Returning good for evil.
The Buddha observed that much misery in this world results from people doing things that don’t help others, but only satisfy a foolish sense of personal vanity. He taught his followers that we should treat others with love and kindness, benevolence and compassion. In other words, we should help other people.
A foolish man heard Buddha explaining this doctrine and the man denounced him for teaching loving kindness. Buddha didn’t try to interrupt him while he was saying these bad things. He only pitied the folly of the man. Finally the man ran out of bad things to say, and Buddha asked him “If you bring a present to your neighbor and he doesn’t accept it, does the present come back to you?” The man replied, “It will.”
“My son,” said the Buddha, “you have complained about me, but I decline to accept your abuse, and request that you to keep it for yourself. Will it not be a source of misery to you? For as sound belongs to the drum, and shadow to the object that casts it, so does misery attach itself to the evil doer.”
We are told that the man went away ashamed, but later returned to follow the Buddha and learn from him.
NOTE: This teaching of the Buddha is number seven in “The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections.”
This text was said to be the first official Buddhist literature which was composed for the
Chinese by two early Indian missionaries to China. The version presented here is drawn
from several translations from Chinese into English.
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