The Repentant Duck Thief

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Seven-day retreat in Taipei, Formosa, May 23, 1994, (Originally in English) Videotape #428, MP3-CR15

Once in a village there lived a very virtuous gentleman who never harmed anyone and was always very, very good to all the people in his community. In his house, he raised many kinds of pets such as geese, ducks and chickens.

One day one of his neighbors who liked to do a lot of stealing came to that beautiful person's house and stole a duck. Then the thief went home and made Peking duck and soup out of it, and ate them.

But afterwards something weird happened. The thief suddenly began to itch all over and he began scratching, and then duck feathers grew out of his body. His whole body became covered with duck feathers. And then he became very frightened and knew that it was retribution for what he had done. So he began to feel deeply repentant in his heart and went to the temple and asked for forgiveness from the Buddha. And then after some time the Buddha felt compassion for him and in a dream told him, "OK. I see that you've repented sincerely enough. So now I'll tell you the reason why you've grown feathers on your body. It's because you stole the duck from a very, very virtuous man. So now the only solution for you is to go to that man's house and tell him to scold you. If he just scolds you once, your affliction will be gone."

So the thief went to the house of the virtuous man, but instead of telling him the truth he was afraid so he told some lies and said, "Oh, I heard that you lost a duck. And a man next door to me stole your duck. So if you scold him loudly, the man will be scared and he'll bring the duck back to you immediately. Don't you think so?"

And then the virtuous man replied, "Ah! It's only a duck, not a big deal. Besides I don't have any proof that this man stole my duck. Why should I scold him? Besides, maybe he was very hungry and had nothing to eat so he stole a duck from me. It's not worth it to scold him. It's all right." And then the thief got extremely scared and was also touched by the man's generosity and good will. So he knelt down and said, "Oh, please, I confess to you. It was me. It was me who stole your duck. Now look at me. I've grown feathers all over my body. Can you please scold me so that my affliction will be gone because the Buddha told me that?" So the virtuous man was very touched and felt sorry for him and scolded him.

I've always told you that if people scold us, it's no problem. They may cleanse our karma if we have any karma. If we don't have any, at least it will give us the opportunity to practice patience, endurance and humility.