Two months ago, around mid‑March, I obtained a complimentary copy of The Inexorable Nether Laws from a Buddhist supply centre. I seemed to have seen it before. Though I thought it worthwhile, perhaps swayed by certain viewpoints, I regarded it merely as another exhortatory text and never read it earnestly. This time, reading it at the centre, I found its content compelling. At last it helped me make sense of a period many years before, when I felt as though my soul had departed. Walking along the street, I could not see clearly even things merely a little over ten metres away. I was utterly spiritless, dazed and muddled, as if only my physical body wandered about, capable of nothing more than simple thought‑responses. It seemed that this might be the evil karma of sexual misconduct: perhaps my three souls had been drawn away before my earthly lifespan had ended.
After bringing The Inexorable Nether Laws home, I read it carefully. I found it truly valuable, aligning closely with my own long‑term personal experience; the consequences of licentious wrongdoing are indeed grave and terrifying. The thought crossed my mind that it would be good to donate a batch of these books to a local Earth Store Chan Grove so more people might read them. The notion soon faded from my awareness and I paid it no further heed as I went about work, meals and sleep. That very night, however, I had a dream. In the dream, I carried a stack of books toward the Earth Store Chan Grove, and a voice spoke to me: “If you deliver a stack of The Inexorable Nether Laws to the Earth Store Chan Grove, you shall attain eternal life.” Upon waking, I felt puzzled and intrigued. I had nearly forgotten my fleeting daytime thought, yet such a dream had arisen. I wondered what “eternal life” could mean. Even so, donating the books to the Chan Grove would surely be a virtuous act, so I resolved to carry it out.
At work, I located Shangguan Yuhua’s blog and the Shanxin Lianxin Dharma‑Living website. Yet obstacles arose. My online banking digital certificate had expired. Alongside The Inexorable Nether Laws, I also ordered texts I had long sought, including Compassionate Kṣitigarbha Repentance Ritual. The Inexorable Nether Laws was offered free of charge. Try as I might, I could not renew the certificate due to persistent system‑time desynchronisation. Repeated consultations with bank customer support brought no resolution. My workplace was located in an industrial zone, so I was far from the city centre during working hours. The process proved troublesome. Still, I did not act out of attachment to the dream, for I had not taken it seriously. I simply believed that having resolved to do good, I ought to persist rather than give up amid difficulties. I therefore travelled specially to the downtown bank branch to update the certificate. Back at my office, I finally completed the order for three cartons of books, including The Inexorable Nether Laws, Selected Essays from Huian Illumination, and Compassionate Kṣitigarbha Repentance Ritual. When the books arrived, I delivered a stack to the Earth Store Chan Grove. I barely thought about the earlier dream and had nearly forgotten it entirely; I treated it purely as an act of merit‑making.
That very night, I dreamed once more. Two hell-officers appeared, with ruddy‑dark complexions, furrowed brows and roughly square‑shaped faces. They bore a striking resemblance to the descriptions of netherworld officers in the Precious Scroll of the Jade Calendar. Clearly not beings from the mortal realm, they showed no warmth or flexibility, conveying an aura of strict, unyielding impartiality, unmoved by personal sentiment. There was also a third figure, seemingly the local presiding divinity — I could not tell whether it was an Earth God or Hearth God. The two hell-officers handed me a large sheet covered line‑by‑line with records concerning me. My name stood at the left‑hand margin of each line in distinct script, with accounts of my deeds extending toward the right. Before all three of them, I began tearing the document into narrow strips. The paper was surprisingly tough and hard to rend. Meanwhile, the local presiding divinity drew the two hell-officers aside for private consultation. I kept tearing until they returned. They then instructed me to set the remains fully ablaze, as if to dispel my lingering misgivings forever. Once the burning was done, the two hell-officers stood, cast me a glance with their unrelentingly official, unapproachable demeanor, and departed. I woke up, utterly baffled. It had been such a vivid dream, as if everything had truly just happened. Knowing nothing of the inner workings of the three realms nor the full truth of the six realms of rebirth, I dared not speak of it to others. Yet I became convinced that The Inexorable Nether Laws was indeed issued and blessed for circulation by the netherworld authorities. The denizens of the netherworld keep their word and act exactly as they promise. As stated in The Inexorable Nether Laws: “All who uphold the karmic laws shall ascend to heaven and have their names struck from the hellish registers.” Likewise, it teaches: “Do not imagine that secret deeds go unseen. Every thought of good or evil is directly transmitted to the karmic ledgers of the netherworld.”
