Parable: The Dead Son Remains in the House
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Hundred Parables Sutra
Parable: The Dead Son Remains in the House
Once there was a stupid man who had seven children. One child died young. Seeing this, the man wished to leave the corpse in the house and move out himself.
Observing this, a bystander said, “Birth and death are separate paths. You should quickly conduct a proper funeral and bury the corpse in a far away place. How can you leave the corpse here and move out yourself?”
Hearing this, the stupid man thought to himself, “If I’m not going to leave the corpse here, but bury it instead, I should kill another child to hang at the other end of a long pole. Then I can carry them both off to be buried.” And so he proceeded to kill another child. Then he put both corpses on the ends of along pole and took them off to be buried in the forest. People who saw this were shocked at such a strange occurrence.
This is like a Bhikshu who secretly breaks one precept and is afraid to repent. He keeps silent about it and hides his mistake, insisting to himself that he is pure. Then someone discovers his misdeed and says, “Those who have left home should keep the precepts flawlessly like guarding precious pearls. Why do you now, having broken a precept, wish not to repent?”
The violator says, “As long as I am going to repent, I might as well break some more precepts and then confess them all at once.” Then he casually breaks the precepts and does many bad deeds. That Bhikshu is like the stupid man who, since one of his children had died, killed yet another.