Thief meets sudden death while stealing Buddhas

[bambi]

I came across this article and found that they are confusing the public.
Buddha did not make those horrible things happen to you.
Could be your karma ripening because of the negativities one is doing or could be the spirits that are unhappy because they stole the statues or those are just gods that they were stealing and they are super unhappy...
What do you think?




A thief in Henan province died a sudden death while trying to steal Buddha statues from an old temple built in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), Dahe.cn reported on Friday.

Local police in Hebi city, Henan province, said the case occurred at an ancient temple in Zaolin county, Juqiao town under Hebi city.

Seven suspects took the temple's three Buddha figures on the night of Sept 8.

A suspect surnamed Wang said he and six other people intended to steal the statues and sell them to traffickers.

They broke the bars around the statues with gas cutting equipment, and tried to separate the heads of the figures from the bodies.

Ma, another suspect, pulled Buddha heads from the figures and moved them to their car, after which he returned to the temple to move the bodies.

However, what happened after Ma returned to the temple shocked his accomplices. He suddenly fell unconscious. The other suspects, setting the Buddhas aside, sent Ma to hospital, where he was declared dead by doctors.

Wang said he had planned to sell the Buddha heads, but he gave up the idea after his wife broke her leg while the heads were hidden in their house.

The three Buddha heads were found in Wang's family home, and were returned to the temple by police on Monday.

Local residents told police that some people who tried to steal the Buddha figures were killed in a car accident while transporting the statues away from the temple.

As a grade-three cultural relic, the temple was built during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722).

On Sept 9, when local police went to the temple, they found three Buddha statues without heads, and the seven suspects were detained.

[Freyr Aesiragnorak]

It's definitely not from the Buddha's side that this happened. Most likely it is actually karma that the perpetrator himself created in the past, coming back to effect him is this life, which was exasperated by the fact that yet again he was engaged in an non-virtuous action, e.g. stealing.

The act of stealing is itself cause for one to go to the lower realms once the karma has ripened in the future, but that one action can have multiple effects in multiple lifetimes until that karma is completed exhausted. So who know why this happened, but I pray that this man have a rebirth soon in a realm where he can learn the dharma and purify this karma of stealing that he created at the very end of his life.

[OMB]

I totally agree with Freyr, the death is not the work of the Buddha.  Within our mindstream, there are many different karmic seeds because of our countless lives actions.  It depends upon the cooperative conditions and what's going on in this particular lifetime in which they will ripen.  For eg, if we kill or harm someone, we are creating our own suffering, this is definitely true.

[RedLantern]

Some thieves steal just to steal, no matter what it weighs or what it weights or what it is worth.Karma will catch on those thieves,and can be much worse than the authorities could ever dish out.
Sharing what the Buddha taught here:
"Do not think a small sin will not return in your future lives. Just as falling drops of water will fill a large container.The little sins that steadfast accumulate will completely overwhelm you."
'Do not think a small virtue will not return in your future lives.Just as falling drops of water will fill a large container.The little virtues that steadfast accumulate will completely overwhelm you.

[metta girl]

Stealing a Buddha statue from a place of worship for material gain generates much heavier karma . I believed this is not the first time he is stealing. and over time he accumulated much negative karma in this life and previous lifes that might shortened his life. By avoiding stealing and by practicing generosity, by making sacrifices, we will have wealth, no thieves and enemies, and a good physique.However, by stealing, (according to the law of karma) we create problematic situations for ourselves in the future, like poverty, or being the victim of robbers. Therefore, if we chose to ignore karma, the results of our actions will still haunt us.

[Manjushri]

The man's karma was about to ripen, and I think his intent and act of stealing the Buddhas on that night accelerated the ripening of his own karma and hence his fate. I guess also, coincidentally, with the happenings, it would deter people from wanting to commit the same crime due to superstitious reasons.

Stealing from a place of worship is denying thousands and thousands of people who would otherwise benefit from paying homage to the sacred and blessed statues. Therefore the accumulated karma from the intention to perform such acts would have already been sealed even before the act was committed.

[Aurore]

Karma is simple yet complicated. It clearly karma hitting back to those who engage in negative actions.

