The content explains apparent worldly injustices, where kind, honest, and hardworking individuals suffer while the deceitful prosper, through the Buddhist concept of karma and the accumulation of merit across multiple lifetimes. It posits that current circumstances are a result of past actions, and present actions shape future outcomes, emphasizing that true wealth lies not just in material possessions but in inner peace and accumulated blessings.
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Do you know anyone like this?
They never take advantage of others,
are always sincere,
and the money they lend often goes unreturned.
They suffer losses but simply laugh it off,
even
worrying about others' difficulties before bed.
They are kind, honest, and don't harm
others, yet
they suffer the most.
They work
harder than anyone else,
getting up earlier and going to bed later
, yet despite their hard work,
money always comes and goes,
opportunities always slip by, and
in the end , they still struggle to make
ends meet.
On the other hand, there are those who
are full of lies
, scheming against friends
, and cheating the weak
, yet they are incredibly wealthy, owning
cars and houses
, and acting self-righteous.
Seeing this,
everyone wants to ask God,
is there any justice
in this world ? The truth
is,
the Buddha answered
this question more than two thousand years ago.
The *Maharatnakuta Sutra* states that
each person experiences suffering and happiness according to their karma;
rebirth follows karma
, and so does the result of karma
. Your destiny is determined
by your karma—
what kind of family you are born into,
what circumstances you encounter,
how much wealth you possess,
and how much suffering and happiness you endure.
This is not random fate
, but the clear
and inevitable law of cause and effect.
The Venerable Master Xu Yun also explained
that cause and effect are inescapable for all, whether ordinary or holy.
Sowing good causes yields good results, and sowing
bad causes yields bad results—
there is no error in this.
Since cause and effect is the fairest principle, what
exactly have these honest people done wrong?
Why do they suffer so
much when they are so fortunate?
We must understand that
Buddhism views poverty and wealth
differently. It's not about striving desperately in this life
, but about calculating
your destiny
and wealth
in this life from a macro perspective of cause and effect across three lifetimes . That's the account from
your past life. And what causes you sow and
what good deeds you do in this
life are the account for your next life.
You think you only see
today
, but in reality, your life
is a ledger spanning three lifetimes
, and most people
only see the middle page.
Today, I don't want to talk to you about the grand principle of good deeds bringing good rewards;
that kind of comfort is too cheap.
What I want you to see through
is what those kind-hearted but poor honest people
are really carrying, what
those cunning and wealthy people
are really consuming
, and
when you put the accounts of three lifetimes together...
The person you thought was at the biggest disadvantage
actually harbors an unexpected and astonishing fortune.
After watching this episode,
I hope you can truly understand and see through it all.
Here
, I sincerely invite you
to leave these eight words in the comments section: "Go with the flow,
do your best, and good
fortune will come naturally."
Let this resolve take root in your heart.
Don't envy others' windfall gains,
and don't lament your current poverty.
Go with the flow and do your best;
your good fortune is already on its way.
Let me tell you a story.
I know a man
named Aren.
He is a stonemason
whose craft has been passed down for three generations.
He specializes in making stone slabs, stone walls, and stone mills.
In those days
, this was truly hard labor.
Every day, before dawn, he would leave home
carrying his tools and walk several miles
to the construction site,
hammering and chiseling from dawn till dusk. By sunset
,
his palms were as thick as tree bark
, calluses formed on his hands, and
his back was perpetually hunched.
Ah Ren had been learning this craft from his father since he was sixteen, and
he had been learning for decades.
In those decades,
he had probably walked more stone-paved roads
than he had walked in his entire life.
This man
didn't have any great skills
or extraordinary intelligence,
but everyone in the village knew one thing:
if you asked Ah Ren for work,
you could rest assured
he would never shortchange you.
If you asked for three stone slabs,
he would make four for you,
saying they were spares
and he wouldn't charge extra
. If he couldn't pay you,
he wouldn't press
you, saying he would talk to you when you had them.
Once ,
a major event happened in the neighbor's family;
the head of the household fell ill
. When Ah Ren learned that his family
was struggling to make ends meet
and had no money to hire workers
, he quietly went to their house with his tools,
working from dawn till dusk
without charging a penny
. Before leaving, he even took a bag of rice from his own rations and
left without looking back.
