THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT:

THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT: WHAT WE CAUSE OTHERS WILL RETURN TO US

We talk this topic to help each of us know what cause will result in what effect so that we can determine what we should do to get good results and what we should not do to avoid bad results.

The law of Cause and Effect is absolutely fair and no one can cheat it. We often hear, “One good turn deserves another,” or “we reap what we have sowed.” That means those who live a righteous life will achieve happiness and those who live a bad life will experience suffering. The basic principle of Buddhism is that if we bring happiness to others, we will find happiness and if we cause others suffering, we will experience suffering. However, the rule is not exactly right because the law of Cause and Effect is extremely complicated and we and other people may think differently. We think we make someone happy but actually, they feel annoyed and when we think we make someone miserable but actually, they feel happy. Therefore, it’s hard for us to know the results for our actions.

For example, we hit someone on his face in front of a crowd because we want to make him humiliated. We can easily reason what the retribution for making someone miserable is. That we hit someone in front of a crowd has two causes. The first cause is making that person physically painful and the second cause is defaming that person. So, in the future we will be hit and defamed.

The longer our retribution comes, the more terrible it will be. That is unlikely that the person whom we hit will later hit us in front of a crowd like the way we treated him. Perhaps we will be hung and tortured in a public yard so that everyone can see us in a terrible situation. The retribution will be multiple times more terrible than what we caused.

For example, in our neighborhood, there is a child who is ethical and does well in school. He respects the elderly and helps the disabled. So in a parent-teacher conference or in a meeting of neighbors we praise and give him a bicycle as a gift. We invite his parents and several people to join the meeting and say, “I see though your child is young but very well-behaved and study well, so I am on behalf of these people here praise him and give him a bicycle as a gift.” This action has two causes. The first cause is about giving alms and the second cause is to honor the child in front of people. Because we produce two causes so that we will get two different results. What are they? Maybe not in this life but in our next life, we will become a world-famous scientist or a professor that will win a world prize because we will get more than what we give. We just praise a child in front of people and in our next life we will win a world prize and maybe earn a big amount of money. Producing a cause is similar to sowing a litchi seed or a grain of rice, it will develop into a tree and will give us so many grains of rice or a lot of litchis.

Likewise, if we do an evil thing, we will experience suffering in a very long time. When we do a good thing, we maybe enjoy its good results in all our life and maybe in next lives. The results and retribution, according to the law of Karma, are very great or terrible like that. So, those who understand the law of Karma are always careful with their actions and words. There are things that we think are good but others think otherwise. For example, on our teacher’s birthday, we give her a birthday cake as a way of expressing our gratitude to her. The cake is made of flour, eggs, sugar, milk, cream, and fat ... We think our teacher will be happy with this cake. However, unexpectedly, she is on diet to reduce sugar and fat in blood. We want our teacher to be happy but the result is the opposite. The result/retribution for such an action is hard to predict.

Or another example, a bad guy who argued with a man and accidentally killed him. Normally, when we kill someone, we make their family miserable but this case is totally different. The victim's wife will no longer be miserable anymore because her husband tortured the family for many years. Besides, he drank a lot and was involved in prostitution. His family was very afraid of him but had to live with him. They lived as in hell. Nobody dared to do anything because he was too aggressive. However, it didn't occur to him that he was killed by a bad guy on the street. The bad guy thought that he caused a disaster so he hurriedly ran away. He didn't know that the victim's wife and children were very happy about that.
Life is so strange! There are things you think will bring suffering to people, but on the contrary, they bring happiness. That's why it is hard to know the effect of an action.

The basic principle here is what we cause someone will be back to us either in this life or in another life. We gave our teacher a cake and thought she would be happy but she was not. The result for us should be that in the future, we will receive a gift from someone and we don't like it much and we will have to give it to another one.

In the case the bad guy accidentally killed the man then the result for him will be, in this life or in his next life, he will have both fortune and misfortune at the same time as he caused a disaster but this disaster, by accident, makes others happy (the wife and the children of the victim). For example, he will win the lottery, after that, someone will come to beat him and steal his money. Or he will fall down into a river and people think that he will die from drowning, but unexpectedly, he will not only survive but also get a bag of money in the river. This means, when in distress, he will have fortune and when having fortune, he will maybe encounter problems. This is because in his previous life, he sowed such a cause.

In this world, there are some religions that encourage their believers on terrorism, bombing, shooting to kill people to honor their religions. Those believers were instilled the belief that they will go to heaven if they kill many people. They have set off bombs in crowded places to kill many people. They disturb the peace but believe they will go to heaven. Those religions do not mention about the law of Karma but only belief which is totally wrong.

