How to know whether a person has much or little blessings from his speech
Taught by Master Jingjie
For example, there are many birds in our mountains, and the ones closest to our lives are swallows and sparrows. Sparrows don't build nests, but they like to occupy swallows' nests. Swallows like to build nests under our houses, but they don't care, if you want to occupy my nest, I will give it to you, and they will find another place to build their nests. After sparrows occupy a nest, they will destroy it soon. Sparrows don't cherish it. I have observed that their movements are very rough.
Another point is that the sparrows have small hearts, while the swallows have big hearts. For example, when we pour the rice water on the ground, if the swallows come to eat first and the sparrows come to eat later, the swallows will not chase them away. They will eat their own food, and everyone will eat together. They have big hearts. If the rice water is poured and the sparrows come to eat first and the swallows come later, that would be terrible. The sparrows will collectively chase the swallows away. So, the personality of the sparrows is different from that of the swallows.
So normally, you can see that the swallows have very stable personalities. They are not afraid of us humans, unless you are very close to them. When you are a little distance away from them, they look very peaceful, very dignified, and very quiet. They do not think that humans will hurt them, because they have never thought of hurting others. Sparrows are different. When you see a sparrow from a distance, when it jumps to the ground to pick rice, it looks around for fear that you will hurt it. It looks around all the time for fear that you will hurt it.
So when we look at the personalities of sparrows and swallows, we know that sparrows definitely spend more time in pain in their lives. Swallows are also a kind of karmic body, they are also animals, and they are also in the common karma. But compared to sparrows, we see that swallows spend more time in peace. Whether they have something to do or not, they look at the scenery, enjoy the scenery, and are healthy and happy. But sparrows are very restless because they always hurt others, and they also assume that others will hurt them at any time.
What is the message here? It is not easy to cultivate Samatha-vipassanā" at the beginning. If you want to donate money to charity, it is not difficult to donate money, but it is not easy to change your personality, because it is a strong habit accumulated from every day and every thought in countless lives since the beginning of time.
