DHARMA IN EVERYDAY LIFE

RETRIBUTION SAYS
WOVEN WORDS
By Nhat Quan
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According to Buddhism, words that you say make others suffer, are a way of sowing unwholesome karma. So according to the law of cause and effect, they will also suffer bad retribution as usual. A person who says woven words is a person who often says elaborate, sweet words or adds your own opinion to make the story more interesting. The woven words usually come in five categories:
1- You say elaborate words often with the purpose of letting others understand the value of your words, or making the listeners respect you, so you say more embroidered words to increase the attractiveness. It comes from the mind of greed, wanting to appear to be you better than others. At the same time, you also want to express your overwhelming ego. This happens in case you do an ordinary thing but like to brag that you have done great things.
2- You speak falsely to exaggerate the truth as it is, to promote yourself or the person you are talking about to satisfy your own personal purpose, or for a certain benefit. It is also due to greed. Misleading words often begin with jealousy, envy, the will to harm people, and the plot to deceive people to make them fall into evil ways.
3- You say fake words with the purpose of self-interest, add or subtract your opinion, and inflate the value to make a profit as in the case of trading, you often inflate the value of fake goods to make people think it is real, a good material to increase profits. This is a case of fabricating to deceive others because of greed.
4- You speak falsely out of jealousy, or envy, wanting to harm others so that the two sides conflict, leading to hatred for each other, which can lead to damage to other people's lives. You use fabricated words to sway people, or seduce or solicit others to damage honor and property with the aim of bringing more benefits to you or gaining your reputation.
5- Many times you say false words starting from paranoia, and stupidity, you say but you don't know what you say, where the consequences will go.
Contrary to embroidered words, you should practice not saying fabricated words but must speak in accordance with the Buddhadharma. Not for your own benefit, or jealousy, that makes up stories to harm others. Do not harm other people's lives, or do not out of a little jealousy, or hatred, use false words to sway people's hearts or seduce others. Do not damage their honor and property for your benefit, or your good reputation.
Writers often commit a lot of weaving. Because, of the heartbreaking feelings of others, they can distort it into a story of fun. These fun stories, the more people enjoy these, the more pain the victim suffers, and the deeper the hatred. Therefore, you often see writers who are talented but are poor, miserable, and hard-working. Even life is not equal to the average class of normal trading, unable to earn a full piece of rice and clothes. That situation may be due to predestined conditions from a previous life, or it may also be due to fabricated lies. Therefore, if you can cultivate a kind heart, often thinking in your heart of praising the good and not spreading evil, then the four bad karma of the mouth, even if you don't want to reduce it, will naturally be reduced.
According to the Buddhist scriptures, if you sow good karma, you will be born in Heaven, Human, or Asula, and if you create bad karma, you will be reborn in Hell, with hungry ghosts, and animals. Among that evil karma, the mouth part is the one that creates the evilest karma. But for Buddhism, practice is turning karma. Proclaiming everyone's mistakes is harmful, and according to the law of cause and effect, sin must go to hell, as well as the sin of offending, causing conflict, hatred, and killing each other. Therefore, the sutra also teaches that in daily life there are four types of people you should avoid:
1- Often say the fault of others
2- Often talk about superstition and wrong views
3- A good mouth, and a bad stomach means that in your mouth, you say good things like Buddha, but in your mind, you arrange plots to harm people.
4- You do little, but say you do a lot.
From the mouth, that is, from the words that you can know the mind and evaluate others, to have appropriate behavior. Even though the wealth is as big as a mountain, the mouth that has been eaten for a long time will also run out. Blessings even if you work hard to create many lives, but due to the mouth creating karma, criticizing, adding or subtracting, saying bad words... it can be destroyed in a moment. You help people but get resentment, also because this mouth tells, scolds, and insults people.
Besides the harm to the mouth from woven words, the mouth also has many advantages:
- Mouth is used to eat well, and nourish the body, the mouth is used to communicate in daily life, and create deep love, harmonious relationship, and mutual understanding. The mouth is used to preach, recite, teach, and transmit knowledge, and beneficial things to many people.
You already know that mouth and words have their harms and benefits, so you have to be careful. Create merit for a lifetime, but just one word of evil is destroyed in a moment. If you want to practice diligently and successfully, you must avoid true and false stories, because true and false stories make you waste a lot of time in vain, and create a lot of bad karma in your mouth.
