Chapter 48 Insects on the mountain road

When climbing the mountain in the early morning, on the steps of the mountain path, I saw the corpse of a bug that had been crushed and stuck to the ground. I picked it up and put it on the grass and mud, and said: "Why are you so careless? You are reborn in a good place." From then on, I paid special attention to "watching my feet" when I climbed the mountain. Almost every day I saw snails, caterpillars, and scarabs slowly crawling over the stone steps. I always picked them up in the grass and told them: "Be careful not to come to the stone steps again." No, people's feet don't have eyes."

When removing the bugs, I would think of the teachings of Zen Buddhism about "look at your feet" and "live in the present", not only teaching us to live in the present moment, but also teaching us to live carefully.Only from that kind of carefulness can a person develop the wisdom of awareness and subtle compassion.I thought of Buddha's previous life as a compassionate person. It is said in the scriptures that he "stepped on the ground for fear of pain." He was afraid of stepping on the ground when he walked on the ground. If he had such a subtle mind, how could he step on the stone steps? What about the bugs on the floor?

According to the precepts of Buddhism, monks have to "end summer and live in peace" every summer. , often three months out of the monastery. There was once a monk who was walking near the monastery at night in summer when he suddenly stepped on something soft and it cracked open with a loud snap. He thought to himself: "Oops, I must have stepped on a toad that came out to look for food at night!" The master didn't dare to look carefully, ashamed that he had violated the precept of killing, he fled back to the temple on the spot.The more I thought about it at night, the more regretful I became. Thinking that the toad might be the pregnant mother, I was so worried that I couldn't sleep all night. I thought: Tomorrow, I must bury the toad's body and read a lesson for it.

At dawn the next day, the mage ran to the place where the toad was trampled to death last night, and couldn't help laughing when he saw it. It turned out that what he trampled was an eggplant last night. This story tells us that people should walk and live with a delicate, prudent, and ashamed heart. The toad on the road may be a pregnant mother. Why don’t the bugs on the road have parents and wives? We must cherish life, and secondly, we must integrate with others and be considerate of the hearts of other beings. One evening, a man was walking in the forest and met a mayfly crying. The man asked the mayfly, "Why are you crying here?"

Mayfly said: "My wife died at noon today, that's why I'm crying here!" The man said, "It's dusk now, and you will die soon, so why cry?" After hearing this, Mayfly cried even more sadly. That person couldn't help but find it funny, mayflies live in the morning and die in the evening, what's the difference between dying at noon and dying at dusk, why cry?So he left. When he was far away, he realized that from a human point of view, although the life of a mayfly is so short, there is not much difference between noon and dusk; but from the eyes of a mayfly, noon to dusk is its second half of life. The second half of life is as long as the second half of human life!Therefore, he mercifully walked back to see the mayfly, which had already died under the tree at dusk. The mayfly spent the rest of his life mourning his beloved wife, which moved the man deeply, and buried the mayfly with his own hands. .

We are born as human beings, and we claim to be the spirit of all things, the supreme being among animals, so that we cannot see life from the perspective of other sentient beings, so it is difficult to develop true compassion. When I climb the mountain every day, I always move the bugs from the stone steps to the grass, and I hope that climbers can also look at their feet, so as not to have the regret of stepping on clams in the future!