Most people believe that killing is merely a personal moral choice, and that food, health, and fate are separate matters. Yet Buddhist wisdom reveals a far deeper truth: every thought, action, and intention silently shapes the world we live in. This article uncovers the hidden karmic price of killing—how it disturbs the mind, entangles destiny, weakens spiritual sensitivity, and even alters the very reality we experience—while revealing a compassionate path of purification, protection, and awakening.
🐾 A Personal Witness to the Karmic Consequence of Killing
🎯 Master Chin Kung’s Father and the Retribution He Witnessed
The following account is Master Chin Kung’s personal testimony:
My father was a career military officer, and during the war against Japan, our home had many firearms. He enjoyed hunting, and from childhood we followed him hunting, eating wild game every day. But after the war ended, the manner in which he died was exactly as described in the Kṣitigarbha Sūtra《地藏经》.
He became delirious and insane—seeing mountains, he ran toward the mountains; seeing water, he dove into the water—behaving just like a wild animal. The scriptures speak of the karmic retribution for killing. I saw it with my own eyes, and when I recalled how my father became ill and eventually died, I felt tremendous fear.
I myself had also hunted for three years and killed many animals. After reading the Buddhist scriptures and thinking of these scenes, I never dared to do it again. Thus, from age twenty-six onward, I began eating a pure vegetarian diet, releasing living beings, and repenting for the karma of killing.
After I learned Buddhism, I devoted myself to only three practices:
- Printing Buddhist scriptures, following the example of Master Yinguang.
- Releasing living beings, to eliminate the karmic suffering created by my killing.
- Donating medicine, because I saw the great suffering of illness; poor people cannot afford medicine, so every month I donate a little to support medical aid.
🥣 Why Kill for Food When Simple Meals Can Sustain Us?
🍃 “Our refined foods vanish the moment they’re eaten.”
“All kinds of delicacies we prepare for ourselves vanish the moment they are eaten.
Plain grains and vegetable soup are enough to fill the stomach.
Why must we slaughter other lives and diminish our own blessings?”
We are accustomed to rich and varied dishes in daily life—but have we ever thought about this:
“Once eaten, it all becomes empty.”
For whom do we crave flavors?
For whom do we kill and eat meat?
If it is merely to satisfy the tongue that can distinguish flavors—
that tongue is only three inches long, and once food passes the throat, it can no longer taste anything.
If we create immeasurable karmic offenses just to satisfy these three inches of flesh, it is truly not worth it.
Plain grains and vegetable soup are entirely sufficient to fill our hunger—
why kill living beings and diminish our own blessings?
Have we ever seriously contemplated this truth and this reality?
🌱 A Lifetime of Vegetarianism as Living Proof
🥗 Vegetarian Food Does Not Harm Health—It Enhances It
If people claim that vegetarian food lacks nutrition or harms health,
I can personally offer testimony.
I have been vegetarian for exactly fifty years as of this year.
In my entire life, I have never been sick, my health is excellent, I am long-lived, and my physical strength has never deteriorated.
I am not someone who pays meticulous attention to health maintenance—in fact, I am quite casual about it.
My only regret was that my teeth were not good.
Two years ago, a fellow practitioner took me to see a dentist for cleaning.
After examining me, the dentist said:
“Master, your teeth are in excellent condition.
You’ve maintained them very well.
For someone over seventy, most people’s teeth cannot compare to yours.”
This, I believe, is due to a lifetime of vegetarianism.
💛 Refining the Mind and Temperament Is Even More Important Than Diet
Vegetarianism brings great health benefits.
People in the world already understand the importance of hygiene,
but there is something even more important that most people neglect:
hygiene of temperament and hygiene of the mind.
• Hygiene of temperament (卫性) means cultivating good temperament; temperament influences physical health.
• Hygiene of the mind (卫心) means cultivating sincerity, purity, equality, and compassion.
When one knows how to care for the mind and temperament,
and then also knows how to maintain physical health,
one’s body will naturally be healthy—illness simply has no place to arise.
🧄 Why Buddhism Avoids the Five Pungent Roots (五荤菜)
In vegetarianism, Buddhism distinguishes five pungent vegetables that should be avoided—
these are called the “five pungent roots.”
Note:
“Pungent (荤)” means strong-odor vegetables, not meat.
Meat is called “腥 (fishy).”
The five pungent roots are:
green onions, garlic, small garlic (shallots), leeks, and onions.
They must be avoided because:
• When eaten raw, they stimulate the body and easily provoke anger.
• To prevent irritation of the liver and emotional agitation, they are prohibited.
• When cooked, they can produce hormones that easily arouse sexual desire.
However, if used in very small amounts as seasoning, they lose their effect—in such cases, they are permissible.
To truly practice precepts, one must understand their true intention.
Only then does one realize that precepts are actually great freedom—freedom from evil, freedom to cultivate virtue, and freedom from eating the flesh of any sentient being.
When we understand this principle, we naturally choose vegetarianism and rejoice in it.
Thus, Buddhist teachings are reasonable, compassionate, and flexible—not rigid or dogmatic, but alive and adaptable.
🌌 All Beings Share One Life-Essence
🩸 Animals Possess Awareness—To Harm Them Is to Harm Ourselves
“Those belonging to the category of blood and breath all possess spiritual awareness.
Since they possess awareness, they are one with me.
Even if I cannot personally cultivate supreme virtue to earn their respect and affection,
how could I kill them day after day—causing them to resent me and bear endless hatred?
Once this thought arises, one feels so pained when facing food that one cannot swallow.”
