Awake the Ignorant

Yutang Lin

How many people can decide the course of their lives?
Yet some believe that once dead they would be free.
Wishful planning leads to rash and ignorant action;
Still pulled by karma, again rush to individual destination!

Comment:

It is often seen in suicide notes that the goal is to attain emancipation or fulfill some wishes. For example, lovers died together so that they would stay together. In fact, for ordinary people in transmigration their birth, death and course of life are all led and restrained by their karma. How could it be that once dead they would attain self-determination? Therefore, once dead, the lovers would immediately go their separate ways, and could not stay together as they wished. May all those who have not thought of all such undesirable consequences refrain from rash actions, and instead devote their efforts toward learning and practicing the Dharma to attain true liberation from suffering.

Written in Chinese: September 16, 1998
Translated: August 17, 1999
El Cerrito, California

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