English-Chinese translation Buddha 100 Stories 百喻故事。
Original Author: Buddha 佛。
Original text base from: 百喻經新譯全集 by 和裕出版社, book.
My meaning base from: 百喻經新譯全集 by 和裕出版社, book.
<Please note Holy Bible should be your only main Scripture. Below scriptures & other important books should be for additional knowledges only. They are for Christians who want to know what other religions scriptures & books are about. After reading, it is still advisable to read Holy Bible every night. This is because planet earth ultimately will belong to Jesus Christ. Therefore Christianity is the only correct path.>
A stupid person eats food with some salt added. He thinks that salt is very nice to eat, so he eats many salt. (Things in life a little bit is just nice, when you have too much, it becomes bad.)
A person finds pumping milk from a cow daily too troublesome. So he waits a whole month to "store" the milk for a party. After a month, he discovers the cow milk glands harden with no milk. (You spend a bit of money everyday. Do not save many then spend, the bank may go burst.)
A rotten head person wears a beautiful hat & goes to buy pears. The pear merchant says I use pear to hit your beautiful hat, all the pears use to hit are your. The rotten head person agrees. When the pear merchant hits off his beautiful hat, his rotten head is shown. (Because of greed of things, our ugly inner nature is shown.)
A woman wife wants to elope with her lover. So she brought in alike corpse to wear her clothings. Her husband who loves her very much, bury the corpse. After few months, the lover leaves the woman. So the woman wife returns to her husband. But her husband insists his wife is already dead. (When you tell lies, you may sabotage yourself.)
Two persons are thirsty. When they reach the river, one starts drinking & the other just stands there. When ask why? The one who doesn't drink says: "there are so many water, how to drink finish." (We may think Buddhism Scriptures are too many. We just read the essential ones.)
A man's son dies. He becomes very sad. Then he decides to bury the son using a stick with 2 ropes tie to 2 sacks. To balance the 2 sacks, he kills another son. (Do not make another mistake to cover a mistake.)
A person who is unrelated with a rich person, calls him his brother. When the rich person loses his wealth. The person stops calling him as his brother. (When you are rich, you have many "friends". When you are poor, all your "friends" disappear.)
A wild man who never wear clothing decides to steal the king's clothing to wear. When caught, the wild man says the clothing is his. So the king asks him to wear. The wild man does not know how to wear. (We may desire something other people have. But after we get it, we may not know how to use it.)
A person keeps praising his father's virtues. He says: "my father is so virtuous, that he never has sex." Everyone laughs, saying: "if he never has sex, how are you born." (When we praise our virtues, we may get ridicule instead.)
A person wants to builds a third storey. He tells the builder to build the third storey only, without the first & second storey. (Without foundation, how do you build your accomplishments.)
A person predicts his son will die on a date. To gain a predicting person reputation, he kills his son on that date. (We may lose ourselves when we want reputation.)
A person starts a fire to boil soup. To cool the soup, he keeps fanning the soup without extinguishing the fire. (We must stop the leakage sins, before building the virtues. Or else virtues keep draining by the sins fire.)
Person A says person B's mistakes. Person B becomes very angry & wants to hit Person A. (Do we feel angry when another person points out our mistakes for our own good.)
Some merchants go to sea with a sea master who knows how to steer the big ship. The merchants need to kill a person to pray to god. They decide the sea master is an outsider, so kill him to pray to god. After the sea master is killed, no one can steer the big ship. The big ship hits rocks & sinks killing everyone. (We may kill the Master thinking he is useless, but the truth the Master decides our life & death.)
A king wants his baby daughter to grow up immediately. A wise Official says he knows a medicine that can do that, but it takes 18 years to feed. After 18 years of "medicine" feeding, the baby daughter grows up. (Some solutions are not immediate.)
A farmer wants to farm sugarcane. He reasons if you water the sugarcane with sugarcane juice, the sugarcane plants will grow up very sweet. After many weeks of sugarcane watering, his crop of sugarcane all die. (You may think of a production plan, but if against nature, all will fail.)
A richman is owed 10 cents. to get the 10 cents from person B, he spends 20 cents to get a boat across the river. However, person B is not at home, so he spends another 20 cents to get a boat back home. (Sometimes when we do things to get small things, we may lose something bigger.)
A person is using a knife to cut a dead camel. He goes upstairs to grind the knife, come downstairs to cut camel. Find the knife too blunt, go upstairs again. Repeat many times. (To do things more efficiently, we may need to do all the things at the same spot.)
