Paying the Debt of Gratitude 報恩 In Chinese, we have many sayings about paying back people for their kindness and gratitude, but I cannot really find much on this topic in the English world; therefore, I think it is time for me to type something to educate people about the virtue of paying back people for their kindness and gratitude. How much is enough, can you use money all the time? Well, here we go.
Form of Payments
You owe someone money; you can repay the money. You owe someone pencil; you can repay it with a pencil or equivalent things. However, what if the other side says they don’t want to accept your form of repayment? Then it is all useless because they don’t even ACCEPT it.
The form of payments must be agreed upon with both ends in order for the transaction to be done. Just like love, it is not a one-way thing. However, the one giving first is the bigger party, the upper side, because they have given first. Therefore, it is up to them to say what is the form of payment that they will accept and not the lower side to decide what they want to do.
A forced repaying from the lower party is simply like taking monopoly money and shoving it to the cashier at the store and saying you want to pay with this instead. While the store doesn’t accept that, you still insisted and walked away with their products in hand. Are you being a tyrant?
Level of Gratitude
I am not sure if this word “gratitude” will mean what I am trying to say now, because there isn’t really a word in my book for this that directly translates the word 恩 Yunn. However, you can get it after you read the levels below.
Small gratitude is on the surface, outside, exterior. It’s like when someone has taught you something that involves body movement, or someone has done something physical for you. It’s all about the physical dimension. For example, someone opened the door for you, or they gave you a seat while you are standing, or someone taught you how to do something physically, someone helped you in a game match by playing for you. These are all physically done. This gratitude all result in a short-term benefit for you, and the gratitude is just for that instance of benefit but nothing more will grow out of it.
Medium gratitude is on the soul level, inside the body, which means it is all about thinking, knowledge, logic etc. If someone has taught you something that goes into your soul, your “brain”, then that is the type we are talking about here. It benefits you now, and also later because thinking can generate more physical actions. The way you think changes, then you will act differently for many things. One benefit can blossom to many. That’s why it is called medium gratitude. Think about it, your teachers in school gave you a lesson and taught you in class. You have learned and got smarter, that’s already medium gratitude.
Big gratitude is at heart level, it’s about life, feelings, and even the direction of life. If I you have not go into the XYZ company, your life will not be having this new direction today. If you have not ordained, you will not be given this new direction of being a Taoist in your life. Someone has blocked a bullet for you with their body, they saved your life. If not because of them, you would not even be here today. If you have not gotten help from Jee Sifu, the evil spirit might have drowned you in water and killed you already. All these are great forms of big gratitude.
How to Repay
Small gratitude needs to be repaid by a physical method, such as a body gesture, a physical gift, helping them back physically, or doing labour work for them. Anything that is physical, and also physically giving the person a benefit that they accept and wanted.
Medium gratitude needs to be repaid by something that involves thoughts, thinking, and could be benefiting the other party’s soul. For example, you are talking to them, saying how grateful you are, or telling them things they like to hear, or even showing them things that they see and will UNDERSTAND your gratefulness.
Big gratitude needs to be repaid by using your life, feelings, truthfulness, honesty and loyalty. Someone blocked a bullet for you to save your life (just like how I save your life by helping you get rid of an evil spirit attack), you repay with your life, which means you give your TIME to me, giving me your truthfulness, honesty, and loyalty. Just like saying someone blocked a bullet for you today, you will repay him with your lifetime of being good to them from now to the end of your life – because without that person, you are dead already and there is no TODAY for you.
There is also a special type you can see in war dramas. It’s called the gratitude of not killing. It’s like how you got captured by the enemy, and they could kill you but decided to free you instead. That’s great gratitude for not taking your life away. We call that 不殺之恩. Usually, this person will repay them by doing anything the enemy wants later, or maybe freeing their people in return. A life for a life, they say.
Relating to Taoist Magic
I have saved a disciple from dying when he was young, this is a true story. During the time their family found me for help, the family was very desperate and hopeless, they have tried many methods and cannot stop the attack from this demon that was haunting them for generations already. Later, they got ordained and learned Taoist magic from me. At the same time, I took over the situation and taught them, protect them, helped them walk out of hell and regain their life back, got them a better family life, and also career and a new place to live etc. One day, the boy in the family was in a “fu bath” soaking himself, and the father went there to check up on him. Turn out he just got possessed by the evil spirit while he was bathing, and he just stoned out and slip his head into the water. Had his father not caught that moment, he would be dead already.
