Parable: Slaying Their Guide and Offering Him Up as a Sacrifice
Hundred Parables Sutra
Parable: Slaying Their Guide and Offering Him Up as a Sacrifice
Once there was a group of merchants who wanted to go to the sea. To this end they needed a guide, and so they set out in quest for one. After they had found one, they started out on their journey. During their travels, they came upon a temple in the wilderness, where it was required that they sacrifice a person’s life before they were allowed to pass through. The group of merchants talked it over among themselves: “We are all relatives—how could we possibly kill any one of us?” And so they killed the guide and offered him up as a sacrifice. After they had made their sacrifice, they also lost their way. Not knowing their own whereabouts, the entire group endured great anguish and eventually perished.
People of the world are this group of merchants. If they wish to obtain treasures from the depth of the Dharma ocean, they should take the practice of wholesome dharmas as their guide. If they destroy such wholesome practices, they will lost their guide and never be able to find their way out of the wilderness of birth and death. They will undergo prolonged and extensive suffering in the three evil paths. Such people are like the merchants, who, they wished to go to the sea. Once they killed their guide, they lost their way, and eventually became impoverished and died.
