法苑珠林 70.4

70.4

Where there is a form, a shadow appears; where there is a sound, an echo responds. One has never seen a form exist while its shadow vanishes, or a sound continue while its echo fails to correspond. The principle of the mutual retribution of good and evil is crystal clear; we hope people will believe it deeply and not foster doubts that invite censure. Heavy and light painful retributions are set forth below in detail. If one physically engages in killing living beings—either skinning, slicing, mincing, cutting, roasting, and boiling razor clams and oysters, or flying hawks, running hounds, and hunting sentient beings—one will fall into the hell of slaughtering, tearing, chopping, and cutting. If one steams, boils, burns, or roasts sentient beings, one will fall into the hell of boiling caldrons and furnace coals. Because of this killing of living beings, one experiences intense suffering in hell through exhaustive years and boundless kalpas. Having finished undergoing suffering, one falls again into the animal realm, becoming an ox, horse, pig, sheep, donkey, mule, camel, chicken, dog, fish, bird, serpent, worm, clam, or leech to be killed by humans; such types as freshwater clams cannot live out their natural lifespan, but must provide their bodily flesh for platters and cutting boards. Trapped in these birds and beasts through immeasurable samsaric births and deaths, if there is no minute trace of good, there will never be a time of release. Should there be a sliver of merit, one may weakly regain a human body, but may perish in the womb or die upon birth, or die at age ten or twenty before attaining understanding, going from darkness into darkness, an object of pity to others. One should know that short lifespans are entirely caused by killing living beings.