How to Repay Debts After Stealing?

If one has the intention to steal, as soon as the item is taken away from its original place, the act of stealing is accomplished. Taking something from the left hand to the right hand—the position has changed, so it has left its original place. As long as the owner cannot find the item, cannot identify it, and does not become suspicious, it counts as having left its original place. With the same item, once its position changes, a person of cultivation will not casually claim it or casually take it. A person without cultivation, regardless of where the item is or whether it belongs to them, will simply take it and ignore everything else; they may even take anyone's belongings, useful or not, and treat them as their own, using them at will.

Stealing is something almost no one can avoid—it is done far too casually. If one follows along with such afflictions, the loss to oneself is enormous: at the very least, a thousandfold repayment, and one will also reap the karmic retribution of poverty. Stealing from a monastery or from a person of virtue is not merely a thousandfold—a ten-thousandfold repayment would still be little; a hundred-thousandfold, millionfold, ten-millionfold, or even immeasurable repayment is possible. When you feel like stealing something, you had better weigh it carefully—don't suffer a huge loss. Moreover, never steal from public organizations or from the state, for there would be too many people to repay, and repayment would be utterly impossible; one would remain poor life after life. When working for an organization, if there is no compensation—no wages or rewards—do not complain; it may well be that you are repaying a debt.

Question: Many, many years ago, I stole a box of toothpicks from a restaurant. Now I want to buy a new box to compensate—does that count as having repaid the debt?

Answer: Beyond compensating the original price and the original item, interest should also be added, because the value of goods has changed now; the same item has depreciated—a box today is not worth what a box was worth back then. One must also consider the other party's loss and the impact this incident produced, so the compensation should be considerably more. Furthermore, one must consider that the item at the time may have been useful and valuable to the owner; even if you compensate with ten times the quantity now, the original owner may have no use for it—it has become worthless—so compensating tenfold or a hundredfold would still be of no avail. You can only look at what the original owner actually needs now, and then decide on the compensation.

Sometimes one must also consider the other party's mental suffering. Some people suffer no mental impact from losing things, while for others the mental impact is very great. A few individuals may even develop mental illness or even lose their lives—mental value is greater and weightier than material value. There are some people with weak psychological resilience and poor emotional states—never provoke them. If provoking them results in various psychological disorders, that is something no amount of money can compensate.

Can the merit gained from the generosity of giving away items offset the loss of merit from stealing in the past? Each case must be analyzed on its own merits, depending on the value of the two kinds of items and on one's two states of mind. Setting aside the value of the items for now, consider the state of mind: with what mentality one gives, and how broad-minded one is, determines the size of the merit gained; with what mentality one stole in the past, and whether one felt guilt, and so on, determines the size of the karmic offense and the amount of merit lost. Comparing the two, and adding the accrued interest, one will know whether the offense and the merit can offset each other.