Long ago, during the Liang dynasty, Emperor Võ Đế was close friends with a Venerable monk named Chí Công; the two of them spoke together every day with great warmth.
Empress Hy Thị, seeing this, urged the emperor to stop keeping company with that ignorant monk, but Emperor Võ Đế paid her no heed and continued to visit him as before. Furious, the empress plotted to harm Venerable Chí Công: she secretly had cakes made with a filling of dog meat, then sent someone to deliver them to the temple as an offering for the monks' meal.
Little did she know that Venerable Chí Công had foreseen it all. He had prepared a robe with wide sleeves and hidden vegetarian cakes inside them, so that when the meal was served, he slipped the meat cakes secretly into his sleeve and ate the vegetarian cakes instead.
As soon as she heard word that the Venerable had eaten the cakes, Lady Hy Thị hurried to tell the emperor: “Those cakes were filled with dog meat, and Chí Công ate them without even noticing — this proves he is nothing but an ordinary, ignorant man, with neither virtue nor wisdom. Does Your Majesty still wish to call him a friend?”
Hearing this, the emperor flew into a rage and went at once to the temple with his sword, intending to kill the Venerable.
But Venerable Chí Công had already foreseen this too, and had gone out to stand waiting at the temple gate.
When the emperor arrived and saw the Venerable standing there, he asked: “Why are you standing out here?”
Venerable Chí Công replied: “This humble monk knew Your Majesty was coming to kill him, and so came out to wait here. Had Your Majesty entered the temple to take a life, it would have defiled this sacred place, and the sin would only have been greater.”
Startled, the emperor pressed his palms together, recited the Buddha's name, and repented on the spot. He then invited the Venerable inside and asked: “If you could foresee all this, how is it that you mistakenly ate the dog-meat cakes without realizing it?”
Venerable Chí Công answered: “Your Majesty, this humble monk never ate them at all!”
With that, he led the emperor to the garden behind the temple and had someone dig up the dog-meat cakes — all one hundred and twenty of them were still there. The Venerable then sprinkled them with pure consecrated water, and at once every ten cakes joined together into a living dog, moving about just as any ordinary dog would.
Astonished, the emperor now understood how vast and powerful the Venerable's spiritual attainments truly were. He went back into the temple and, with all his heart, bowed down to repent of his wrongdoing. From that day on, Võ Đế cherished Venerable Chí Công even more than before — which only made Empress Hy Thị angrier still, so much so that she sent servants to the temple to seize the sutras and sacred texts and burn them all.
Then, during the Thiên Giám era, the empress fell gravely ill and died. She was reborn as a giant serpent, hiding herself behind the palace where no one could see her. One night, she appeared to Emperor Võ Đế in a dream and told him: “While I lived, I acted without compassion, harmed both people and creatures, and gave in to greed and malice. Because of this, I must now bear the body of a serpent — my form has grown so long and so heavy that I can barely drag myself along; I hunger with nothing to eat, thirst with nothing to drink, and suffer in every way. Worse still, venomous insects nest beneath my scales and gnaw at my flesh without end, causing a pain deep in my belly that is almost unbearable. I think of how you and I were once bound by the ties of marriage and mutual devotion, and yet now I have fallen into this animal body — how could Your Majesty bear to enjoy wealth and honor alone, without seeking any way to help me? I beg you, in your compassion, to invite monks to hold a ceremony of deliverance for me, so that, sheltered by the Buddha's teaching, I may escape this circle of evil retribution. For that, I shall be grateful for all eternity.”
On hearing this, Emperor Võ Đế awoke and wept sorrowfully for a long while. At dawn, he ordered the śramaṇa monks to be gathered at the palace and asked them: “Is there anyone among you with the power to deliver the empress from her suffering and her sins?”
Venerable Chí Công answered: “Your Majesty, the empress's transgressions are very grave. Only by establishing a ceremonial altar for worship and repentance can she be saved.”
Emperor Võ Đế agreed, and asked Venerable Chí Công to compose ten volumes of repentance texts. He then set up an altar within the palace and observed a three-month fast, praying and repenting on the empress's behalf. One day, as the ceremony was drawing to a close, a rich fragrance of incense filled the entire palace. Emperor Võ Đế looked up toward the sky and saw a young woman of unearthly beauty standing in mid-air. She joined her palms and said to him: “Through the merit of Your Majesty's repentance, I have been freed from my serpent's body and reborn in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. I have shown myself to Your Majesty so that you may witness this with your own eyes. And now, with these words of gratitude, I take my leave and wish Your Majesty peace.” With that, she vanished and was seen no more.
Emperor Võ Đế was overcome, half in joy and half in tears, unable fully to grasp what had happened. He withdrew to his chambers and summoned Venerable Chí Công to ask him: “While she lived, the empress hated you bitterly. What karma from a past life could have given rise to such enmity between the two of you?”
Venerable Chí Công replied: “Your Majesty, the root of this enmity lies in a past life, when an abbot and a temple steward lived together in the same monastery. In that monastery stood a stone stand that held a jar of water, and at its foot lived a small, harmless insect that would sing every night, as loudly as a cricket or a cicada. Whenever the abbot came to draw water to rinse his mouth or wash his face, he would say a prayer for the little creature, wishing that it might soon be freed from its animal body and reborn among human beings.
One day, while the abbot was away, the temple steward, irritated that the insect sang every night, disturbing his peace of mind and keeping him from a full night's sleep, caught the creature, cut it in two across the back with a knife, and put it back beneath the stand as though nothing had happened.
The next day, the abbot returned, and having heard nothing from the insect all through the night, went to look beneath the stand — there he found it dead. Grieving, he wept, recited the Buddha's name in prayer for it, tied a strip of red cloth around the wound on its back, and buried it in the garden behind the temple.
Your Majesty, that little insect is none other than the empress in this present life; and the temple steward is none other than this humble monk before you now. Enemies from the past have met again, come to collect an old debt — and had this monk been careless in his practice in this life, how could he ever have escaped the empress's hand?”
Hearing this, Emperor Võ Đế nodded and said: “So that explains why my empress always kept a red cord tied around her waist and would never take it off, though I never understood why. One night, while she slept soundly, I quietly untied that cord, and she at once cried out that her back ached; the moment I tied it back on, the pain was gone. Now that the Venerable has revealed this debt from a past life, I know that what the Buddha teaches about ‘CAUSE AND EFFECT’ is truly beyond doubt.”
From that time on, Emperor Võ Đế's faith in the Buddha's teaching grew ever stronger. He treated the Sangha with the utmost respect and vowed to serve the Three Jewels with all his heart…
Excerpt: Cause and Effect
When a sentient being lays down this body of retribution, it takes up another. But so long as the causes and conditions for that new body are not yet complete, this present body is not yet relinquished. It is like an inchworm: while its tail end holds fast to one spot, its head stretches out searching ahead; only once the head has found a new place to grip does the tail finally let go. In the same way, when a person lies still, drawing near to death, it is precisely then that the karmic consciousness is searching for the place of its next rebirth. The moment it finds that place, death follows at once, and the being lets go of this body to take up another.