Ninety-nine Faults

The Buddha taught us to have “a mind that embraces the expanse of space and encompasses the vastness of the universe.” He taught “Compassion is the essence, and expediency is the means.” He taught us to have loving-kindness and compassion, to end delusion and attain enlightenment, and to end suffering and attain happiness. If what we think, say, and do is the very opposite of his teachings, is this learning from the Buddha? No, this is going against the teachings of the Buddha. Such a person believes in his afflictions and residual habits. He believes in fame and wealth. He does not believe in the Buddha’s teachings.

What should we do if we wish to help propagate the teachings? We should start with ourselves. This is an era of democracy, freedom, and openness. For many, individual rights are considered to be of the utmost importance. Therefore, we must not interfere with others or criticize them. We can only examine ourselves to see if we have these faults. It is very important to start with examining ourselves. We should be modest and praise others, even when they praise themselves and disparage everyone else. If a person has ninety-nine faults and only one merit, we praise the merit and do not mention the ninety-nine faults or keep them in mind. We focus on cultivating our purity and goodness. If we do this, the Buddha’s teachings will have bright future to be passed on to many generations to come.

Buddhist practitioners should try to keep in contact and encourage one another often. If other Buddhists accept us, we can work together to propagate Buddhism and benefit others. If they do not accept us, we should not pressure them but respect their wishes.

~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra

Comments

[ed]

I really dont understand that bit about "we must not criticise others or interfere..."

i really dont get that bit in the Buddhist proverbial "if you slap me on my left cheek, I'll ask you to slap me on the other cheek."

Could you kindly enlighten? I know it's to see the goodness in others; whenever we're being treated badly in this sense, it's our bad karma. when others treat us badly, it's perfectly all right for them. so at what point does this stop, somewhere? surely, we can't keep 'accepting' or suffering bad treatment? at what point do we stop being takers?

i dont know how to accept an explanation simply based on "it is our bad karma" and that "we have to see goodness in others".

[Venerable Wuling]

Ed,

I have never heard of the proverb you gave. Nor does it sound Buddhist. It would be wrong to ask someone to slap us because we would be asking them to commit a violent act. So we would be leading them to commit a bad karmic action. I have heard of the Christian proverb of "turning the other cheek" but that is not asking the other person to strike us either.

This post from Teacher's talk with the line "we must not interfere with others or criticize them" is about finding faults in ourselves and not noticing the faults of others. We do this because we have more than enough faults of our own to keep us busy for a very long time.

I believe the essence of your comment is about how to react when others treat us badly. This is an issue that others have asked me about and deserves more space then is practical in a comment. So please bear with me. I will write a post on this in a few days. Currently, I am in Chicago attending a retreat and my time is limited.

[Ed]

Thanks Venerable Shi. You see, about the slapping comment, there's a Chinese proverb (I believe) about how if someone slaps u on your left cheek, you offer the other cheek to be slapped too, which is the ultimate in the Buddhist ways... not sure how accurate that is, or just Taoist/Buddhist lore.