That was the kind of person
he was. But Ah Ren
was never wealthy.
It wasn't that he was always hungry
, but he
was always strapped for cash and couldn't save
any money. Sometimes he had to scrape together money for his children's school fees.
During holidays,
the table was never properly set.
Sometimes his wife couldn't help but complain,
and he would just hum and
smile,
saying, "Enough to eat is
enough.
" When he said this,
there was no sadness or resentment
in his eyes
, just
a calm, serene look that made you feel
like he truly understood. He had seen through something
, or rather,
understood something, but
he couldn't quite explain
what that "something" was.
Behind his back, some villagers said
that Ah Ren was a man of bad luck
, the kind born to toil, who
had spent his whole life doing manual labor
but could never save any money.
They said such people
were just unlucky
, no matter how hard they tried. When
these words reached his ears,
he just grunted and
said nothing more,
turning back to continue chiseling his stone.
In stark contrast to Ah Ren
was another man in the village
Old Xu
was shrewd
to an extreme degree
from a young age; he could do math at six.
Others sold something for two cents,
he sold it for nineteen cents
, but gave you a smaller quantity
. In the end, he earned more than others
... He seemed practical and down-to-earth. As he grew older, he became bolder
more resourceful in business,
daring to do anything speculative
and take
advantage
of any opportunity.
He didn't
care
about the source of the profit;
he would seize it first.
One year, there was a piece of land in the village that was originally intended to be allocated to several poor families
for building houses. However, Old Xu used his connections
to acquire
it at a low price and then
resold it at a high price,
making a fortune.
One of
those families
was Ah Ren's.
Ah Ren knew about this
but didn't make a fuss
or come over to scold anyone
. He just remained silent for several days
. He went out and worked as usual
every day, but
he spoke very little
during those days.
Even the sound of his hammer striking the stone
seemed softer.
After a few days
, he went back to his old ways
, talking and
doing
as usual, as if nothing had ever happened.
Old Xu took the money
and his business flourished.
He bought land, opened shops,
and eventually owned several properties.
His life was always lavish;
during holidays, he hosted banquets
with huge tables set up—
he was incredibly extravagant . Even the
younger generation in the village
had to respectfully call him Boss Xu.
During that time,
people in the village often sighed,
"Look at Old Xu,
he didn't study much
and doesn't have any real skills,
but he's good at shrewdness and he 's made
a fortune
." Ah Ren, so honest
and hardworking,
has spent most of his life poor.
Heaven really has no eyes!
When I was young, I believed
those words too. But
as
time went by,
I slowly realized
that things weren't like that at all.
When Ah Ren turned sixty,
it was the heaviest burden on his family.
His two sons had just grown up,
and he had elderly parents and young children to care for, putting
immense financial pressure
on him . But it was precisely that year
that a seemingly insignificant little thing
quietly changed the course of Ah Ren's family.
The neighbor he had helped when he was young,
the family that had left him that bag of rice,
later moved to the city
and did very well in their business.
That year,
that neighbor finally found Ah Ren and
said he wanted to thank him for that bag of rice. He said that
without that bag of rice
that winter, he
really didn't know how his family would have survived.
He had always remembered it
and always wanted to repay it.
He asked Ah Ren
what his youngest son was doing,
saying he had a stable position there
and wanted to help Ah Ren's child get it.
That was all.
Nearly thirty years later, with
just a thin bag of rice,
he returned. His
youngest son had settled
in the city,
and after a few years, he was established and
brought Ah Ren and his wife to live with
him. Life
gradually improved
from then on.
When Ah Ren was seventy,
both his sons were doing well on their own paths, and
his grandchildren were all
bright and intelligent.
His eldest grandson, in particular
, excelled in his
studies , going on to
a very good school and eventually
getting a good job after graduation.
In those days,
that was something the whole village looked up to.
The whole family
slowly climbed out
of that tight situation,
little by little. The
climb wasn't fast
, but every step was real and
solid.
I had the opportunity to meet Ah Ren once when he was seventy-five or seventy-six.
At that time, his hair was completely white,
his back was still hunched,
but his eyes were bright
and his face radiant.
