A
man arrived to report himself to the king of hell after his death. The king
of hell proclaimed, "You have been greedy and vicious your whole life. You
were rich but never helped anyone. And you did not practice spiritually.
You will go to hell." The man argued, "That's unfair! I didn't know that
I would die one day. Neither did I know that I should give charity and that
there were differences in retribution. I didn't do any good because you
didn't remind me. Please give me another chance to be a human being, and
remind me when I am not doing good things."
After hearing
him out, the king of hell consented, "All right, I will send you back."
Not long after, the man died. The king of hell again sentenced him to hell.
Again, the man argued, "How strange! This is unfair! I told you to remind
me lest I forget. You didn't remind me that life was ephemeral or what I
should do." "Oh, yes, I reminded you several times," the king of hell insisted.
"When?" "A beggar once went to your door, didn't he?" the king asked. "Yes,"
the man replied. "Did you give him anything to eat? That beggar was me!"
the king said. "That was you! Why didn't you tell me?" the man exclaimed.
"Another time, I sent a sick old man to your door. Did you see him?" the
king asked again. "Yes, I did," the man admitted. "Did you take care of
him?" "No. I sent him away. I didn't want to see him," the man revealed.
"That was me."
"Yet another
time, you saw a corpse lying in front of your house when you opened the
door. What did you do?" the king asked. "I threw it in the garbage," the
man confessed. "That was me again! I reminded you many times of the ephemeral
nature of the body and the world. But you didn't listen to me. This time
you must go to hell. You have no more excuses."
Similarly,
sometimes we encounter unpleasant situations in life. We sustain physical
injuries or fall sick. We should know that it is God or the Buddha reminding
us to seek the eternal world within. Because of our suffering, we begin
to reflect on our actions and seek eternal happiness. Suffering is a kind
of blessing. It shouldn't be considered a bad thing. We should be more openhearted,
then we would know that what God sends us is not what we imagined.
Master
Tells A Story 