The benefits and harms are like that, so each of you should take care of your mouth. In daily life, you often treat each other, and the mouth must always smile. Quickly apologize if you are at fault. Appreciate the thanks if you are grateful to people. Must respect each other, use loving language, not spare praise, spread good people, good deeds, good things, right to increase good examples, to beautify life.
But you have to be careful with criticism and praise. You do not say woven words, but must speak honest words, you will be loved by many people. Those are the practices for the mouth, very nice, and very helpful. You need to follow, to reap many blessings, then your life, family, and society, in the present, will be peaceful, peaceful and in the future will be born in a peaceful place. Like that, so happy.
The mouth likes to say woven words, which is the evil karma of the mouth, because you say these words to make people doubt, angry, and suffer, so now or in the future you must also receive such suffering. So the Buddha said:
- You should not weave, should not add or subtract to cause division or attack each other.
- You must not say elaborate words, add or subtract, and do not say sarcastic words that make the listener sad and give rise to wrong thoughts.
- You must not induce others to say such things.
- You should not stand in the middle of causing hatred for the two sides of animosity, for the two sides of hatred to fight each other.
On the contrary, when you see other people saying such bad things, you must dissuade them. Some people think that woven words to cheat and play for fun are not harmful. In fact, that lie is still harmful, because it makes you used to that bad habit, and makes people around you not believe in your words anymore, even though you sometimes tell the truth.
In the Avatamsaka Sutra, Buddha taught:
- Bhikkhus! You should give up meaningless words, often guarding your own words. Speaking must know the time, speaking must be in accordance with the law. Words that are not useful to people, even if they are joking, should not be said.
And in the Last Word Teachings Sutra, the Buddha forbids comment. Don't talk nonsense.
After September 11, 2011, terrorist attacks in the United States, and aviation laws were added, anyone who jokes on an airplane with bombs, terrorists, etc., is not only fine but can also spend several years in prison. According to security law, when someone announces or reports that there is a bomb, which is dangerous to life, the plane must not take off, if it has taken off, it must land immediately. Many forms are considered woven words.
1- A woven word with silence:
Sometimes you are asked a question where silence implies an answer. If your silence reflects something untrue, it is woven words. For example, one investigates a place where a murder has just occurred. When people ask the crowd standing around, does anyone see anything? If you witness the murder but keep silent and say nothing, that silence is considered a woven word.
2- Speak the woven word in body language:
Sometimes a shrug or frown can be misinterpreted as:
- I do not know
But if you really know, your shrug is a woven word. Or like when you give a thumbs up, it means you applaud or agree. But if you just raise your middle finger, you're cursing, etc.
3- Impersonation:
You give false information about qualifications, abilities, achievements, and virtues or exaggerate the level of spiritual attainment. You do so to get benefits that you yourself do not deserve. This impersonation is also a form of the woven word.
4- Witness:
When you are asked to be a witness to say what you know. If you know, say: I know. If you don't know, say: I don't know. If you don't see it, say: I don't see it. If you see, say: I see. You are not intentionally lying for your own benefit or someone else's, or for your worldly interests. As you already know, the retribution of the fabricated word, or woven word, is very serious. The story is:
During the Buddha's time in the world, there was a very rich bourgeois man, whose assets could not be used up for a lifetime, and had a wife who was both beautiful and virtuous, so the family was happy, even happier. He got married after a long time giving birth to a son, and the day the baby was born he was overjoyed. But unfortunately, his baby was just born crying when he fell ill with a serious illness.
According to the doctor, it was toxic boils growing on his skin, causing him pain, so he cried all day. But any famous doctor invited to treat him, the famous doctors shook their heads in defeat. Because his cries and groans caused an uproar among the villagers, they named him Mr. Crying. Near the house of the bourgeois, there was an old man next door, hearing the pained groans of Mr. Crying, feeling impatient in his heart, he went to the bourgeois' house to visit and say to him:
- I heard a lot of people praising Jetavana Vihara that there is a Great Medical King, illness in the body or illness in the mind of a friend He can cure all. He has magical means, no matter how serious your illness is, it will immediately heal. You should go there and ask Him to heal you. When heard that, Mr. Crying was overjoyed, and rushed to Jetavana Vihara to ask to see the Buddha.
When Mr. Crying saw 32 good marks and 80 beauties on the majestic and shining body of the Buddha, he was overjoyed. His pain and suffering were greatly reduced. Mr. Crying immediately prostrated all five parts of his body to the ground to worship the Buddha.