He sat in the yard
, holding a cup of tea,
watching his grandson running around.
His smile was slow
but genuine;
there was something in that smile
that young people couldn't learn.
I asked him if he
felt he had lived a life of regrets.
He thought
for a moment
and said,
"What's there to regret
? Debts
always have to be repaid
. Once they're paid off, everything
will be alright." At the time, I didn't fully understand what he meant.
I understood
what he meant later
. Old Xu
had enjoyed nearly fifteen years of success
, but during those fifteen years, a thorn
remained
unremoved
: his eldest son. His
eldest son, having grown up under his father's influence,
learned the same ways of doing things,
but was even bolder
and less concerned with rules
or bottom lines. As
he grew up, he became
even more aggressive
in business , making what he thought was a sure-fire profit. However,
things went wrong
, leaving him with a huge debt
—so huge
that it nearly wiped out all
of Old Xu's savings.
And this was just the beginning.
Old Xu himself
had suffered from
high blood pressure
and heart problems
since middle age , and later, he was diagnosed with an even more troublesome illness
. The hospital visits
and medical expenses were spent one by one;
the
money just slipped away
. In his later years, Old Xu
lived in a place
less spacious than the small residence Ah Ren's youngest son had bought for him.
Few people genuinely came to visit him.
Those who had once been his companions, eating and drinking with him,
had all vanished
without a trace.
I never personally witnessed Old Xu's later years
, but I heard
he often sat
alone ,
lost in thought
, not speaking , seemingly
pondering
something. Perhaps he had figured things out
, but it was too late.
I'm putting Ah Ren and Old Xu's stories together
not to tell you a simple
truth about good people being rewarded and bad people being punished
—you've heard that too many times. While
it sounds plausible when I hear it
, it doesn't quite make sense
in reality.
I want to take you deeper to see
how Ah Ren's long years of poverty
came about,
what burdened
him with that poverty, and
why he had to wait until he was sixty to start
anew.
And how did his grandson manage to forge a different path?
There's a set of rules here
that few people have explained in detail,
and those rules
are the core we're truly going to explore today.
Before we delve into that core,
I'd like to tell a short story.
It's set in a small village
a little further back in time.
There lived a woman who had been widowed early;
her husband had died young,
leaving behind two children and a
family... With no savings,
she supported herself
by farming
and doing needlework— she
took any job imaginable
—and made ends meet day by day.
Despite her circumstances,
she never stopped giving alms.
Even if she only had a handful of rice,
she would give half to those
in even worse situations. If she
encountered a beggar on the street,
she would invite them in for a bowl of hot soup.
She was always the first
to visit a neighbor in need
, never arriving empty-handed.
Some villagers scoffed,
calling her foolish;
she was barely making ends meet herself,
yet she was still giving away her food
—she deserved to
starve
. The woman,
however,
remained calm and simply said, "
What
you give away
is safer than what you keep."
When I first read that sentence,
I was truly stunned for a long time.
In modern terms,
this
means depositing money into an
account that will never go bankrupt or be stolen from.
This account
is called karma.
In those days,
few women
could afford to study
, but both of these children did,
found respectable paths in life
, settled down, and started
their own families.
Later, they brought their elderly mother to live with
them, ensuring a comfortable
and prosperous life. She
was surrounded by her children and grandchildren during festivals.
It is said that
she passed away peacefully
in her sleep,
a smile on her face
, as if she were going to a banquet arranged long ago.
Three stories,
three lives—
what have you discovered?
Poverty
is temporary
; goodness
is accumulated.
The process of accumulation
can take a
or even three lifetimes.
Just because
you don't have something now
doesn't mean you don't
have it; it
just means your time hasn't come yet. Now,
let's delve into the most important part
: why are some people,
despite being kind-hearted,
hardworking
, and having done nothing wrong
, still poor
and miserable?
There are four fundamental reasons,
The
first reason
is that their innate wealth is empty.
Buddhism teaches that
people enter the world with their own blessings,
like
a bag they carry with them.
The size of this bag and the amount
it holds
are not determined by this life. What matters
is the accumulation of blessings in
past lives.
In those lives
, people rarely gave alms, never helped others,
only knew how
to take and not give; their pockets
were inherently empty
and light.