I thought that would be the end of it. Little did I expect that I would meet that netherworld officer again not long afterwards. This time, he did not come to me; instead, I was summoned down to the netherworld. To tell this story properly, I must begin with an interlude. Two years ago, I visited Jiuhua Mountain and stayed at Xitian Temple. No sooner had I settled in than I went to the main hall to pay homage to the Buddha. When I stood up after finishing my prostrations and walked toward the exit, an elderly nun sitting behind a table near the doorway called me over. “You recite the Diamond Sutra at home, do you not?” she said. I had a pocket‑sized copy of the Diamond Sutra tucked inside the breast pocket of my jacket. Surprised, I replied, “Why yes, I do carry the Diamond Sutra with me,” and proceeded to take it out. The elderly nun said, “I am not speaking of you carrying it on your person. I mean you have been reciting the Diamond Sutra consistently, for at least three months.” I was astonished. I had never met anyone who could perceive such a thing. It was true; I had indeed been reading the Diamond Sutra during that period. I called over my son, nephew and niece who were travelling with me. The old nun spoke concisely, and everything she said rang true. They were greatly encouraged by her words. That evening when I returned to the main hall, I saw a young woman kneeling before the Buddha reciting the Earth Store Sutra. Someone who seemed to be her mother stood nearby at the door. I learned they had travelled from Northeast China. The nun had also told her many accurate things about herself, so she had resolved to recite the Earth Store Sutra on the mountain throughout her trip. The elderly nun was extraordinarily compassionate. Patiently and tirelessly, she guided us from every angle, urging us to cultivate our spiritual practice earnestly. She spoke of daily life, family and career, linking past‑life causes to present‑life circumstances. She also counseled my wife and gave us many sutra books, prayer beads and devotional ornaments. My wife was deeply moved, and for some time after returning home, she faithfully read the Earth Store Sutra. Before we left the mountain, I asked the nun whether I would face any disasters or hardships in the future. She handed me a copy of the Earth Store Sutra together with an image of Earth Store Bodhisattva and said, “Ask no more questions. Since you work during weekdays, simply recite the whole Earth Store Sutra at home every Saturday and Sunday, and all will be well.” After going home, I kept this practice up for a while, yet eventually grew slack. Still, whenever I recalled the nun’s immensely kind countenance and her repeated exhortations to me, I felt deep remorse. Roughly in the latter half of last year, I resumed the practice and have mostly kept to reciting the whole Earth Store Sutra on each day of the weekend ever since.
To resume my story: some days after I had given away copies of The Inexorable Nether Laws and had that dream, my spiritual practice grew lazy and negligent (old karmic habits run deep, indeed!). On several occasions I skipped reading the Earth Store Sutra, though I still kept up my self‑prescribed morning recitations.
One night after falling asleep, I seemed to descend into a room. Inside stood a long rectangular conference table, as if a meeting was in progress. Seated at the head of the table, seemingly chairing the meeting, appeared to be the same netherworld officer I had encountered in my earlier dream. When I entered, he wore that same unyielding, meticulous, stern expression. “Why have you stopped reciting the sutras these days?” he asked. In that setting, I found myself answering truthfully almost against my will: “I have not read the Earth Store Sutra on weekend afternoons, yet I still recite the Ten Great Vows of Samantabhadra and the Diamond Sutra each morning.” All of a sudden, a bright, joyful smile broke across the netherworld officer’s face, radiating a sense of relief and approval. I was utterly astonished; such an expression was so extraordinarily rare for him. It felt almost like seeing the sun appear in the night sky. That he would show such heartfelt satisfaction simply because I recited Buddhist sutras took me completely by surprise. I had not imagined that sutra recitation would receive such immediate, special recognition on that plane of existence. Afterwards, he appeared to check records concerning the distribution of The Inexorable Nether Laws. On the whole, he seemed reasonably satisfied.