Their belief does not have any connection to the retribution they will receive. Here is the retribution for them: If in a bomb explosion of theirs, twenty people were killed and thirty people were injured then in their consecutive twenty lives, they were killed in a bomb explosion. They will live in fifteen or twenty years then will be killed by bombs to expiate their sin. They make thirty people injured then in their consecutive thirty lives, they will be wounded, their legs or hands will be broken... It is very tragic.

But it is not all. The death of each person causes their family extreme misery. So, the deaths of fifty people cause fifty families to be miserable. And if each family has seven to eight people, we have so many miserable people. Therefore, the retribution for the terrorists is extremely terrible. They will never have happiness and know heaven in thousands of years onwards. If they are reborn as humans, they will become orphaned right after their births. They will be lonely on the street, begging for food, and will often be chased and insulted. And if they are reborn as dogs, then these dogs will have scabies and live in poor families, and will be killed or have a road accident someday. All for them is suffering.

The way of the law of Karma is very objective and does not depend on any religion. Even though someone says that his religion is number one, his religion still cannot escape the law of Karma. So, definitely, those who bring suffering to others will receive suffering in return. You cannot say you do something for your religion, so you don't fear suffering.

There was a ranger who devoted his lifetime to protecting the forests. Thanks to him, it is hard for loggers to cut down trees for wood, so they hate him very much and want to harm him. The merit of protecting the forest cannot easily be recognized and praised as other merit, especially what brings immediate benefit. A business that earns a big profit will be praised by the State; a doctor who cures many patients will be honored; a teacher who is good at teaching will be awarded the title of meritorious teacher... However, security guards who protect the forest are not rewarded because humans cannot clearly understand the benefit of the protection of trees.

But the law of Karma does not miss any detail. The forest creates life on this earth. Without the forest, all will die. Thus, that forest rangers protecting the forest is protecting life on this earth. They help to keep the weather good, maintain water supply, so they will be greatly blessed. However, humans cannot recognize this because they don't clearly see the benefit of protection of the forest brought to humans. However, in the future and in many next lives, those forest rangers will always have a happy life, and will be loved and successful. It is the preservation of the good weather, maintaining the water, and he will be greatly blessed. The place where they live has good weather and no accidents. Such blessing is not only in a life but in so many lives.

The law of Cause and effect is absolutely fair and its fairness is beyond human wisdom. Because of our shallow thinking, we cannot see all good and evil of each of our actions; we cannot see the great benefit of the protection of our environment; but the law of Cause and Effect is entirely different.

Or when we wanted to put a water pipe from our house to across the street, we dug a trench then put a pipe into it then put soil onto the pipe. However, we didn’t make the surface as smooth as before. So, all vehicles were shocked and pedestrians were easy to fell down when going on that stretch of road. Although no one noticed it and we didn’t think it was serious but the retribution is so terrible.

Let’s see how many vehicles go on it a day? Each has two wheels, so it would be shocked twice (one for the front wheel, and one for the back wheel). So if there were two hundreds motorbikes/bicycles going on this road, they would be shocked four hundred times. So in a year, how many times vehicles would be shocked? And how about in five years? It would be thousands of times. And what is the retribution for thousands of times of shocks? In our next life, our legs will be crippled due to some accident. One leg is longer than the other. So we will have to walk with limp like when a vehicle is shocked. Until we experience thousands of times, maybe our legs will become normal. But at that time we may die. So, just because of our carelessness, we must walk with limp until this path becomes smoothly again, and that when we pay off our karmic debts.

Or the stretch or road in front of our house is quite deserted and dark at night. We set up a lamp on our fence, so that it shines our yard and the road. Maybe some people in our family do not agree with us for fearing a waste of power. We should tell them, "We should do it to prevent people from falling down on the road because they can see the road clearly." Maybe we have to do it tens of years until the State set up street lights for this road. In this period, we accept to spend more money on power to help people easily go on this road. No one notices this and our family just complains about wasting money. In a night, there were so many people travelling on this road.

They felt secure and did not fear ghosts, robbers and could avoid obstacles on the way...

Those things create a huge blessing for us. That we set up the lamp to bring light to the road creates three causes and three blessings. Firstly, we make people feel safe; secondly, we make people feel secure; thirdly, we help people see more clearly. These three things create a blessing that in our next life, wherever we go, we are always safe. For example, there are some stretches of roads that people are often robbed or have accidents but when we go there, the robbers do not take action, so we are fine. We are safe in life as if there is someone who always protects us. There are places that people always see ghosts but when we stay there, we see no ghosts because we have the blessing of being safe. People often have accident when going across some rivers but we are still safe when crossing them. This is our first blessing.

Our second blessing is the blessing of feeling secure, that is, we have no fear of anything even though we live in wartime or when we are in danger. We feel peaceful and happy all the times.

Our third blessing is we have extremely bright eyes because we lit a lamp and help others to see clearly. This blessing exists not only in one life but in many lives. We accept to spend more money on power in several years and thanks to that, in many lives after, we have bright eyes that we can see at night.

Janna