This doesn't mean you were a bad person in your past life;
sometimes it's not about being bad,
but simply lacking opportunity
, awareness
, or circumstances that did
n't allow you to give. Thus
, in this life, you carry
a thin pocket of wealth and fortune. No
matter how diligent
or kind such a person
is in this life
, they can maintain a basic
standard of living, but it's difficult for them to truly become wealthy and powerful.
It's not because they don't
work hard , but because their pockets
can't hold more wealth.
Here's a key concept
: the carrying capacity of blessings
. Wealth isn't based on... What one earns through hard work
is carried by good fortune.
A person's good fortune is like a container,
and wealth is like water. If
the container is too small
, no matter how much water is poured in
, it won't stay ;
it will just flow away.
Have you ever seen someone who,
no matter how much they earn, give
, or try to hold onto
their wealth, can't keep it?
It's not that they're not frugal;
it's that their innate container is
inherently small.
The *Ekottara Agama Sutra* says
that giving one thing yields ten thousandfold returns;
this is the meaning of karma.
True wealth
begins to accumulate from the moment it is given away,
not from the moment it is grasped.
Giving
is like expanding that pocket;
every bit given away
makes the pocket bigger
, and the more
it can hold in the future.
This is the first principle. Because
it sounds a bit disheartening,
like something predetermined from a past life,
what's the point of this life
? Don't rush
to conclusions; let's look at
the second reason,
which is more hidden
and unexpected
: hidden karmic obstacles.
Many people are honest and kind,
but they have subtle habits
they're unaware of.
However, Buddhism clearly explains
that these subtle thoughts
can form real obstacles.
What do these subtle habits
look like?
I've discussed this in a previous video.
For example,
constantly feeling unworthy of money, thinking, "
How could I possibly deserve this?
Just getting by is enough. "
Many honest people say
this naturally
, but at the karmic level,
it's a signal of self-isolation.
You tell the universe you're unworthy, and
the universe truly won't give it to you. Another example is
being timid and
hesitant in the face of challenges. Even
when there's an opportunity
, they always back down at the most crucial moment,
thinking, "
What if I fail?"
This fear
is essentially a lack of self-confidence
and a habit left over from past karma.
Yet another example
is constantly complaining and
sighing
, feeling unlucky, thinking, "
This is my fate."
This negative thought
constantly reinforces the existing karmic pattern
, making that old path deeper
and harder to escape.
Another type
is being overly soft-hearted,
kind to everyone, unable to say no, and
unable to protect one's boundaries.
As a result, some people gradually gather around them who only know how to take.
Those who don't know gratitude
waste their energy and
wealth,
yet remain oblivious
, believing they are doing good deeds.
These subtle thoughts and habits
are collectively called mental obstacles in Buddhism.
They sever the connection between you and good opportunities.
Opportunities are right in front of you,
but you can't see them
, or even if you do,
you can't take the step
, or you do take the step
but are tripped up at the crucial moment
by the dark wall in your own heart.
This isn't because you're inherently stupid;
it's karmic obstacles at work.
The way to break through them
isn't to force yourself to become tough
or calculating,
but
to cleanse yourself, thought by thought, from the depths of your heart of those
self-imposed limitations of "I'm not worthy" and "I can't do it,"
allowing your heart to gradually become more virtuous. Becoming more open-minded
and believing in oneself is worthy of good things.
The third reason
is the shared karma
of the family. The family's fortune is
the collective karma accumulated over many years by
the character, behavior
, words, and thoughts of several generations.
This karma
is real
and has weight.
If a family
is stingy, mean
, calculating,
and selfish for generations,
never doing good,
this accumulation
will invisibly deplete the family's overall blessings.
The entire aura will shrink,
become constricted,
and stagnant.
Wealth cannot enter ,
or even if it does, it cannot stay.
In such a family
, even if you are a good person with many
kind thoughts,
it is really difficult to break out of that pattern on your own in the short term.
It's not that there is no way.
This reversal requires time
and sustained good deeds
to gradually change the direction of the family's aura.
This process
can take one generation,
two generations, or even longer.
Looking back at Ah Ren's story
, it took
him most of his life for his good deeds
to slowly begin to change the fortune of his entire family.