Immediately, the father contacted me and I taught them how to fight back and kicked the spirit out of the boy’s body. He was revived and the case was dealt with. In this case, what do you think if there isn’t any help from me and the POWER, I have given them? Maybe the kid would have been saved by the father too – yet the spirit is still not going to get out. Therefore, the boy could have been just stoned out forever, and “gone” forever even you can save him from drowning. This is a perfect example of big gratitude; a life being saved.
After that case, the boy lived over 10 years and is still alive, with the original spiritual problem out of their way, and they have also defended against many spiritual attacks within the 10 years too. That’s another bunch of great gratitude from the master and the Tao.
In this kind of situation, what do you think? Can you use the money to pay off the gratitude? That’s very insulting. Your master used his life to block off attacks and help you get out of your spiritual attacks’ era, then you just throw money into his face and call that repaying? That’s not the way to do it. Even you gave him billions, it cannot buy your life back. Indeed, even money cannot buy your life back. Repeat that in your mind and think about it.
That is why big gratitude is to be repaid with TIME, and the time includes being truthful, honest, and loyal. It’s not even too much to ask for, because you got a LIFE, which cannot be bought! Life is priceless, and the one saving your life deserves much more than money.
Whenever a disciple is saved in a traditional Taoism sect, they usually become Taoist and serve the Tao for their whole life. That’s a common thing in China’s Taoism and Chinese culture. However, when it came to western or modern society, this kind of virtue seems to be gone. People got very materialistic because of the American education, they got very money-minded, and somehow logic is all weird and F’d up. I feel the need to write this article, and more, to educate the future generations who read English. This is really important!
What If I Don’t Repay
It’s funny but I think some people will really ask this question “What if I just walked away and did not care, what can THAT PERSON do to me anyway?”
I can understand, because you cannot “SEE” the consequence then you won’t fear, and you won’t care or even believe you need to do everything I said above.
However, this is how nature works, and you got to understand what is the rule of nature. You have now, and after you are dead, to repay everything. It will come.
If you received small gratitude and do not repay, the consequences will be in the physical realm, so you would have a physical issue, hiccups, such as bumping yourself, cutting yourself by accident, or having other form of issues in life like breaking things at home and such. Anything physical, they will “payback” automatically. You might think that some bad guys dun seem to get anything bad in their life though. If you can be that naive, you got to find a real “bad guy” before you start arguing. You don’t know anyone and start making up examples, that’s just your imagination. Even the bad guy got beaten up or he kicked his toes into the chair and got a bruise, he won’t tweet that or do an IG post, right? If you did not pay back your small things, then you got an accident at work, or your clothing all broken really quickly, or you just hit your head during a walk etc. All these are going to keep happening until your repaying is done.
Medium gratitude is not paid overtime, nature will get you and do things to your soul body, which affects your thinking and internal of you. You might have headaches, pain, and all sorts of internal sickness. Then your thinking will be confused, your logic will go weird, you will even think bad things are good, and bad friends as nice, then you will welcome all sorts of crap into your life because of stupid decision making and planning. You will even have the issue of things not going according to plan, and you will have miscalculations and judgements, getting more and more stupid day by day, making more and more silly mistakes, being forgetful and soon dreadful, then feeling not motivated, being sluggish, sloppy, lazy and soon giving up and being trash in life.
If your big gratitude is not paid off over time, you will see your life going downhill, because nature will take it back. Your heart will soon be dying, you will lost your love toward things and people, you will see people not loving you and caring for you, you will lose your love ones and your family, you will have a horrible TIME in this world, you will eventually see things all not going good for your life, you will lose the feeling for your job, your loved ones, and everything then start to fall apart like a fridge losing the magnetic power, then all the magnets just falls on the floor. There will also be a chance that you will face some life-threatening hurdles and risk losing your life again too.
These consequences will kick in and get you when you are being ungrateful for things, and when your negative YEEP is accumulated to a certain level, plus the other side lost TRUST and FAITH in you, then nature will come and get you. By then, it is too late to even regret, because you have chosen to be like that already and it is nature’s turn to deal with you if the human who is alive doesn’t do their job to take anything back.
Cherish your FATE and learn the proper virtue of paying people back for their gratitude. You will have a much better life, and others will love you so much more. The world will love you too because you follow the way of nature.
Ordain to learn more, and most importantly, establish the connection with the Tao and celestial court soon. Interested in reading more? Read our My First Taoism Book” to understand more about Taoism!
Also read up on more articles like this in our VIRTUE section. Don't forget to revisit the post on "Giving Back"
A scripture to recommend on this topic - The Tin Law Justice Scripture.
