24 / My Child, Mother Loves You! — The Magistrate’s Earnest Teachings to All Mothers in the Mortal World
Grateful for the empowerment of the Buddha! I departed riding a white lotus flower.
“Amitabha!” I, Ayù, pressed my palms together in greeting to the Magistrate.
The Magistrate said, “Ayù, it has been quite some time since your last visit.”
“Yes, I am filled with remorse, for secular duties have kept me occupied lately. I wish to learn from your dedication to serving all beings day and night, and I shall come more often from now on.” Today Ayù wished to ask the Magistrate several questions regarding aborted infant souls.
“May I ask you, Magistrate: When those mothers who have had abortions in the mortal world dedicate the meritorious virtues they gain from reciting sutras and releasing living beings to their infant souls, can those infant souls trapped in the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead receive them? Which sutras yield the greatest efficacy when recited by people in the mortal world? How many rounds of sutra recitation are required to take effect? Where will the infant souls go after receiving the transferred meritorious virtues? Should people in the mortal world erect spirit tablets for the infant souls in their homes or Buddhist shrines, so the infant souls may receive incense offerings and listen to sutra recitations? Does such practice bear real merit? Do infant souls grow within the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead, and what sustains them there?”
The Magistrate replied: “Yes, the infant souls can indeed receive the transferred meritorious virtues. We distribute meritorious virtues to infant souls in accordance with the dedicated virtuous deeds designated for the infant souls by their expectant parents and relatives. All virtuous acts such as animal liberation, sutra recitation, Buddha offerings, almsgiving, bridge construction, and road‑paving generate karmic merits. If the expectant parents accumulate abundant merits through good deeds, a greater portion will be allocated to the infant souls; those who generate scant merits shall pass only a small share to these aborted infant souls. The magnitude of meritorious virtues derived from each virtuous act hinges entirely on the practitioner’s original intention when performing it. If one acts virtuously solely to liberate suffering sentient beings, without the slightest desire for repayment, and remains unattached to the deed after completing it, such practitioners naturally attain boundless, immense meritorious virtues without deliberate pursuit. If they dedicate such immeasurable meritorious virtues to infant souls in the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead, those infant souls will transcend to wholesome realms within forty-nine days after being aborted. As for the allocation of meritorious virtues: for every seven portions of meritorious virtues accumulated by the practitioner in the mortal world, six portions remain with the mortal practitioner, while one portion is granted to the infant soul in the Netherworld.
“The Earth Store Sutra is the most suitable sutra to recite to help departed souls attain transcendence. Earth Store Bodhisattva holds boundless kindness and compassion and once uttered a great vow: ‘I shall not attain Buddhahood until all hell realms are emptied.’ This Bodhisattva has the closest karmic affinity with beings in the hells. This sutra must be recited in full at least forty-nine times. The fastest case of transcendence in our netherworld records involved a mortal mother who had an abortion. She recited the Earth Store Sutra forty‑nine times, constantly made great vows and practiced good deeds, and her infant soul attained transcendence. The infant soul attained transcendence on the forty-ninth day, counting from the first day of the abortion. Such mothers among mortals are extremely rare — scarcely one in ten thousand. Later, this mother grew into a pure cultivator who benefits both herself and all living beings. Sadly, such mothers are extraordinarily rare among mortal beings in the world, scarcely one in ten thousand. Nearly all infant souls arriving at the netherworld today remain unclaimed. Very few parents who have had abortions sincerely resolve to repent. Many people believe that if they cannot see it, nothing is wrong, but this is mistaken. Every single day, these infant souls trapped in the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead endure unceasing agony. If their parents in the human world refuse to sincerely untie the karmic enmity binding them to the souls, resentment will only deepen and intensify as time passes. Once the parents in the human world exhaust all their blessings, the karmic conditions will ripen, and the aggrieved infant soul will come to exact retribution without fail. Nor can they escape the netherworld’s laws. Then their days of sweetness will end and suffering will begin; the forms that retribution may take are too many to recount. They may suffer every manner of bodily ailment from head to toe, and may even face the ruin of their families and the loss of lives.
“The amount of meritorious virtue each infant soul requires varies, for every case carries distinct karmic ties of kindness and resentment, which means the time needed to resolve the bond will differ accordingly. If the spirit incarnating into the womb comes to repay past kindness, the situation will be comparatively mild. Even so, the trauma of abortion plants fresh resentment within it, tangling the original virtuous and hostile karmic ties between the infant soul and its prospective parents. We constantly risk creating such new karmic entanglements through our actions. If the soul arrives to settle old karmic grievances, the abortion will only compound their strife, bringing unendurable suffering for all parties.
“Once infant souls receive transferred meritorious virtues, they will ascend and leave the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead in the Netherworld in accordance with their own karmic forces. There are roughly three destinations for their transcendence: First, those endowed with sufficient blessings can rely on such meritorious virtues to ascend to the Western Pure Land. Very few infant souls manage to attain this level of transcendence, however. Second, some infant souls ascend to the heaven realms and become celestial beings. Third, others are reborn back into the mortal world. Whether they ascend to the Western Pure Land, heaven realms, or the human realm, the rank of rebirth is determined by the infant soul’s own blessing reward. Within the Western Pure Land exist nine grades of lotus flowers; the heaven realms fall into three divisions: the desire realm, the form realm and the formless realm; and the mortal world is marked by disparities between wealth, nobility, poverty and lowliness. Where exactly an infant soul departs for after receiving meritorious virtues hinges on whether the expectant parents who had the abortion can generate enough meritorious virtues to dedicate to the infant soul and facilitate its transcendence. The sooner the infant soul transcends, the sooner the parents in the mortal world can be freed from their disasters. I sincerely wish all parents in the mortal world who have had abortions would swiftly cultivate genuine remorse for the hell-bound negative karma created by abortion, practice goodness, accumulate virtue, and deliver their poor, flesh-and-blood infant souls trapped within the Wailing City of the Wrongfully Dead.