"Yeah, I got mine, lemme tell ya, I got mine
I grabbed my coat and out the backdoor, I went flyin'
That joker grabbed a big shotgun
And he used it mighty fine
I mean, talk about a rascal runnin', yeah
Now I got mine"
In the Vipaka Sutta, the Buddha explains the results of not following the precepts. For the third precept, he warns;
"Stealing — when indulged in, developed, & pursued — is something that leads to hell, leads to rebirth as a common animal, leads to the realm of the hungry shades. The slightest of all the results coming from stealing is that, when one becomes a human being, it leads to the loss of one's wealth."
When I'm about to do something I know I shouldn't, I occasionally tell myself, "Well, I'll pay for it somehow, in the end, anyway..." then go ahead and do it. What I've been seeing is that when I get the sense the time has come to pay for something I did in the past, it doesn't quite seem worth it! It's like I took out a loan for the Dharma realm, but now I'm paying it back, with lots of interest!
A person only becomes a thief after they stolen something.
ReplyDeleteBut in Buddhism, the "stealing" begins before the action of taking what is not given. So how do we stop the stealing, even before we reach out our hand? Even before our mind steals something?
well, I know I have a lot of karmic momentum that needs shifting!
ReplyDelete