A person throws something from a boat. He uses a stick to make a mark in the water to mark where the thing throws. Thinking when the boat reach shore, he can according to the mark find the thing. (You cannot mark things that are changing all the time.)
A fierce king cuts of 10 pounds of flesh from an old official. After he discovers the old official is not at fault, he returns 100 pounds of camel flesh to the old official. (Some actions cannot be recompensate.)
A old female wants another son. So she kills her current son to pray to evil god, to bless her with another son. (You may lose something while trying to pray for something.)
A businessman gets many fragrant incense from overseas. But he is unable to sell them near charcoals merchants. So he burn the fragrant incense (which cause a fortune) into cheap charcoal. (We may lose something very precious to get something cheap.)
A person uses expensive silk to cover wrap cheap broken carpet. (You may use something precious to protect something cheap.)
A farmer thinks sesame is very fragrant after cooking. So he plants cooked sesame seeds, but the crops fail. (If you go against natural laws, all your planning will go to waste.)
A person in winter time boils a bowl of water thinking it will keep him warm & later has cup of hot water to drink. So he goes to sleep. He awakens because of coldness, the fire boiling the water is diminished. (What you hope for may not come truth.)
A dog official in charges of the king's dogs wants to get promoted. So he copycats the king movements of eyeballs. When the king finds out, the dog official got fired. (Copycatting a person may not get into that person's good books.)
A official is whipped by the king, he is told that using horse shits will cure the whipping injuries. A person finding out, asks his son to whip him. After whipping, put on horse shits to cure. (Sometimes it is not necessary to go through the pains to know the cure.)
A person finds his wife's nose ugly. So he cuts a lady's beautiful nose & cuts his wife nose to replace. (Something is unchangeable.)
A poor person has a coarse shirt. He wishes to have a silk shirt. So he burns his coarse shirt wishing for silk shirt. (Sometime a second grade thing is better than wishing for something ungrounded.)
A rich person has many sheep. A conman comes & says for some sheep so that he can get him a wife. After getting the sheep, the conman says his wife is bearing him a son & has died with the son. (You may lose big because of something small.)
A servant is sent to get potter to make pottery for his master's party. At a potter's place, he heard about a donkey in 10 minutes and destroys 3 years works of the potter. So he brought the donkey back thinking that donkey can destroy 3 years works in 10 minutes, he must be more brilliant than the potter. (You need to be smarter.)
A cotton seller is watching gold seller demonstrates that his gold are real by burning the gold in fire. When the gold seller go toilet, the cotton seller steals a piece of red-hot gold & throw it inside his cotton. The red-hot gold ignites & burns the cotton seller's all his cottons. (Greed may destroy your worth.)
A king has a precious fruit tree which gives medicinal fruits, but the tree is very tall. To get the fruit, he asks his servants to axe down the tree. But he is unable to recover the state of the tree. (Sometime things are irreversible.)
A village is 80km from the king's palace. The king daily wants to drink the sweet water from the village's well. So the villagers daily transport 80km to the king's palace, & are getting tired. So the village head says: "I will ask the king to announce that the distance is 50km instead of 80km." (Something remains the same.)
A poor man discovers a treasure chest full of treasures. When he open, the treasure chest has a mirror cover. So he sees his own reflection inside the mirror. Thinking it is the owner, the poor man abandons the treasure chest & run away. (Sometime things are supposed to be your.)
A sage has heaven eyes, & is able to see treasures buried under ground. In order to stop him from leaving the country, the king's official dig out the sage's eyes. The king says "then the eyes are useless, I want to stop him from leaving the country it is because of the eyes." (Sometime things need to remain at natural stage.)
A owner has 250 cows. When a tiger kills one cow. The owner is very sad & says the cows are incomplete (not 250). So he pushes the remaining 249 cows down the cliff, killing them. (Sometime accident occurs, we try not to be perfectionist.)
A man journey very far & find a source of river water. After drinking, he becomes angry because the water does not stop flowing. A farmer comes by & says: "if you want to stop the water, you must stop the source." (Go for the source.)
A man's friend uses grinded grains mixed with cement to create smooth walls. Copycatting, he uses without grinded full grains mixed with cement to create his walls. Resulting in ugly & uneven walls. (Sometime copycatting you must copycat right.)