And
the most obvious fruit
of this change did not fall on him
, but on his grandson
, on the next generation.
This is traceable
and not accidental.
The fourth reason
, which is also the most direct situation for many honest people,
is called "repaying debts. "
What they owed in their past
lives was not only money,
but also human
kindness ,
gratitude
, and even some mistreatment. The debts
from past lives
must be settled in this reincarnation.
One way to settle them
is by having your earnings
mysteriously disappear due to
illness, accidents, emergencies
, or being forced to stand up
for others or bear their burdens—
in short, you can't hold onto them
. Another way
is finding yourself constantly being dragged along by certain people,
unable to let
go;
that's the pull of karma
from past lives , the karmic connection that
needs to be resolved in this life.
Only
by resolving these debts can you truly move forward
lightly. Paying off debts
is never a bad thing; once
it's paid off,
everything is clear,
and the path that truly belongs to you
is light,
smooth,
and clean.
What's truly terrifying
is owing and not paying it off,
dragging it into the next life
, where it snowballs and becomes heavier—
that's the real trouble.
These four... Putting all these reasons together,
do you realize that
those honest people who
live in poverty their
whole lives are not simply burdened by bad luck,
but by an extremely complex karmic debt?
There are debts from past lives, debts
to be repaid in this life,
debts shared by the family
, and the subtle habits deep within their own hearts that need to be
cleared away bit by bit.
This is a very heavy lesson,
and not everyone has the opportunity to do it
well.
Then there is an even bigger question:
why do those cunning people
get rich so easily?
This
is also the most difficult thing for many people who have not been exposed to Buddhism to accept.
Actually, it is quite easy to understand.
Let me give you an analogy first.
Have you ever seen one? Such people
inherit a fortune from their ancestors,
yet they don't earn a penny themselves,
spending lavishly every day
, eating the best,
wearing the most expensive
clothes, and being exceptionally extravagant.
Outsiders see this and think they live well
and are capable.
But if you think carefully,
where did that money come from?
It was saved by their ancestors,
accumulated in the past.
They weren't earning it;
they were spending
it . Once it's gone
, it's gone.
The prosperity of such cunning people in this life
is essentially based on this principle.
In Buddhism, there's a term called " past blessings,"
which refers to the good fortune accumulated in previous lives.
Some people
accumulated substantial wealth and blessings
through good deeds in their past lives.
These blessings carry over to this life
, making their conditions exceptionally good,
their fortune exceptionally smooth
, and everything they do easier than others.
But people... Some people 's minds change
in this life. They become lost,
thinking that money comes easily
and start going astray.
They think that means don't matter
and that good or bad intentions
don't matter, as long as they can get rich.
Such people
seem to be getting rich, but in
reality, they are
constantly withdrawing
from the thick
account of blessings
accumulated in their past lives.
They only spend and don't accumulate.
They can only spend as much as they accumulated in their past lives.
Once they've spent it all, it's over .
There
is a saying in the Dhammapada:
"Neither in the sky nor in the sea
nor among the hidden rocks,
there is nowhere
to avoid the karmic force
of past evil deeds.
You can't escape
it or avoid it.
No matter where you go
or what kind of clothes you wear,
it follows you
and waits for you."
So, what
is money earned through scheming and manipulation
called in Buddhism? It's called " ill
-gotten gains."
The characteristics of ill-gotten gains are: they
come quickly
, but they don't truly belong to you;
they're just temporarily passing through your hands,
and you never know when
they'll be gone again.
And when ill-gotten gains arrive,
they often come with unseen costs.
Perhaps
it's your health
; look at those who built their fortunes through shady means
—eight or nine out of ten of them start experiencing health problems in middle age,
various illnesses follow, and
they become frequent visitors to the hospital.
Perhaps it's family troubles
—siblings falling out,
spouses getting along,
children becoming rebellious and out of control.
Perhaps it's the children—
in families where ill-gotten gains have accumulated,
the children often find it difficult to inherit that wealth
, or even... It's not a coincidence
that someone squanders their parents' wealth
in various ways
; it's the karmic consequences of ill-gotten gains being settled.
They may be rich
, but they lack peace;
they may appear wealthy
, but their blessings are meager
. This is the true reality
for those who acquire wealth through unclean means.