“Blood and breath” refers to animals—all animals have spiritual awareness.
We know material substance has boundaries, but awareness has no boundaries.
Having no boundaries means one and the same body.
Thus, the entire Dharma-realm of space
is the substance of our own mind—
it is exactly the appearance that the mind manifests.
The forms produced by our delusion, discrimination, and attachment appear as all sentient beings, all worlds, and all natural phenomena.
Ordinary people are careless and inattentive, so they fail to realize that the Dharma-realm of space and themselves are oneness.
Because it is originally one entity, all beings naturally have mutual resonance and response.
The degree of this resonance is directly proportional to the purity or impurity of one’s mind.
The purer the mind, the stronger the sensitivity of response.
Therefore, within the entire Dharma-realm, every sentient being is constantly in responsive communion
with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—just like how their “receivers” are extremely refined and can detect even the faintest vibrations.
📡 Why Buddhas Respond Instantly and We Do Not
🧘 Our innate ability is the same as the Buddhas—only obscured
Ordinary beings have weak receptive ability.
In truth, our capacity to receive resonance
is originally identical to that of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Why is there such a vast difference now?
Because their receivers remain intact, as perfect as new.
But we do not know how to protect or cherish ours—we have accumulated layer upon layer of defilements and pollution.
The mind has become filthy and chaotic, so our ability to receive is greatly diminished.
We can only sense coarse vibrations; subtle vibrations completely escape us.
If, however, we can genuinely practice cultivation and thoroughly cleanse the impurities from the mind-ground,
our innate functioning will naturally recover.
Then our receptive ability will be no different from that of all Buddhas.
In the Dharma-realm, whether past or future, all extremely subtle vibrations—we will perceive clearly, distinctly, with nothing obscured.
📡 The “Receiver” Is Not Mechanical — It Is Pure Awareness
👁️🗨️ Awareness Has No Form for Ordinary Beings, but Has Subtle Form for Buddhas
This receiver does not require machinery, nor does it require a physical body—its function is awareness itself(灵知). Does this awareness have form? For ordinary people, awareness has no form; this explanation is given to those who have not yet reached deeper levels of understanding. But for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, “awareness does have form,” and this subtle form is called unmanifest color (無表色). In other words, our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and even our mind-consciousness cannot perceive it, so we speak of it as “formless.” In truth, “formless” is still a kind of form—it is simply that we cannot see it, whereas Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can.
✨ Coming Next...
Next week in The Four Lessons of Liao-Fan Series #22:
We will look at what real spiritual attainment can look like - through startling examples: some practitioners can observe others' dreams, and some cultivate such purity and compassion that even insects stop disturbing them. Stay with this series to see what practice can truly transform.
Stay tuned. 🙏 Amituofo 🙏
✨ Essential Questions & Takeaways
How many can you answer? Your score shows how well you've internalized the chapter.
🧠 1️⃣ What is the real “price” of killing—just guilt, or a collapse of the mind’s stability?
Daily-life level:
Most people think the price of killing is only guilt, bad luck, or social consequences. But the article shows that karma can surface at the most critical moment — at death, when the mind may fall into confusion, panic, and loss of control.
Inner level:
A mind that has long accumulated killing karma becomes unstable. When death arrives, clarity collapses, fear erupts, and the person may lose dignity, orientation, and awareness.
Fundamental truth:
This is karmic ripening: loss of clarity, loss of dignity, and loss of mastery over one’s own consciousness. The real “price” is not symbolic — it is the breakdown of the mind’s stability itself.
🍽️ 2️⃣ If food disappears the moment it’s eaten, what are we really protecting when we kill to satisfy taste?
Daily-life level:
Once food passes the throat, nothing remains — only a fading memory of taste — yet a life has been taken.
Inner level:
The article trains the reader to evaluate causes and consequences, not temporary sensations. A few seconds of flavor cannot repay a karmic burden that may follow across lifetimes.
Fundamental truth:
Temporary sensations are empty; karmic causes are binding. Killing for taste is exchanging emptiness for endless entanglement.
🌿 3️⃣ Is “health” mainly about nutrition—or about the cleanliness of temperament and mind?
Daily-life level:
Vegetarian living supports physical health and longevity.
Inner level:
Temperament and mental hygiene shape anger, fear, compassion, and emotional balance — directly influencing illness and recovery.
Fundamental truth:
Illness arises from disturbed mind-ground. When sincerity, purity, equality, and compassion stabilize, sickness “has no place to arise.”
🌏 4️⃣ Why does the article say all beings are “one body”—and what changes when you truly believe that?
Daily-life level:
Animals feel pain, fear, and attachment just as humans do.
Inner level:
This recognition softens the heart. Compassion stops being moral pressure and becomes natural empathy.
Fundamental truth:
Awareness has no boundaries — there is truly one shared life-field.
To kill another is to injure the same life-essence, creating karmic resonance and entanglement within that single field.
📡 5️⃣ What is the “receiver,” and why do Buddhas respond instantly while we cannot?
Daily-life level:
We often feel spiritually numb while Buddhas appear responsive and luminous.
Inner level:
This is not because Buddhas were “given” special abilities — it is because their minds are clean, while ours are layered with emotional and karmic pollution.
Fundamental truth:
The receiver is pure awareness itself.
Clean the mind-ground, and resonance naturally returns. Spiritual sensitivity is universal — it is simply obscured, not absent.
✨
📚 Source: Venerable Master Chin Kung’s lecture on The Four Lessons of Liao-Fan, delivered on April 16, 2001, on Phoenix TV