Karma and Wholesome and Unwholesome Actions

Answer: The hell guardians, King Yama, and so forth in hell are all summoned forth by the evil karma of sentient beings; they are all illusory images manifested by one's own evil mind. A person without the karma of hell, upon arriving in hell, would not see the hell guardians and would not be punished by them; a person without evil karma would also not encounter King Yama's judgment of oneself. That some sentient beings become hell guardians, King Yama, and so forth is also brought about by their own karmic power. This is not a righteous occupation. Although it upholds cause and effect and justice, and thus has a certain meaning, evil-doing sentient beings resent it, so the karmic connections are not wholesome. Only when it can make sentient beings repent of their sinful karma and vow to reform themselves does it establish some wholesome connections with them. Therefore, much of what appears on the surface to be good or evil is, in essence, not necessarily so.

Take another example: do prison guards in worldly prisons incur guilt for managing inmates? The Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra says that being a prison guard is not a righteous occupation. Such questions cannot be explained clearly in a few words; the matter of cause and effect is a very complicated one. What kind of work a person does is also determined by karmic power. In any occupation that involves dealing with sentient beings, there exists both wholesome and unwholesome karma; it depends entirely on how the person involved handles things correctly. The teaching profession is very good—it is also a way of delivering sentient beings—yet many people in it have created unwholesome karma. Expounding the sutras and speaking the Dharma is the enterprise of delivering sentient beings, yet many Dharma speakers have created the karma of hell. Being a doctor who treats illness and saves lives—is this occupation good or not? It is not necessarily so. Why do patients have illnesses? The vast majority are the repayment of karmic results—merely retribution. This retribution ought to be undergone, and indeed there are also some sentient beings who were harmed before who come to pursue and collect their debts, but the doctor cuts off the repayment of cause and effect, so that the creditors cannot obtain what they wish; the doctor will then bear a certain amount of cause and effect.

It is the same with monastics performing deliverance and transference for lay devotees—whether it is wholesome or unwholesome is not certain. For instance, in a previous life, A beat B to death; in this life, B comes to collect the debt and wants to beat A to death. Then you rescue and deliver A, so B does not collect the debt and does not get revenge. This is unfair to B, and B may in turn retaliate against you. If, during the transference, you could also deliver B along the way, but B does not wish to be delivered and hopes that A suffers evil retribution, then the deliverance has interfered with cause and effect. For instance, if A owes B ten million yuan, and B comes to collect the debt from A, but you intervene and prevent B from collecting it, what is to be done about B's ten million yuan plus interest? Will B come to demand it from you? If you perform deliverance for your own parents and close relatives, this is your own duty, an act of repaying kindness; bearing karmic obstructions for your own parents and relatives is what is proper and deserved, and bearing karmic obstructions for those who have shown you kindness is also proper and deserved.

As for whether apparent goodness is actually goodness, and whether it has wholesome results—ordinary people cannot open their eyes and witness it. In the Buddhist sutras, there is only one recorded instance of deliverance: the Buddha, uniting the strength of all the monastics, delivered Mahāmaudgalyāyana's own mother from hell. There is no second instance. The Buddhist sutras have never recorded the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Arhats, or Pratyekabuddhas performing deliverance for sentient beings, nor have they recorded monastics performing deliverance for sentient beings; in the Saṅgha of the past, there was never such a thing. In the monasteries of the past, where there were very many monastics, they never gathered together to strike instruments and chant in order to perform deliverance for lay devotees, and the Buddha's precepts did not permit it either. In those days, the monastics focused primarily on individual cultivation; those with the ability to propagate the Dharma could expound the Dharma, and nothing else was to be done—especially matters involving money and other worldly benefits, which were even more strictly forbidden.