The compassionate Buddha never abandoned any suffering beings, so when he saw Mr. Crying come, he was very happy, so he preached to Mr. Crying the excellent methods that have the power to eradicate all suffering. Mr. Crying after hearing the Buddha preach the Dharma, repented of his sins. At that time, the poison that had tormented him for more than three years immediately disappeared, and his illness and suffering were completely eliminated, so his mind aroused sincere reverence and joy. So, Mr. Crying begs the Buddha allowed him to be ordained as a monk. Mr. Crying practiced very diligently, so it wasn't long before he attained Arahantship.
Seeing this, the monks thought it was a very rare thing, so they asked the Blessed One to talk about the causes and conditions that made Mr. Crying suffer retribution earlier. The Buddha told his disciples:
- Countless lifetimes ago, in Benares City, there were two rich men, Mr. Minh and Mr. Dinh. Normally, Mr. Minh and Mr. Dinh did not like each other and were envious of each other, so Mr. Quan brought a lot of gold, silver, and jewels to present to the king. When the king received Quan's offerings, the king respected him very much.
So when Mr. Quan criticized Mr. Minh in front of the king, saying:
- Mr. Minh is extremely malicious, often using malicious schemes to harm me. Please, King, punish the wicked to protect the good people.
The King, who had already received Quan's offerings, was no longer wise to judge, most of all, he believed Quan's words and ordered Mr. Minh's arrest, disregarding Mr. Minh's excuses, and tortured him direly. Mr. Minh suffered all the most painful punishments, full body injuries like fish scales, and had to ask his family to pay the ransom before he was released back home. Arriving at home, Mr. Minh thought non-stop and saw that:
- Humans have a body, so there is suffering and there are many calamities. Quan and I have no enmity, but Mr. Quan can harm me like this.
Not long after, Mr. Minh left his family to practice in the mountains and become Prateyka Buddha. The Prateyka Buddha was afraid that Mr. Quan would suffer retribution in the next life, so he went to Quan's house to display all kinds of miracles, causing him to see such wonderful transformations, generate reverence, and immediately ask Prateyka Buddha sat on the throne and prepared all kinds of special foods to offer and repent of his old sins to Prateyka Buddha.
The Buddha spoke to this point, paused for a moment, and then continued:
- You must know, the person who quarreled with the king was the monk Crying who suffered in this life. Later, thanks to the favor of Pratyekabuddha, repenting of his old sins, and thanks to the merits and virtues of taking refuge in the Three Jewels, today he is saved by the Tathagata and quickly attains holy fruit. You must know, do not think that the gossip is said without anyone knowing. Karma cannot be escaped, even in the hairline. But having already committed such a sin, if you know how to repent, you can be saved.
Causality and retribution are not wrong, not even a hair, bare dust can escape. Evil karma follows you like a shadow with a figure. So you should think good things, say good things, and do good things.
Be careful with your words, and do not cause Gossip of right and wrong because of unconsciousness, nor should you because someone has made mistakes in the past that use harsh words to torture them. The consequences of verbal karma are also terrible. If it's not positive, it's negative, and sooner or later there will be retribution. The wound you inflicted on another person's body still has a day to heal, but the wound caused by words never knows when it will be healed.
Swearing and slandering or going around talking about others without people reacting, or not knowing, is like raising your head to the sky and spitting, the saliva doesn't go anywhere, but when it falls, it will fall on your face. So it's best not to talk badly about others, even if they do bad things without harming yourself and the community. By sucking blood and spraying people, your mouth will be fishy first.
In order to eliminate the verbal karma caused by speaking woven words, Buddhists must practice the righteous Dharma, speak the right language, eliminate bad habits, and greed, and eliminate malice. It is necessary to practice precepts, concentration, and wisdom to prevent the habit of slanderous speech, but only to say what the Buddha taught in the right speech. Before you speak, think about whether what you say will cause harm or good if you say it. You need to focus on whether it is okay to say it or not, use reflection, and use your mind to judge how harmful it will be if you say it. Don't let the mouth harm the body. One irresponsible word can ruin a career, even ruin a life. So bend your tongue seven times before you speak. Here are some tips to help you avoid making mistakes in your speech.
1- Urgent work, speak slowly.
