Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue with verse number 15, which goes as follows.
idha-sochati, pecha-sochati, papakari-ubhayatha-sochati, so-sochati, so-vihanyati, ti-svakamma-kilitta-mattano,
Which means, illa sochati, here he grieves, pecha sochati, hereafter he grieves.
Papakari ubhayata sochati, the evildoer grieves in both places.
So sochati sovihanyati, he grieves, he is afflicted, he is destroyed.
...seeing the evil or the defilement of his own actions.
So this is the teaching on evil karma, evil deeds.
We have two verses here.
The next verse is in regards to a different story.
So the story with this verse is that in the time of the Buddha there was a pig butcher.
who lived right next to Velavana where the Buddha was staying in Rajaka.
And when the monks would go on alms round they would walk past and they would hear the screams or they would even see the pigs being killed.
And the way the commentary explains the killing went on is this man, he would tie the pig to a post so it couldn't move and then beat it with a club to make its skin, its flesh tender.
But it was still alive.
and then take boiling hot water and pour it down the pig's throat and have all the feces and undigested food pour out the bottom.
And he would continue to pour boiling water in until the water that came out was clean, meaning that there was no feces left inside.
Then he would pour the rest of the water over the pig's skin to peel off the outer skin and use the torch to burn off all the pig's hair.
And then he would cut off the pig's head and then it would die.
And he would collect the blood from the pig's neck and roast the pig in its own blood, eat as much as he could with his family and sell the rest.
And they say for 55 years he lived his life like this.
And one day the monks were walking by, 55 years later, and they saw that today all of the doors of the house were closed up.
And they could still hear the screams of pigs and grunting noises and scuffling.
And so they assumed that there must be something great going on.
And so they started talking about this, how amazing it was that for 55 years this man had never learned the weight of the evil of his deeds and had never even come to listen to the Buddha's teaching or come to pay respect to the Buddha at all.
And the Buddha heard them talking and asked them, what are you talking about?
They explained what it was.
And the Buddha said, they're not.
And they said, oh, and today we see that he's, well, for seven days now.
He says seven days later, we see that they have been closed up for seven days, so they must be working on an even bigger slaughter or a special slaughter of some sort.
And the Buddha said, no, that's not really what's going on at all.
Seven days ago, it turns out that the chunda, this pork butcher, became very ill.
And his affliction went to his head and he became quite deranged.
And as a result of the sickness and the derangement, he started crawling around the house on his hands and knees and grunting like a pig, squealing like a pig.
And this is what they heard.
And the people in the house would try to restrain him, but they couldn't do it.
also because as the commentary said he began to see his future and this brought him great derangement on his deathbed the fear and the concentration of the mind at that point allowed him to see his future and he began to it drove him crazy and as a result all he could think about was the killing of the pigs and as a result dwelt that way for seven days and
Then on that day, on the seventh day, it was over and he died and went to hell.
So the Buddha explained what was really going on.
And then he said to the monks, this is how it goes.
It's not just in the next life that a person suffers, a person who does evil deeds.
A person who does evil deeds suffers both in this life and the next.
So how this relates to our practice, I think, should be quite clear.
And it becomes quite clear when a person undertakes practice because for the first time they're able to realize the full magnitude of their deeds.
I think, or it's clear that people who don't practice meditation are unable to understand the law of karma and they think of it as some kind of belief or some kind of theory.
And they don't really understand because when they do evil deeds, they look around and they don't see anything happening.
It's not like the, I killed someone or I killed an animal and now I'm going to be killed.
They look around, they're not killed.
So they think, well, then there's nothing wrong with doing evil deeds.
Because they can't see really what is the result of a good or an evil deed.
When a person comes to practice meditation, they're watching every moment and they're seeing quite clearly what are the results of their deeds.
When they cling to something, what is the result?
When they are angry or upset about something, what is the result?
How does it affect their body?
How does it affect their mind?
How does it affect their clarity and their character?
And so as a result the law of karma becomes quite clear and quite evident.
But for evildoers, for people who are engaged in great evil, it's often not clear.
