Yu Kun on Karmic Retribution
Here is a natural and polished English translation:
Hello everyone, I’m Yu Kun. I am a member of the Yu En Transmission team and also a practitioner. Yu asked me to share some of my thoughts and experiences with you.
Before joining Yu En Transmission, I often heard people online say that karmic retribution comes too slowly.
In fact, for a long time, I shared the same view. Yet at the same time, I intuitively felt that perhaps such a way of thinking was too narrow.
After giving it a lot of thought, I came up with two examples from everyday life that might help explain how karmic retribution works.
Example One: Waiting for a Red Light vs. Running a Red Light
When crossing the street, if we have to wait for a red light, don’t we all feel that the red light is taking too long and getting in the way?
But have you ever thought about this: if red lights really disappeared, would the time we spend waiting to cross the street actually become shorter?
Suppose we want to eat at a restaurant on a busy food street without traffic lights. The road is not very wide, and it takes fewer than ten steps to reach the other side.
Outside mealtimes, it takes less than ten seconds to cross the road. But during mealtimes, cars, scooters, and bicycles are constantly streaming by without any gaps.
Even though the restaurant we want to visit is right in front of us, we may end up waiting more than three minutes without getting a chance to cross.
If there were traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing on that food street, we would have to wait at most about a minute before we were guaranteed an opportunity to cross.
If we disregard the traffic that has the legal right of way and run the red light anyway, we could be hit by a vehicle, and the pedestrian who ran the red light would bear full responsibility.
Multiply the amount of time we spend waiting at a red light by tens of thousands, or even more, and that is roughly how long people commonly have to wait for karmic retribution.
For thousands of years, the people who create karma and those who are waiting for karmic retribution have both been coming and going like constant streams of traffic. Human lifespans are short to begin with, so no matter how quickly retribution comes, people may still feel that the wait is unbearably long.
But not every karmic consequence takes a long time to manifest.
Wasn’t there recently an internet celebrity who smashed a statue of Guanyin? She died in a car accident less than a year after smashing the statue.
There was an even faster example during the Cultural Revolution. Three Red Guards once attempted to destroy the statue of Maitreya Buddha in the main hall of Yonghe Temple in Beijing.
The first soldier climbed onto the corridor and raised an axe to cut the iron chains. But the axe struck his own leg instead.
The second soldier took the axe and continued swinging. Unexpectedly, he missed with one swing, fell from the platform, and lost consciousness on the spot.
Seeing this, the third soldier became so frightened that his legs went weak and he collapsed onto the ground.
After that, no one dared to show hostility toward the Buddha statue, and the Maitreya statue and Yonghe Temple were preserved intact.
Example Two: Saving a Cat on the Highway
Suppose you are driving a large truck on a highway and notice a cat that has been hit on the side of the road.
If you decide that you must save the cat, should you slam on the brakes immediately, or should you drive the truck to the nearest parking area first, then take a taxi back?
If you slam on the brakes immediately without regard for the consequences, you may reach the cat in the shortest possible time, but it could cause a massive highway accident with unpredictable casualties.
If you bear the pain and continue driving until you reach a parking area, it will take much longer to get back to the cat, but you can be certain that you will not cause an accident.
The cycle of karmic retribution requires the right opportunity to arise. If one acts according to personal desires without considering the consequences, one may instead create even greater karma for oneself before the karmic consequences arranged by Heaven have a chance to unfold.
The workings of Heaven are based on an extremely complex structure and set of laws, and the forces operating within them inevitably possess a certain momentum.
If we refuse to follow that structure and those laws, we will only bring karmic consequences upon ourselves and suffer the consequences.
Whether retribution comes quickly or slowly depends on the complex structures and deeper momentum in other dimensions involved in an event. It is not that retribution is unwilling to come quickly; rather, there is a limit to how quickly reality can allow it to happen. Anyone who disregards the consequences and insists on breaking through that limit is doing wrong.
Going back to the examples from everyday life, reckless human behavior means running a red light or slamming on the brakes immediately.
In terms of karmic retribution, the equivalent reckless behavior on the part of resentful spirits is refusing to cooperate with the progress of the righteous law and insisting on seeking revenge.
Therefore, the saying “It is not that there will be no retribution; the time has simply not yet come” is not merely an empty phrase meant to offer comfort. It is an unbreakable law of Heaven, stronger than steel.
Everyone hopes that bad people will receive their karmic retribution as soon as possible, and I do too. But since the workings of karmic retribution are part of the laws of Heaven, they must follow the structures and principles of Heaven. Waiting is therefore unavoidable—just as waiting for a red light or safely pulling a vehicle into a parking area first is unavoidable.
I hope everyone can understand and be a little more patient.
Comments