How to Repay Debts After Stealing?

If one has the intention to steal something, as soon as the item is moved from its original place, the act of stealing is accomplished. Taking something from the left hand to the right hand—since the position has changed, 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, when 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 care about nothing else—indeed, regardless of whose item it is or whether it is useful, they will treat it as their own and use it at will.

Stealing is something almost no one can avoid—it is done far too casually. If you follow along with this affliction, your own loss is enormous: at minimum, a thousandfold repayment, and you will also receive the retributive result of poverty. Stealing from a monastery or from a person of virtue is not merely a thousandfold—a ten-thousandfold repayment is considered little, and a hundred-thousandfold, millionfold, ten-millionfold, or immeasurable repayment is all possible. When you feel like stealing something, weigh it carefully—do not suffer a great loss. Moreover, never steal from public organizations or from the state, for there would be too many people to repay—you simply could not afford it—and you would be poor life after life. When working for an organization, if there is no compensation, no wages or rewards, do not complain; it may 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 repaying the debt?

Answer: Besides 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 today, and a box today is not worth a box from back then. You must also consider the other party's loss and the impact this incident produced, so the compensation should be considerably more. You must also consider that the item at the time may have been useful and valuable to the owner, whereas even if you compensate with ten times the quantity now, the original owner may have no use for it and it may be worthless to them—so compensating tenfold or a hundredfold would still be of no avail. You can only look at what the original owner specifically needs now, and then decide on the compensation.

Sometimes you must also consider the other party's mental suffering. For some people, losing something has little mental impact; for others, the mental impact is enormous. A few individuals may develop mental illness and may 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, after being provoked, they develop various psychological disorders, that is something that money alone can never 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 the two states of mind involved. Setting aside the value of the items for now, consider the states of mind: with what mentality one practices generosity 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, determines the size of the 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.