The Law of Cause and Effect: Ginseng

A Falun Gong Practitioner in C

PureInsight | August 29, 2005

[PureInsight.org] During the time before 1949 when Kuomintang (KMT or the National Party of China) was still ruling China, a middle-aged man in my village went to the market and saw a vendor selling something he had never seen before. He asked, "What is this?" The vendor replied, "It is ginseng." "Really?" He asked. The vendor replied, "Yes, it is really ginseng. It was from Baitou Mountain (a mountain in northern China whose top is covered with snow all year round.) He asked, "How much is it?" The vendor replied, "800 yuan." People Eight hundred yuan was a large sum of money back then. He knew people in the village had been wanting ginseng for along time now. So he paid the money and took it home. When he returned home, a village folk who was knowledgeable about ginseng told him, "It is not a ginseng. It is the root of a sow thistle." "Oh?" After he realized he had been cheated, he did not get upset or grumpy. He thought, "Perhaps I owed the vendor who sold me the fake ginseng 800 yuan in a previous life and I have just settled it."

Twenty years later, the man had a dream where he clearly saw a man came telling him, "I will repay what I owe you today. Do you still remember the ginseng you bought from me? It was not ginseng. It was the root of a sow thistle." After he woke up from the dream, no one came to visit him or repay him in any way. He thought, "It was just a dream after all." The next day his old brown cow gave birth to a calf. About a year later, the calf was grown. One day he took the young calf to the market for sale. In the morning more than a dozen men approached him and offered him the same price --- 800 yuan. He thought, "Oh, 800 yuan. It is the same amount of money that I had paid for the fake ginseng. The dream I had a year ago has come true. Perhaps the ginseng vendor has truly come to repay me." He then brought the young cow to the side and said to him, "Have you come to repay me? If so, why don't you add the cost of my lunch today to your selling price? It is almost noon." As soon as he finished saying those words, a man approached him and offered him 803 yuan for the cow. He asked the man, "Could you pay me more?" The man replied, "803 yuan will do. It is almost noon. Three yuan will just about cover your lunch." He immediately sold the cow.

This is a story a man told me when I clarified the truth about Falun Gong to him.

This is a very inspirational story that illustrated the law of cause and effect. There is a consequence to each bad thought, word or action. One must repay every bad thing he has done ultimately. No one can escape the law of cause and effect.

Translated from: http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/6/47816.html

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