PureInsight | December 5, 2005
[PureInsight.org]
Preface:
This is part of my own story over the course of the history about how I got retribution for my evildoings. My purpose for writing it out is to show that, when we attach ourselves to others' mistakes and shortcomings, we should think about it. Maybe, we also committed serious evildoings in the past. However, our compassionate Teacher doesn't hold our past wrongdoings against us. We should judge a person comprehensively, and be sure not to narrow our view only to a certain time period or aspect. As long as one can do well at present, and thoroughly rectify his errors, then, he is a being who is worthy of being valued! Of course, it is the principle of the universe that good is rewarded with good, and evil is rewarded with evil, which no living being can oppose! Let's come back to my story.
It was during the Sui Dynasty (581 – 618 A.D.). The Grand Canal of Jinghang was under construction, which brought affluence and prosperity to Yangzhou area. Mr. Xia lived in the city of Yangzhou. He was very honest and good-natured. He and his wife worked very hard in their silk and satin shop. They only had a son, named Xia Yang. Their family's financial circumstance was very good. Xia Yang had been spoiled so much since he was a child that he developed a lot of bad habits. Moreover Xia Yang had an extremely rebellious character. His parents asked the tutor to educate him, but he wanted to play all the time, and didn't put his heart into study. Later on, his father invited a martial arts teacher to teach him martial arts. A while later, the teacher discovered Xia Yang was a person who didn't have any virtue to practice martial arts, was cruel and would not change his mind if he thought he was right. Therefore, the teacher just taught him some superficial skills. He told Xia Yang, "Do not do anything bad. Otherwise you would hurt other people as well as yourself." Then the teacher left. At that time, Xia Yang was close to twenty. He was full of vigor and afraid of nothing. One day, he quarreled with his father over a small thing. He was so angry that left the home without leaving any word to his parents.
Soon after he left home, he made friends with a gang of scoundrels. Because he knew a little martial arts, he became the head of the small gang. They spent their time on dining, wine-drinking, whoring and gambling. A short while later, they spent all of the money they had, and then started to invade homes to steal things and rape the beautiful girls. During a short time period, they stirred the whole city into a tempest, and the complaints from people were heard everywhere. After his parents heard about his evildoings, they got so angry that they died one after the other. Later, the government arrested people in his gang, and executed them. Xia Yang happened not to be there when the others were arrested, which enabled him to escape from the disaster. He should, of course, have used this opportunity to thoroughly examine himself, however, he didn't. After laying low for a year, he started his evildoings again and deeds he did were even more brutal and obscene.
One day at dusk, he sneaked into the Zhao's household, the home of a rich squire family. Coincidently, Zhao's daughter was getting married in two days, and the house was decorated with lanterns and streamers, and full of joy and happiness. After Xia Yang found out about this, he thought: I heard that Miss Zhao is beautiful and as pretty as lilies and roses, if I could….I may get both beauty and money! Therefore, he ran to Miss Zhao's boudoir, used the tip of his tongue to wet the window paper and then poked a small opening. He looked inside through the small opening: Miss Zhao was sitting next to a table and doing some embroidering work. She was embroidering a pair of mandarin ducks playing on the water. At this moment, Miss Zhao raised her head and smiled to herself. It seemed that she was daydreaming about her bright and beautiful future. Her good looks really gave him a big surprise. This was a pretty woman whose looks could outshine the moon and put the flowers to shame. Her features could make fish sink and birds alight and even make a fairy feel ashamed if compared with Miss Zhao's beauty! Anyway, Miss Zhao was beautiful beyond words. Xia Yang felt Miss Zhao was so attractive. And then, he decided to use a method that other people would feel ashamed to use. He lit a type of incense that could make people fall unconscious. A while later Miss Zhao sneezed and then fell onto the ground. After Xia Yang saw he had succeeded, he jumped into Miss Zhao's room from the window, blew out the candle, held Miss Zhao in his arms, and carried her to the bed. While he was raping Miss Zhao, he even said to Miss Zhao: "Miss, you are the fifth virgin I have raped!" At this moment, someone outside said: "How come the light in Miss Zhao's room is out? And why the window is open?" "This is not good! That rapist on the loose must have broken into Miss Zhao's chamber! That scoundrel is capable of all kinds of evildoings!" And then servants started shouting for help from others to catch Xia Yang. Xia Yang realized his evil deed was exposed, then, he put on his pants in a hurry and rushed out of the door. He climbed over the wall at the back yard and ran away before the guards saw him.