To the public who doesn't know better, it does sound like a punishment by the Buddhas to those who attempts to steal the Buddhas. Riding on superstition does sounds much more interesting (even though misleading) to public rather than an article explaining karma.

[Q]

Well, the way the news reports it is as if the Buddha statue harmed the thieves! People will probably be thinking.. oh look at that, he did something wrong so Buddha punished him... which of course is totally the wrong mind set.

I think it's just karma, what you did is what you get. On top of that, if these men was so daring to steal the Buddha statue from the temple, imagine what type of crimes they must have gotten themselves into prior to this incident...

Well, perhaps in a way... the man was lucky he saw the Buddha statue before he died.

[pgdharma]

This is definitely not the work of the Buddha but their karma ripening. Stealing or destroying Buddha statues create heavy negative karma of going the three lower realms but I hope this thief will have a better rebirth and be near the dharma.

 WHAT IS NEEDED FOR KARMA TO RIPEN?

A previous action or karmic potential

Conditions: the circumstances must be available before I can undergo a specific result (vip?ka).

A deluded mind:  Without delusions in our mind, we will never experience the results of previous actions

WHAT DECIDES THE SEVERITY OF THE RESULTS?

Our intention or motivation - the intention is the most important aspect by far, as karma is mainly connected to the intention of the action, be it positive or negative.

The nature of the action: obviously, gossiping is less severe than killing

The actual deed: whether we kill in self-defense or sadistically torture someone to death does make a difference, usually this directly related to intention.

The basis or object: it does make a difference whether we kill our mother or an ant.

Repetition; how often do we repeat the action, which reinforces the habit and makes even killing feel less negative.

Doing the reverse: if we always behave negatively to others and never try to do any good, consequences will be severe.

How we experience the result of an action does depend on our other actions in life.

[Kim Hyun Jae]

I like what PGdharma explained. It is certain that the person, Mr Ma had previous seeds of being a thief in previous life and that seed happen to ripen at the same condition and environment with the same cause and effect to cause his death in this life.

"Whatever goes around comes around" is actually karma of body, speech and mind. May Mr Ma be able to exhaust all his negative karma and return to be close to the dharma for him to purify.

[cookie]

Don't blame the Buddha for his death ! Blame it on his own bad actions and intentions ! He was lucky to die in the face of the Buddha. Hopefully this way he will have a better rebirth after the ripening of his bad karma .

[kris]

In this degenerated age, people will blame Buddha for anything considered not fortunate, for example, sickness, loss of wealth, death, etc. From this point of view, people can blame Buddha for "killing" this person. It is all in the views or perspectives.

I have heard of a story where an artist in a monastery who died after painting a Buddha image on the wall. Many people would think it is such a bad luck after working for a monastery, but the village all rejoice, because the artist has been working on something virtuous just before he dies. So, it is all about views..

[Tenzin K]

Agree with bambi that if the statues are gods, demi gods or spirits then those incidents may be happened due to offended them.

Karma always plays a role of all things/matters happen. Everything happened for a reason.  If you believe the statue is a Buddha, the Buddha will never kill. If Buddha will kill then all the enlightenment is wrong, karma is wrong and 84,000 teaching from the Buddha is wrong. For the thieves to steel the Buddha statues definitely created a severe negative karma but the result of the karma definitely cannot come from the Buddha because Buddha is compassion and if he kills compassion doesn’t exist. The motivation is wrong and resulted the people around cannot propitiated to the Buddha and collect merits. Look at what is the consequences that affected the people.

[Tenzin Malgyur]

This is a perfect lesson on life. In life, only death is certain. But when is the time for death, no one can tell. Therefore, I derive it would not be ideal to be doing something not meritorious at the moment of our death. (such as stealing a Buddha statue from a temple). Contrary to what most would believe, the death of the thief is certainly not a 'punishment' meted out by Buddha. Its just due to his time to live have run out. The positive side of the incident is he had the image of Buddha planted in his mind moments before he died. May he be able to meet with Buddha's teachings in his next life.

[Jessie Fong]

I definitely do not believe that it was Buddha who did those terrible things, causing those men to die. How ridiculous!!

I believe it was time for them to leave this world as their karma had ripened.  And it so happened at almost the same time for these thieves.  They should have known better than to steal religious items.  Maybe it was because they were without dharma that they could not fathom that their actions were not correct.