In case of an emergency, if you can consider a few minutes to think, and then calmly speak slowly, the listener will also be receptive to the information and will not be rushed. It shows that you are a brave person who can be a support for everyone.
2- The impossible to do, do not say.
Do not easily commit to things that are out of hand. No arbitrary promises. If you make arbitrary promises that you don't fulfill, your words have no weight, your credibility will decrease if you break promises, and gradually no one will believe you.
3- Tragic story, don't talk to anyone when you meet.
When you are sad and want to share, if you meet anyone and confess, it will be easy to make the listeners psychologically pressure and generate many doubts and depression. That means you leave the impression that you want to take your pain out on others, making them want to stay away. Learn how to share with the right audience at the right time.
4- In other people's business, you should not speak ambiguously.
Do not comment or brag, or fabricate other people's stories that create unnecessary misunderstandings. Doing so harms people and also lowers your reputation.
5- Uncertainty, you should speak very cautiously.
For things you don't quite grasp, just express them carefully. If you know how to say that, people will feel that you are a trustworthy person.
6- Do not say hurtful words to others.
Taking out your anger on others with cruel, rude words can satisfy your anger for a while, but leave many unpredictable consequences. Sometimes you may not have a temper with outsiders but often vent to your loved ones, because you think they will accept all your flaws. This is a big mistake, for your family, and loved ones, as well as everyone, you should speak lovingly and refrain from harsh, unnecessary words.
7- Your job, listen to people's advice.
Learn to listen to the perspective of outsiders because they often have a more objective view, and see issues that you may not be aware of. You should be humble, listen but make your own decisions and take responsibility
Every religion teaches people to speak the truth and avoid lies. Gentle words that please the listener are very necessary to beautify life in this mundane world. Because words have a very important influence, not only on the happiness of an individual's life but also can determine the peace of society, preserving solidarity and keeping society stable.
In Buddhism words such as right speech and loving speech are always mentioned to advise Buddhists when used in free speech. Tibetans have a saying:
- Words do not carry swords but can hurt the hearts of the listeners.
Before the eight winds in the storms of life, in the midst of the ups and downs of the world that shakes people's minds are:
- Success or failure,
- Win or lose,
- Praise or criticize,
- Happiness or suffering?
The Buddha taught Buddhists should always keep a calm and calm mind, by practicing equanimity, you will be as solid as a big rock standing in the sky.
In happiness, in suffering, in highs and lows, you must keep your mind like the earth. Just like on the ground you can throw anything, whether sour or sweet, clean or dirty, the earth is still calm. The earth is neither angry nor loving. Understanding like that, doing so, is the dharma door, practicing Equanimity, one of the Four Immeasurable Minds of Buddhism, including:
- Kindness, compassion, joy, discharge.
Being able to endure like that, proves that you are no longer attached, you are the recipient of suffering. You no longer cling to the person who causes you suffering, that is, you have understood and practiced the doctrine of not-self of Buddhism. In the Buddhist doctrine of no self, nothing is I, so nothing is mine. If so, unhappiness is the gateway to the path of virtue.
When the Buddha was about to enter Nirvana. Venerable Ananda was extremely sad. The Buddha comforted and advised Venerable Ananda not to be attached, because the visible is perishable, of course. Venerable Ananda knelt down and asked the Buddha:
- How to tame the wicked? When we meet bhikkhus, lay people, and some people with bad qualities, how should we deal with them?
Buddha taught that:
- It's very easy, you should use the method: Don't talk to them and don't pay attention to them.
This means that when encountering people with evil personalities, to tame the bad people you should ignore the quarrels, and use your concentration to turn them into good people. If you meet these types of people, don't talk to them, keep quiet, and don't pay attention to them, then they will withdraw themselves.
In short, when you say a woven word, you often use elaborate, sweet words or add your own opinion, or omit the main idea of the speaker to make the story more interesting. But like that, it is very dangerous and creates bad karma for both the listener and the speaker. So:
  - You should listen calmly
Because, the words Gossip of right and wrong will only affect those who superficially, and sketchily evaluate the problem from word of mouth. But those who are profound and knowledgeable can see far and wide and only comment when they have carefully assessed them. So, if you're right, keep your mind steady, because it's not difficult when you get past untrue, groundless words.
According to Buddhism, verbal karma is one of the heaviest karma a person can create. The wound you inflicted on another person's body still has a day to heal, but the wound caused by words never knows when it will be healed. So as a Buddhist you have to be very careful not to say woven words
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