..续本文上一页 Pay attention to this when you observe people. Don”t just judge by appearances and say, "That person looks virtuous; he seems to be a Good and Wise Advisor." You don”t have any real way to determine that. You must really get to know him thoroughly before you can make such a statement. In this Dharma-ending Age, we all have the same problem, which is that we like to seek what is lofty and distant. Instead of using our eyes to see, we let our ears do the "seeing" for us. When we hear someone say something is good, we rush over. When we get there, we have no idea of whether it”s really good or not, and without realizing it, we get duped. People who confusedly put their faith in wealth and sex and in geomancy are really pathetic!

　　今天从报纸上转载大陆福建某地，有六个小孩子集体跳海自杀去成仙。这为什么呢？就因为邪说把人迷住了，说人做坏事就要做鬼，做好事就成神仙。什么叫好事呢？就是不怕死。在乡下地方，小孩子天真纯朴，听了什么也就容易入脑。说好人不怕死，死了会成仙，所以这六个小孩就要集体自杀成仙去，「以前有八仙，大概是集体自杀的，我们现在也要集体自杀成六仙，免去六道轮回。」所以他们一起自杀想成仙。

　　In today”s newspaper, there was an article about six children in the Fukien province of China who committed suicide together by jumping into the sea, hoping to become immortals. Why did they do that

　　 They had been misled into believing that people who do evil become ghosts, and people who do good turn into immortals. And what did "doing good" mean

　　 It meant not being afraid to die. Children in rural areas are quite naive and will believe whatever they hear. Since someone told those six children that good people are not afraid to die and will become immortals after death, they decided to kill themselves as a group and become immortals. They thought, "The Eight Immortals of the past probably committed suicide together. Now we can commit suicide together and become the Six Immortals and escape the cycle of rebirth in the six paths." Then they killed themselves, hoping to become immortals.

　　他们成不成仙呢？我可以证明没有。为什么不成仙？因为他们太迷了。成仙的人都很聪明的，没有这么愚痴，不懂真理，是非不辨的。怎么会一起死去就成仙呢？成仙若是这么容易，那么大家不如快点死了，都去成仙。这真是无有是处，这种乡愚太可怜了，盲从迷信邪说，令小孩子都失去了方向，这是很可怜的一件事。

　　Well, did they become immortals

　　 I can guarantee that they didn”t. Why

　　 They were too confused. People who become immortals are very intelligent. They aren”t as foolish as these children, who had no understanding of true principles and couldn”t tell right from wrong. How could they all die together and become immortals

　　 If becoming immortal were that easy, everyone should just hurry up and die and become immortal. But that”s impossible. How pitiful those foolish villagers are, blindly following this superstitious and deviant theory and leading their children astray. This is very sad.

　　话又说回来，为什么小孩子宁可死也不怕，而说要去成仙呢？这也可以说是环境压迫而成，他们觉得人活着还不如死，做人如行尸走肉没什么意思，于是找个大解脱，一起去死。小孩子在他们的笔记簿上，写「死」字写了一千多个，天天死死死，一天到晚念死。所以这些童男童女无知，受迷信之蛊惑，而失去真正的目标和方向。

　　But why were those children so eager and unafraid to die, saying they were going to become immortals

　　 You could say their environment forced them to feel that life wasn”t worth living, that it would be better to die than to be living corpses. So seeking liberation, they all went to their deaths together. The children had written the word "death" over a thousand times in their notebooks. Every day, it was "death, death, death." They thought of death from morning to night. In their ignorance, those boys and girls were seduced by super-stition and lost their true goal and direction.

　　所以我们信佛的人，不应该迷信，要破除迷信。什么是迷信？就是糊里胡涂地乱信，别人说什么就信，信迷了。「迷信」还不打紧，最怕是「信迷」，信那迷乱颠倒的外道。有人自作聪明，真的他不信，假的他反而去信，这就是「迷中之迷」，不认识真理，拿真当假，把假当真。好像这六个小孩，本来「找死成仙」是一种虚假骗人的方法，而他们却相信。若是教他们要修行才能成仙，恐怕他们就不相信了。所以世界上可怜的人很多，可怜的事也很多，一言难尽！

　　Buddhists should not believe in superstition. You must break through superstition. What is superstition

　　 It is being reckless and confused in your belief. You simply believe anything people say, and you end up all muddled. Being confused in your belief is still not that serious. It”s only to be feared that you believe in confusion, that you believe in the confused, upside-down teachings of externalist ways. Some people try to be clever; they don”t believe in what is true but instead believe in what is false. This is a case of being confused within confusion. They don”t recognize true principles. They take the true to be false, and the false to be true. For example, in the case of the six children, the theory that "death leads to immortality" is actually just a false claim meant to cheat people, but they believed it. If someone had told them they have to cultivate before they can become immortals, they might not have believed that. There are many pathetic people and many woeful situations in the world; we could never finish speaking of them!

　　一九八二年十一月廿八日晚间开示

　　A talk given on November 28, 1982

　　Science and the Heaven

《参禅要先打地基 In Investigating Chan, First Lay the Foundation》全文阅读结束。