More importantly,
blessings have a finite limit
; spending without accumulating
will eventually exhaust them
. Many people experience a sudden downturn
in their middle or old age.
This isn't bad luck; it's
the karmic debt coming to settle
after their past blessings are exhausted.
The bill is clear,
not a penny less,
not a single item missing.
Old Xu's story
is the most straightforward representation of this operating mechanism.
At the beginning of the film, I mentioned
those kind-hearted but poor people
who actually hide... Amazing blessings!
Don't think I'm talking nonsense.
From a Buddhist perspective,
there are several causal relationships hidden within this.
After listening, you'll understand.
First,
poverty in this life
is a light punishment for heavy sins.
This statement
may sound cruel at first
, as if saying
that suffering is deserved.
But its true meaning
is immense compassion
, an efficient way of repaying debts
. All the mistakes in past lives,
whether intentional or unintentional,
will have consequences .
These consequences
can be very
heavy , causing you to experience immense suffering in this life
, or they can be relatively
light , requiring only a period of poverty
and hard work
to settle the debt.
From this perspective...
The poverty of this life
is actually a discounted form of repayment
for the suffering that might have been endured otherwise.
Because of the good deeds and kindness accumulated in this life,
it is converted into a lighter form.
Using poverty and hardship to offset karmic obstacles
is actually extremely efficient.
Secondly
,
all the good deeds accumulated in this life
are converted into great wealth in the next life
. This is a concept that makes me feel the law of cause and effect is extremely precise.
If the good deeds you do in
this life do not bring you financial rewards,
will these good deeds disappear?
No, they
will not disappear at all.
The Upasaka Sila Sutra says that
when you see someone asking for something
, your heart is joyful, and after giving,
your heart does not regret it. Giving
with joy
and without regret, and not
being disgusted by begging,
is called the highest level of giving. It is
giving with a sincere
heart. The merit gained
through selfless acts
without expecting anything in return
is real, verifiable
, and recorded
.
Every good deed you do
, every kind word you speak,
and every person you help
in this life is precisely accumulated
in your merit account,
down to the last penny. There will be no deviation
, no expiration date, and
it won't be cleared or disappear
just because you didn't claim it in this life.
All the merit that hasn't manifested in this life
is stored away
and will appreciate,
manifesting all at once in the next life—
that is great wealth, prosperity,
and a life of comfort.
This is an extremely worthwhile delayed return.
There's an investment logic called compound interest;
the longer the time
, the more astonishing the accumulation
. The Buddhist logic of merit
is precisely this. Moreover
, its compound interest rate
is more astonishing than any financial instrument in the world.
The good
deeds you accumulate in this life will be reaped in the next life
in multiples
, or even greater multiples.
Therefore, those honest people who are poor their whole lives
are actually the most far-sighted investors in this world.
It's just that few people see them from this perspective .
They are not investing in
stocks
or real estate,
but in something more stable than all of these
: cause and effect
, blessings , and
assets that can be taken across three lifetimes.
The third point is that
they will have a change of fortune in their later years
and achieve great things later
in life. This is the most realistic life trajectory
of many honest and kind people.
They are poor in the first half of their lives
, still hardworking in middle age,
and sometimes even in middle age... They were
still
suffering, which was heartbreaking to see.
But from some point,
a seemingly insignificant little thing
became a turning point.
And when you look back,
you find that
life slowly started to get better.
It wasn't sudden
wealth, but
a steady and reliable improvement
, a kind of solid and
increasingly supportive improvement
that could withstand any storm.
The logic behind
this turn of fortune
is that the good deeds accumulated in the first half of life
finally reached a critical point
and began to manifest
, like underground water
that keeps seeping and
accumulating
until it
suddenly gushes out, and
no one can stop it.
Another dimension
is the children
and descendants.
Many honest people
never have children in their entire lives. The family was incredibly wealthy and powerful
, but their children were outstanding,
and their grandchildren were even more so.
The family's fortune
steadily improved
with each generation.
This wasn't accidental
, nor was it due to good genes; it
was because the honest man's lifelong good deeds
continued
to resonate within the family's energy field after his passing
, manifesting in various forms.
