The Inexorable Nether Laws
Volume II
WRITTEN BY
SHANGGUAN YUHUA
[Lotus illustration from the original edition]
0 / Foreword by the Author
Amitabha! Greetings to all.
I am grateful to the Buddha for granting this humble learner the sacred opportunity to write The Inexorable Nether Laws. I, A Yu, am filled with deep remorse. Hindered by all manner of personal karmic obstacles, I failed to finish this book promptly in accordance with the will of the Buddhas and heaven. I sincerely repent before everyone. I will follow the spirit of Mahayana Bodhisattvas — great kindness without conditions and great compassion with the same body recognising the interconnected oneness of all beings — to continue writing the remaining parts of The Inexorable Nether Laws.
Since I started writing this book, on one hand, my scope of understanding has widened. On the other hand, I have experienced things that have never happened to me in this lifetime. All of these have greatly tested my mental resolve and have exhausted my spirit and energy. When my vitality declines, I am unable to travel to the hell realms. This slows my writing work and directly causes The Inexorable Nether Laws to remain unfinished for a long time.
The biggest realization brought by writing this book is a profound awareness of how important it is to uphold the precepts. Many people feel observing precepts is something far away, merely the duty of those monastic practitioners and irrelevant to ordinary beings. Such a viewpoint runs contrary to the law of karma and the laws of the netherworld. In truth, all greatly accomplished cultivators must carefully abide by all precepts in accordance with the Dharma even while they are still ordinary beings cultivating the causes for enlightenment.