Since I had come to realize that studying and spreading The Inexorable Nether Laws brings very real, immediate personal benefits — blessings that no amount of money can buy — I wanted my brothers and sisters to study and propagate it as well, so they too might obtain these rare, invaluable blessings beyond monetary measure. Yet my siblings lived in different places, which made it difficult to arrange. Then I thought I could give the books to my parents, who could take several copies with them when they visited each of their children. At that time, my parents were staying at my elder brother’s home. It was a Friday afternoon, around two o’clock. The thought came to me, and I resolved to go to my parents’ place. I boarded a train for another city and arrived at my elder brother’s house at about six in the evening. To my great surprise, all my siblings except my elder brother, who had gone out, were gathered in the living‑room. When I asked, they all said, “We were waiting for you!” I turned to my eldest younger brother and asked, “What brings you here?” He did not work in this city. He replied, “I was supposed to attend a meeting this afternoon, but it was cancelled at the last minute, so I drove over to visit our parents.” Then I asked my younger sister, “Why are you here?” She answered, “I ran some errands this afternoon. By the time I finished, it was nearly five o’clock. Instead of heading back to the office, I came to see Mum and Dad.” I asked my youngest brother the same question. He said, “Our parents could not go back to our hometown for the Qingming Festival. I went there myself and only got back this afternoon, so I came straight over to visit them.” It was very rare for all of us siblings to gather at the same time. Even for family events, we hardly ever arrived within such a short time of one another. We chatted for a little while, and each of them received several copies of The Inexorable Nether Laws as a karmic gift. Since everyone had household duties to attend to, and some even needed to travel back to other cities, they soon took their leave in haste. I reflected that the books had reached them in the swiftest possible way. Surely this must have been the blessing and spiritual intervention of the Buddhas and the deities of heaven and earth, which was stirred into being the moment I formed the wish for my siblings to study and spread this book.
A few days later, my sister phoned me out of the blue to ask where The Inexorable Nether Laws had been printed. Her son, a ninth‑grade student, wanted to donate funds for its reprinting. This boy had long been a wilful, unruly handful. I was taken aback and asked what had brought this on. My sister explained, “This book is truly wonderful. I was only reading it myself at home and had not shown it to him. Somehow, though, he got hold of it on his own. Out of the blue he said to me, ‘Mum, I have committed wrongs.’ I asked him what he meant. He told me, ‘In the past, I deliberately harmed many ants just for fun. I want to give away all my own money to print more copies of this book. I will make a vow before the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, praying that they may bless and liberate all those little lives I hurt.’” My sister went on, “This book has truly accomplished great merit and done so much good! This boy whom no one could manage has changed so profoundly.” My young nephew was bright, yet reckless and constantly getting into trouble, a constant source of worry for the whole family. He used to spend all his money as he pleased and would never let grown‑ups have any say over it. Now, of his own free will, he made this sincere resolution, giving away every penny without keeping anything for himself.
In the Samyukta Agama Sutra, there is a parable: “Just as the soil upon a fingernail, so are the sentient beings who take rebirth as humans. Just as the soil of the great earth, so are those non‑human beings.” The Nirvana Sutra likewise records an episode. On one occasion, the Buddha picked up a speck of dust from the ground and asked Venerable Kāśyapa, “Which is greater: this dust on my hand, or the earth of the ten‑direction worlds?” Venerable Kāśyapa replied: “The earth‑soil of the ten‑direction worlds, of course.” The Buddha said: “Those who obtain a human body and practice good dharma are as rare as the dust on my hand. Those who fail to obtain a human body and commit evil karma are as numerous as the earth‑soil of the ten‑direction worlds.” Furthermore, Buddhist sutras state: “Those who gain a human body are like the dust on a fingernail; those who lose the human body are like the soil of the great earth.” Since beginningless time, we have indeed accumulated immeasurable karmic deeds that lead to the hell realm. In my view, anyone who cannot face this truth lacks clear‑sighted judgment. Unlike ordinary books compiled from extensive research or purely invented by an author, The Inexorable Nether Laws was neither researched nor written from source materials nor fabricated by its writer. The respected fellow practitioner Shangguan Yuhua is merely a narrator, one who recounts what actually took place. She was simply fulfilling an assigned task. These stark, shocking revelations lay bare the reality, urgency and vital importance of practicing good dharma, observing the precepts, and cultivating Buddhadharma.