After he jumped out of Zhao's back yard, the guards found him and ran after him in close pursuit. Xia Yang had no choice but to follow narrow lanes and back alleys and try all means to escape. He ran into the wilderness. He looked back and found that nobody had followed him. He wanted to sit down and have a rest. At that moment, he saw a person coming near him. This man was the well-known knight-errant Wang Tianzuo, a good man who carried a broadsword to get rid of bullies and bring the peace to good people. When Xia Yang saw it was Wang Tianzuo, he got up and tried to run away immediately. Actually, Wang Tianzuo hadn't paid any attention to Xia Yang at all until Xia Yang tried to run away. Wang Tianzuo took a look at the person who was running away, and then realized that it was Xia Yang, a ruffian who did all kinds of evildoings. So Wang Tianzuo went after him and killed him. Wang Tianzuo threw Xia's corpse into the wilderness, which was the retribution Xia Yang finally got. Xia's fate was exactly what Wu Cheng'en from Ming Dynasty had written hundreds years later. (Wu Cheng'en is the author of the novel Travel to the West):
When a thought arises from the human heart,
Heaven and Earth know it completely.
If good and evil do not meet with retribution,
The cosmos must be selfish!
After a while, Wang met the Zhao family members and they told Wang what had happened. Wang got so angry that he returned to Xia Yang's corpse and gave it a few more cuts. Afterwards, Xia Yang's body was eaten by the dogs in the wild. When Wang and the Zhao family members returned to the Zhao home, they found that Miss Zhao had hung herself after she found she had been raped. The Zhao family experienced the huge change from the happiness of a marriage to the sadness of a funeral.
Let's put aside how the Zhao family arranged the funeral and come back to Xia Yang. After Xia Yang was killed, his spirit came out of his body. Because of Xia Yang's wrongdoings that he had committed in that life, he fell into the sixth level of hell. After a long time of paying off his karma, he reincarnated at the level of animal, and he lived as an ox or a horse for over one hundred years at that level. When he was suffering at the sixth level of hell, a Bodhisattva sent her maid to make a routine inspection of the lower world. After the Bodhisattva's maid saw Xia Yang suffering in the hell, she told the Bodhisattva about Xia Yang's story. The Bodhisattva used her celestial wisdom eyes to look at the whole history of Xia Yang. Then an idea came up to the Bodhisattva's mind to solve Xia Yang's bad predestinated relationship with those five girls he had raped.
During the period of Empress Wu Zetian in the city of Yangzhou, there was also a Xia family and a boy named Xia Yang. This boy had been honest and sincere, pure-hearted and capable since his childhood. Every day, he worked hard and operated the home business, a small bank, with his father. Before he had turned twenty, a lot of girls' families came over and proposed marriage. The first two girls that he was betrothed to died of sudden illness. Xia's family asked a fortune teller the reason, the fortune teller told them that, those two girls had been called back by the temple and they were cultivating over there. Later on, this Xia Yang married three women. The first wife was shrewish and very jealous. The second wife had a good character. She was the one whom Xia Yang loved the most. The third wife was the most beautiful one among the three women, but she loved money.
Xia Yang doted on his second wife very much. A few years later, his first wife, who had over-strong jealousy, jumped into a well and died. Soon after, the second wife also died of acute illness. The blow to Xia Yang this time was so tremendous that his hair turned white even before he was thirty. In addition, he was cheated by others in a business transaction, and his small bank collapsed, which made him go down and out. His third wife saw Xia Yang was turning into a poor man. She collected a small package of valuables and then left. Now Xia Yang truly had nothing left.
At that moment, Xia Yang had no tears anymore, he thought, "What made my life so ill-fated?" He had no choice but to leave his hometown and wander around. One day, he slept on the top of Taishan Mountain, and he had a long dream. In the dream, he saw all his doings in Sui Dynasty. After he woke up he realized that the retribution of cause and effect is so true! Therefore, he became a Taoist and cultivated at a Taoist temple near the Taishan Mountain.
Gratitude or resentment, it changes all the time, karma follows everyone
Good rewarded with Good, evil rewarded with evil, it is true
To be rewarded with good, need to treat people with goodness
Heaven's law will clearly identify the kind and the wicked
Postscript:
Clear-sighted people will know immediately that the Xia Yang mentioned in the article is me. I have done so many evildoings. Nonetheless, Teacher didn't shut me out and still arranged for me to obtain Falun Dafa, which has been very hard to find from time immemorial. In the Sui Dynasty, the fifth virgin I raped was the second wife of mine in the period of Empress Wu Zetian. Three of these five girls have already obtained the Fa in their present lives but the other two, unfortunately, didn't obtain a human body. Instead, they were each reincarnated as trees.
Reviewing history and clearly understanding all causes and effects may clean the dust in our minds. Seeing through ourselves, as well as the origins and existences of all around us, from a three-dimensional and comprehensive view is my fundamental purpose in writing this series on reincarnation. Everything is to validate the Fa. The path we walk has to be righteous. We must not leave any regrets and must be worthy of the sacred vow we made in person in front of the Lord Buddha!!
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http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/10/21/34302.html
