”
His mother was still uneasy, but was consoled by the knowledge that his good heart and the virtue of his actions would take care of him. However, unexpectedly, her son became ill and died three days later.
As for the sunim who had received the land, he was no ordinary monk. He was a great practitioner who had deeply awakened. He had been impressed by the young man, and perceived that he had a deep and pure mind.
The sunim wanted the young man to have a bright future, but there was no ordinary way the sunim could help him—under the laws of those days, the young man was born into the lowest level of society, and could never rise above that. So, after much reflection, the sunim used his deep spiritual ability to help the young man to leave his old life and body behind.
Next, the sunim appeared in the dream of a high-ranking minister who despaired of ever having children. In the dream, the sunim said, “In the village of Moryang, a young man called Daesung has died today, but in the near future he will be born again as your child. Raise him well, for he will grow up to become a great and virtuous leader.”
The minister had this same dream for three nights in a row. It was quite an odd dream, and he was curious about it, so finally he sent a servant to investigate the events mentioned in his dreams. Amazingly, the servant reported that in fact, in a remote village called Moryang, a man named Daesung had recently died.
Knowing this, the minister wasn’t too surprised when his wife became pregnant a few months later. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and everyone in the family was so excited for them. After so many years of no children, at last, a healthy son!
However, as the midwife was washing the baby, she realized that his left hand was clenched in a fist and wouldn’t open. In a hurried whisper she called for the minister.
The new father’s stomach turned to ice at the news, and he rushed into the room; but as he touched his son’s clenched fist, it gently opened as if it were the petals of a flower. There, in the palm of his hand, was a name written in letters of glowing gold: Daesung, or “Great Protector.”
His parents gave him their family name “Kim,” and raised him well. In fact, he eventually grew up to become prime minister of the Silla Kingdom, and under his wise guidance, Silla enjoyed peace and prosperity for many decades.
When Kim Daesung was old enough, he went looking for his mother from his past life. He brought her to live with his mother from this life, and took good care of both of them.
He had deeply experienced the truth that everything is constantly changing and manifesting, with nothing remaining fixed or unchanging. Furthermore, he saw the suffering that people experienced from not knowing this, so to help them understand, and to honor his parents from both lives, he built two great Buddhist centers, Bulguk Temple and Sokgul Hermitage.
∴
Once when Shakyamuni Buddha was traveling, he suddenly stopped and bowed to a large pile of bones that was beside the road.
When his disciples asked him why he’d done that, he pointed at the bones and explained:
“Although we were born with the body of a human being, this hasn’t always been the case. On the way to becoming human beings, we’ve lived as every kind of being imaginable, with parents and children, sisters and brothers. Having passed through eons, is there any being that wasn’t your mother or father, your son or daughter?”
If you’ve awakened to your true self, then you may realize just how many different shapes you’ve had. If you truly know this, if you truly understand how many times you’ve switched places, how many times every other shape has been your shape, then how could other lives not be just as precious as your own?
In this life and all our lives up until now, we have had parents and children, brothers and sisters. Is one set more precious than the others?
All beings are our mother and father, our son and daughter, so we need to treat everyone with this much respect and value.
30
The King and the Blacksmith
Once there was a king who wanted to see for himself how his people were living, so he dressed like an ordinary merchant and traveled throughout the country.
As he walked past a house early one morning, he heard a man say, “It’s so cold today! What a miserable morning! Generation after generation we suffer like this,
repaying debts above and giving light below.” The king saw that the man was a blacksmith, talking to himself as he worked to get a fire started in his forge.
Try as the king might, he couldn’t understand what the blacksmith had meant.
Once he returned to his palace, he sent for the blacksmith and asked him the meaning of his words. The blacksmith gave a huge sigh of relief. He’d thought he was in deep trouble, because he couldn’t imagine why anyone in the palace would want to see someone like him!
Doing his best to keep his teeth from chattering, he answered the king, “I come from a long line of blacksmiths. My father was one, as was my grandfather. It’s hard work, and hot in the summers, but I can’t really complain, because I’ve been able to feed my family and see that my children can marry well.
“That said, every single night I have to worry about the forge. If the fire goes completely out, so that even the embers die, it’s often midday before I can get the fire started and hot enough to work with. So, every night I have to add wood to it, and every morning I have to get up at sunrise and feed the fire before it dies.
“On the morning you passed by, it was very cold out and the fire had already died, so I was asking myself why I had to suffer like that. Well, I realized that I go through these hardships in order to take care of my parents and grandparents, and to raise my sons and daughters, all seven of them.
“I owe a huge debt to my parents who gave birth to me and worked so hard to take care of me. And I know that plants won’t grow with just water: they also need sunlight.
“So I was thinking that I have to give light to my children as well as food and clothing. That’s why I was grumbling that it’s so hard to repay the debts I owe above and to give light below.”
Hearing this, the king felt like he had finally remembered something he had forgotten a long time ago. Slapping his knee, he exclaimed,
“Every word you said is the truth. Nothing is separate, everything is connected together, even those who have died or are yet to be born. Each has their own role, yet they also work altogether as a whole.”
The king saw clearly that there was not the least difference between him and the blacksmith. He realized that the purpose of wearing a crown was not to indulge himself and live as comfortably as possible, enjoying the benefits of money and power.
Like the blacksmith who took care of his parents and gave light to his children, the king also had a role to play. Above, it was his job to ensure that the country was prosperous and strong, and below, he was responsible for ensuring that the people were well fed and that virtue prospered.