And it can often be the fact that because of their position and because of good past deeds and their relative stability of mind, they're unable to see the small seed growing inside.
and moreover they're often able through the power of the mind to push it away and to avoid looking at it to avoid thinking about it so that they aren't aware of the evil deeds until it becomes so great and so gross that they can no longer hide it especially when they become sick and are on their deathbed and their power of mind becomes much weaker an ordinary person spends most of their time covering up their deeds now it does happen that
good people do bad deeds and do feel guilty and feel remorseful and are able to see how it's affected them.
When a person does, or if a person starts going down a wrong path and they start to realize the nature of their mind, right?
they burst out at someone and they realize that they have a lot of anger inside then they might feel guilty and that there's something that should be done and as a result they will begin to refrain from that in the future but it can often be the case that as in the case of Junda that the realization only comes when it's too late so people often ask well why if there is this law of karma why do we see good people
suffering and bad people prospering.
But when you practice meditation, when you actually look and examine what's going on inside, you'll see that it's true that good people might suffer but their suffering isn't because of their goodness.
And it's true that evil people
They prosper, but their prospering is not because of their evil.
It can't be.
And you can see this by watching clearly what, as I said, what happens when these mind states arise.
What do they lead to?
You can see that a good state can never lead to suffering, and an evil state can never lead to good or to happiness or to prosperity.
It's only generally in this life is because of our position and because of the static nature of the material body and of the material world.
So a person might be born into a position of power or a position of wealth and as a result they can do many evil deeds without great repercussions.
Except in the mind, which of course is much more dynamic and much quicker to pick up on the changes.
But eventually even the physical will begin to pick it up.
You will lose your friends, you will gain corrupt friends.
Your whole environment will slowly change, but it changes a lot slower.
And so the results can be a lot slower coming and quite a bit less evident.
Now at the moment of death all of that changes because the physical is removed from the equation.
The mind is now only depending on the mind.
There is no going back to seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting.
There's nothing based on the body.
There's only the mental.
activity.
So it's a repeated experience of the deeds that one has done, or memories, or whatever is going on in the mind.
So if one has a mind that is full of corruption, then this will continue repeatedly, arise in the mind, thoughts of the evil deeds that we've done, or memories of the evil deeds, or thoughts about the future, or a feeling of where you're being pulled, the future that you're developing for yourself.
And this is clear.
Many people actually experience this on their deathbed and can relate this.
Some people actually leave their bodies and can see their bodies or can see their loved ones or so on and find themselves floating away.
If they have a near-death experience, they'll come back and they'll be able to relate good things or bad things that they saw or that happened to them.
And it will be based on whatever's being clung to in their mind, whatever their mind is attaching importance to at that time.
So if a person is greatly engaged in evil, evil deeds, then they will be born in a place that is full of suffering because of their corrupt state of mind, as the Buddha said.
When they see
the evil they will finally realize.
So in some sense it's much better to actually see the evil and to feel sorrow.
We had a discussion about this as to whether this is what the Buddha meant by hiri and otapa.
And it isn't really what he meant by hiri and otapa, to feel shame or feel guilt.
But to see that you've done bad things can be a great waking up and can lead you to feel shame and to feel hiri and otapa.
So meaning in the future, when the opportunity presents itself to do an evil deed,
you will shy away from it, you will recoil from it, the mind will naturally incline against it, because of seeing the evil of it, and seeing the evil nature of it.
And this is what we gain very much from meditation, from just introspection.
A person just begins to come to meditate, in the very beginning they will see all of what they have
carried with them and built up over the years through not meditating.
They'll see all of the habits and tendencies
Often a big wave of defilement, of corruption.
At times it can be great anger and hatred.
At times it can be great lust and need and wanting.
And so they're able to realize, as it says here, they will grieve in the beginning.
They will feel great suffering in the beginning.
But eventually it will be a cause for them to change their ways.
And in the future they won't want to do these things because they know how much it hurts and affects their mind.
So this is the story of Junda the Pork Butcher and the Buddha's teaching on the suffering that comes from doing evil deeds.
So thanks for tuning in.
This has been another episode of our study of the Dhammapada.