Starting Spiritual Practice
Must I assume someone is lying when they say they lack money?
English translation draft · Based on the Chinese article. This is not a word-for-word translation approved by Master Shengyuan.
Not necessarily. Suspicion differs from knowing someone is deceiving. Offering some flexibility depends on circumstances and whether you can afford it. Choices need not be only complete belief or total refusal.
Dao Fan shared a bamboo shoot sold for one hundred and twenty dollars. A customer in his eighties wanted it but claimed only sixty-five. Dao Fan suspected a deliberate tactic, but his mother said shoots were plentiful and he could take it, bringing more later if available. Afterward she said she could bear the shortfall and treat it as a good deed.
Dao Fan realized that despite thinking he understood compassion, life still held lessons. Practice is more than class discussion: thoughts and actions in actual encounters reveal work to do. His mother offered affordable kindness, not a response to established fraud.