None of these things should be tainted by the attitude of “Look at what I’ve done.” Rather, these were things that the king had to do purely because he was born as a human being; being a king only increased the extent of his responsibilities.
Out of gratitude to the blacksmith, the king gave him a large farm with many servants. Guided by his newfound wisdom, the king ruled so well that the entire country prospered and lived in peace.
∴
No matter how many good deeds you’ve done or how much you’ve given, if you still carry around thoughts such as “I did that,” then your actions won’t produce true virtue or merit.
Furthermore, the material and the non-material have to be included together, such that if you move even a single finger, it can support the entire universe. Then whatever you do will truly become virtue and merit.
When you can do this, you can feed all beings with a single bowl of rice: though you have just one bowl, the rice will never run out.
Because the world truly works like this, when you take care of your parents and children, do it while knowing they are not separate from yourself, and while letting go of any thoughts that involve “I’m doing.” If you can do this, harmony will pervade your entire family.
31
The Examination
During the Joseon Dynasty, there was a scholar who was on his way to Seoul to take the national civil service examination.
He had been walking all day under the late summer sun, and was hungry and tired. Seeing an inn, he entered its courtyard and sat down on the raised platform with a heavy sigh. He ordered food and drink, and as he took out his purse, he found himself staring at it with tears in his eyes.
The tears welled up because while he had spent the last several years studying for the civil service test, his wife had been the one who supported their family.
Although she belonged to the nobility, she worked in other people’s kitchens and took in their sewing and mending. One copper coin at a time, she supported her husband and children, and saved enough for her husband’s traveling expenses.
What made it worse was that this wasn’t the first time the scholar had taken the national examination; it was famously difficult, and he had already failed it several times. So, as he looked at the coins in his purse, he felt the weight of his wife’s love and how bravely she had gone about taking care of the family.
For several years, the entire country had been gripped by a drought. If the rains did come, it was always as floods that washed away entire fields, or buried them under sand and gravel. Words can’t express how much the ordinary people suffered.
But the worst disaster of all was the behavior of the corrupt and greedy officials that plagued so many areas. Even when the people were one step away from eating boiled grass and tree bark, these officials still insisted that they pay their taxes, and they would take every last thing of value a family possessed.
If the local officials had just reported the situation to the king, he would have canceled the taxes in the districts that were suffering. But then the officials would have lost the chance to steal part of the tax money. So they kept quiet and the people continued to suffer.
Thus, the scholar couldn’t pass through a single village, no matter how small, without hearing the sounds of weeping or the groans of the sick and dying. He vowed, “If I pass that test with a high score, I’m going to become a royal inspector, and I will not let the people be abused and suffer like this!”
You see, in those days the king had secret inspectors whose job it was to tell him what was really going on in the country. In addition, they had the authority to solve any injustice on the spot. All of the soldiers and police had to obey the inspector instantly. These inspectors could even have officials arrested, exiled, and beaten to within an inch of their lives.
The most terrifying sight a corrupt official could see was a shabby peasant suddenly calling out in a fearsome voice and holding high the badge of a king’s inspector. Even the most cunning and powerful official’s blood would turn to ice at the sight of that round, brass badge with its image of five horses. These inspectors truly had the power to relieve people’s suffering.
As the scholar thought of the suffering of so many people and of his wife, he sat up straight, drew his shoulders back, and growled, “I’ll pass that examination or die trying!”
As he wiped the tears from his eyes, a weary old man sat down beside him. “Oh my legs! And if it were any hotter today, I don’t know what I’d do.” Smiling at the scholar, he asked, “Where are you off to on a day like this?”
“I’m heading up to the capital to take the national examination.”
“Well then,” said the old man, “you’d better take a look at this.” Out of his backpack he took an old book and gave it to the scholar.
The scholar opened it up, but as he looked through it, he saw that every page in the book was blank. He turned to speak to the old man, but no one was there; the old man had vanished!
“Had he been there at all?” wondered the scholar. “Perhaps I’m suffering from heatstroke?” But no, the book the old man had given him was still in his hands.
He sat there for a long time looking at the blank pages of that book. Passers-by saw him and imagined that he was studying some particularly difficult text, and yet not a single word was written on those pages.
Suddenly the scholar gave
a shout. “Hah! Who would have guessed! There’s nothing here, so it can become one with everything, and can manifest as anything. It contains everything in the world. If one takes that as their center, they can hold all the realms of existence and non-existence in the palm of their hand.”
The scholar reverently put the book in his bag, and with a smile on his face continued on his way to the capital.
On the day of the exam, he went to the palace and found his seat. At last, the instructors revealed the examination topic: the word “Everything.” Everyone had to compose an essay or poem with “everything” as their subject.
The scholar thought of the book the old man had given him, with its blank, white pages, and smiled as he began to write about the principle by which everything in the universe functions.
Needless to say, his poem received the highest scores. He met the king, who upon hearing his story made him a royal inspector and charged him with protecting the people and upholding justice.
∴
When peas are immature, they tend to stick to the pod, don’t they? However, when they have completely ripened, they burst out with just a touch of the fingers.
The scholar’s study of human virtue and how we should live had ripened to the point where those blank pages alone were enough to open his eyes. Everyone needs to reach this point.
There are so many teachings left by great practitioners; however, if your own spiritual practice isn’t deep enough, those teachings will remain just words on a page.
Even though you’re not yet at the stage of understanding the blank page, do your best to at least correctly understand the true meaning of the written words. If you can’t understand even the written words, how will you be able to pass the examination?
My Heart is a Golden Buddha: Buddhist Stories from Korea Page 8