We often say, "
The predecessors plant the trees,
the successors enjoy the shade.
" Within the framework of cause and effect,
this saying
has a much deeper meaning than its literal translation.
The virtue accumulated by the predecessors
and the blessings received by the successors
— that blessing
can be passed on,
quietly unfolding in the lives of later generations
in unexpected ways. Do you think
Ah Ren's grandson's success
is solely due to the child's intelligence?
There's a hidden story
behind it. The fact that Ah Ren's good deeds have been silently supporting him throughout his life
is another aspect
that few people mention
, but I think is very important.
A kind-hearted poor person
gains something that money can't buy
in this life
: inner peace.
This
is a real blessing
, and a very profound one at that.
Not everyone has it.
A cunning and wealthy person
may appear successful on the surface
, but deep inside
, there's a crack.
He may not sleep soundly, and
his laughter
may mask underlying anxiety,
because he knows where his money came from,
he knows some people hate him,
he owes debts , and
some things are still unresolved.
This feeling
will always follow him
. He slept
soundly until his old age
, and that kind-hearted poor man
slept peacefully; his
smile was pure;
he treated everyone with
a clear conscience;
there was nothing to hide on his face
, nothing to guard in his heart;
wherever he went,
he was a clean and honest person.
In Buddhism,
inner peace is itself a profound blessing.
There's a saying: "Peace of mind is a blessing."
Many people chase after it their whole lives
but never
achieve it,
while those honest people
unknowingly live in this blessing.
They themselves may not even realize it.
The Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra says: "
If one truly cultivates the Way , one
does not see the world's faults
—not because one's eyes cannot see them, but
because one's heart is so pure that
it is not disturbed by those things..." Undisturbed,
unburdened by injustice,
able to maintain clarity amidst noise,
and retain kindness in adversity—
many poor
people are born into this state.
This is no small matter, everyone.
In spiritual practice, this
is an extremely difficult state to reach
; many who have spent decades in meditation
exert tremendous effort to approach it.
Therefore,
when we see through this cause and effect,
we realize that
those who are kind-hearted yet remain poor
truly possess immense blessings.
Finally, I'd like to say a few more words to you all.
The entire operation of cause and effect
ultimately returns to two core words:
one is thought,
and the other is karma.
Thought
determines direction
and future trajectory.
What kind of seeds are you sowing for yourself? If
you plant a righteous thought,
a kind thought,
or a generous thought
today, you are preparing a better path
for your future self.
Righteousness won't make you instantly rich
or make you successful tomorrow
, but it will gradually eliminate disasters,
accumulate peace, and
leave you a way out. It will
protect you in times of danger and give you a push when
opportunities arise.
Karma
determines your present situation;
it is the source of your current circumstances
, the sum of your past and present lives, manifesting in this moment.
It is neither punishment
nor reward,
but a process, a
lesson you must learn. Once
you have learned it and
cleared it away
, move forward.
Destiny
has its own rules.
The rule is that
for the blessed,
wealth will come naturally
without calculation
; for the unblessed, no
matter how much they strive,
they will still end up with nothing
, and often, striving
will bring additional trouble.
Therefore, true wealth
does not begin with grasping,
but with letting go,
with giving,
with a pure heart
, with not arguing with others
or fighting against fate. Being
poor but kind-hearted
is accumulating great blessings
, building the most solid foundation in the deepest part of
life. Being rich but evil
is overdrawing your remaining life,
appearing only in the most glamorous moments. Beneath the surface,
it slowly hollows out one's foundation.
All the seemingly unfair things in this world, if
you extend your perspective
to three lifetimes
or even longer,
you'll find
they are perfectly
fair.
I'll leave you with one last question:
If you
are currently experiencing a period of poverty
, or a time when you feel you've given a lot
but received little in return,
can you use what you've heard today
to reflect deeply on
what you
are truly bearing right now,
and what
you are accumulating
? This is a question you need to think about carefully.
If today's content
has touched you even a little,
please tell me in the comments section
or
share this with someone around you who is kind-hearted and
hardworking
but hasn't yet received the favor of fate
, letting them know that
they are
not suffering losses,
but accumulating
something more solid than anyone else's.
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Every act of kindness you
make plants a seed of good karma in this world that
