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CHAPTER 28
SECOND VISIT TO THE PRISON WITH VENOMOUS WASPS Buddha Tse Kong who manifested on April 3rd, 1977. Year of the Snake. POEM Deities have bestowed on man, benefits and salvation Grateful and pious, the adepts falls into contemplation Also there are traitors and villains in disguise Who are condemned here for failing their lessons.
Buddha Tse Kong: The deities come down to earth to save humans, select their disciples, and
set them on the spiritual path. Their purpose consists of reshaping men to their early nature and helping them return to their source which is God. Their benefactions and loving care are immense and incomparable;
thence, this saying, “A master for a single day becomes a father for a whole life”. It is therefore natural to obey one’s master’s counsel and follow his example. However, there exists a number of immoral people who
betray their religion, hiding behind the deities and borrowing the latter’s prestige for stealing and embezzling money. In this manner, they more likely regenerate into pirates than into saints and immorals, and
instead of rising to paradise, it it to hell they will go to purge their bad karma. Their negative “cause” will lead them to considerably bad “effects”. In fact, all of the servants of deities who violate the rules
of religious order are severely punished by the laws of hell. To whichever religion they may be converted, they have to obey the religious order and the rites of this very religion, because no pardon is granted for
their sins which are graver than the laymen’s.
Yang Ts’ien
: I am ready, Master. Where are we going?
TK: We’re going to pay another visit to the “Venomous Wasps” Prison to see how the
religious traitors are rewarded. Shut your eyes. Here we start... Here we arrive.
The Mandarin
: Happy to see you again, gentlemen.
TK: At this time many people who profit from the deities’names live on earth. They were the
gowns of priests, carve statues of Buddha, but commit theft and swindling. They have offended the grandeur and prestige of the orthodox doctrine. We have come here to collect information on the spot for warning the
people.
The Mandarin: Very fine. If you care to follow me, gentlemen. I will have some sinful souls come to make an account of
their vulgar, despicable actions of their lifetime. YT: My best thanks, Excellency! These bees fly about in the prison, and they attack the sinful souls with their stinging.
The victims’bodies are all swollen, their heads are heavy, and their eyes dimmed.
The Mandarin: The stings also render them feverish because they are poisonous. Let me have some of the sinners come.
General, let some of them out.
The General
: At your command. Here are three of them.
The Mandarin: Now, listen. This is the Venerable Buddha Tse Kong, and this is Mr. Yang
Ts’ien, of the Temple of the Sages in Tai Chu. They received the order to write a book titled “Voyages to Hell”. Tell us the story of your sins. They need documents for warning the people. YT
: May I ask you the reason why you were sent to this prison?
The soul: I was a village-chief. The villagers planned to erect a temple. I was in charge
of collecting money, and I took advantage of the opportunity to embezzle some of it for my personal expenditures. After my death, I understood that stealing the money dedicated to the deities was a grave crime and I
was condemned to this prison. The venomous wasps are merciless. Their stings hurt me terribly. Look at me, I pray you, my body is swollen and red all over, and the wounds torture me day and night. Whenever the money
is destined for the cult of deities, people must be loyal and upright. They should by no means think of stealing it, not even a single penny. The stings of these wasps are payment for my bad karma. I committed no
other sin besides this.
The Mandarin: Your
office had afforded you a chance to serve other people and acquire merits for the benefit of your children and grandchildren. The villagers had the good intention of building a temple for worshipping deities and
exercising religious faith. You had misused their faith, your crime is unforgivable. Now, your turn to speak, the 2nd soul.
The soul (female): Amitabha
Buddha! I am really miserably, really! As early as the age of 15, I converted to the service of Buddha. I obeyed every commandment and devoted myself to the observance of the doctrine, expecting to attain the
spiritual path. However, my inconsistent nature and my lack of patience finally got the best of me. I began to substract the donations offered by devout people for my personal expenses. I thought very little of
buying joss-sticks, candles, petroleum for lamps, and of embellishing my pagoda. When I was to recite prayers in a requiem mass for a deceased person, I did my work for the sake of form. Every family inviting me to
recite prayers for the soul of a dead parent had to pay me my fees according to the number of prayers and pages in the prayer book. “Like service rendered like amount of money” was my motto. If it was a needy
family, I complied reluctantly and only accepted the invitation after much insistance from the master. Reversely, a wealthy family found me very active and zealous in the performance of rites. My prayers would be
longer in order to please the chief of the household. Because of my vile greed, Buddha didn’t appear to drive me to heaven, but it was hell that reserved me its torments. I am extremely miserable.
The Mandarin: You were a nun who had renounced every worldly thing and adopted the religious way to
regenerate. Nevertheless, you couldn’t eliminate earthly desires and passions. You received people’s money in the name of Buddha, but your acts were incompatible with the morality of the Supreme Buddha. That’s why
you are now in condemnation here. TK: To convert to the spiritual path means to abandon all that is soiled of the human world and acquire the purity of the soul. All of the monks and nuns bear the forename of Sa which is
the one of Sakya Muni. It is a sacred forename. It is regrettable that you couldn’t overcome the worldly temptations and failed to think of the savation of humanity. It is necessary to abolish the three consciences
and four conjunctures (1) before one can become a Buddha. Unless the three vices (2) are expelled, one is forever subjected to the six ways of transmigration. We warn human beings of all religions that paradise is
accessible only to those believers who are delivered from cravings and passions. We therefore advise the people to adhere to the doctrine of a religion - whether it is catholicism, buddhism, islamism, or any other
religion - to sever their attachments to the world before they can accede to paradise. It’s quite late. We’ll come back another time. Yang Ts’ien, let’s go home.
(1) Three consciences: of the present, the past and the future. Four conjunctures: separation, reunion, opposition, concord. (2) Three vices: greed, anger, foolishness.
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