A bald man wants to cure his bald head. He approaches a doctor. The doctor takes down his hat: "I am also a bald head. If I can't cure my bald head, do you think I can cure yours." He is honest without lying. (Sometime it is better to be honest without lying.)
2 ghosts discover 3 treasures, & are fighting over them. They asks a passby fisherman to be their judge. The fisherman asks: "what the treasures do." After knowing what the treasures do, he asks the 2 ghosts to step very far, wear the treasures & fly away leaving behind the 2 ghosts. (Sometimes quarreling lose benefits.)
A father & 2 sons travels with a camel full of treasure to sell in the city. But the camel dies halfway. So the father skins the camel skin & asks them to guard the treasures & the skin while he goes home to get a new camel. Then it rains 2 days, the 2 sons to protect the camel skin cover it with precious leopard skin. And destroys the precious leopard skin. (We must know the values of things.)
A sculptor gets a big rock. From the big rock, he grinds into a smaller & smaller rock. Finally from that small rock, he turns it into a stone toy cow. Wasting his efforts. (Sometime there are easier ways to do things.)
A man buys 7 breads to eat. After eating the 7th bread, he feels full. But he begins to regrets, he says: "if I know I will be full on the 7th bread, why I need to buy the other 6." (Sometime your reasoning may be wrong.)
A richman is leaving house for a month. He instructs his slave to guard the door & his donkey. During the richman absence, the slave wants to go out to see a show. Therefore, he breaks the door & puts the door on the donkey together go to see the show. Although the slave "guards" the door, the richman discovers his home is robbed when he returns. (We need to use our common sense in listening instructions.)
A cow thief gang steals a man's cow. When the man confronts the gang leader, when asks, the gang leader says: "there is no cow, no your place at the east, no village here, no tree here etc." The cow owner then knows the gang leader is lying as how can there be no east, no tree here. (When we lie too much, it is very revealing.)
A man wants to steal a green lotus flower from king's pond to his wife. He knows how to imitate the pond birds calling. When he enters the pond making the pond birds call, all the pond birds start calling also. The guard asks who is there. The man says: "it is me." So the guard arrests the man, the man then imitate the pond birds calling. The guard: "when I ask who there, if you do pond birds calling, then you won't get arrested." (Sometime should do, other time never do.)
A fox is hit by a tree branch. And decides to leave the forest. His friend the deer says: "why because of such a small thing & leave such a good forest." The fox does not care, & leaves the forest. He enters a bigger forest where there is no much tree branches, but there is lion there, & the fox finally got eaten by the lion. (If you are able to endure life little inconveniences, you will be safe.)
2 kids are swimming. Kid A finds some white hairs. Kid A says it is a Sage's beards. So they go & approach a Sage to confirm. The Sage eats some rice & vomits out, says it is peacock shits. (One thing for one thing, that is the answer.)
A man becomes hunch back. He approaches a doctor for cure. The inexperienced doctor put a lots heavy stone on his back. Finally the man dies. (When approaching someone for cure, make sure he is competent.)
5 Men buys a servant girl to wash their laundry. But each of the 5 men has one request, that is everyone wants their laundry to be washed first. The servant girl does not know what to do & stop washing. The 5 men together beat the servant girl. (It is like the 5 senses pushing the soul very hard.)
A king wants a singer to come palace & sing songs. After singing, the king says the sounds are like illusion. The king asks the reward 1000 gold coins to be shown to singer, & take them back. the king: "you delight me with sounds, I delight you with gold coins appearance." (All are illusions.)
A master wants 2 students to massage his 2 sickened legs. Student A right leg, student B left leg. When right leg improves greatly, the jealous student B breaks the right leg. Student A becomes angry also breaks the left leg. (Cooperation is the key.)
The tail wants to lead the snake. The head no choice, but to let the tail leads. But the tail does not have eyes, & finally the snake fallen into a fire pit. (Leadership needs leadership qualities.)
A king is saved by a guard in a war. The king is willing to give any reward to the guard. The guard only wants to shave the king's beard. A lowly job. (You must know the value of your rewards.)
Man A asks two men to help push a cart. Man A says after pushing the cart to safe place, he will give them 'nothing'. When safe place is reached, the two men is unable to get anything as 'nothing' is nothing. But the two men reasoned that now are enlightened to know what is 'nothing'. (Nothing also has value.)
A richman has many servants to wipe his mouth after he spits. A stupid servant forever no chance to wipe. So one time when richman is about to spit. He uses to his leg intending to wipe become kicking the richman. The stupid servant gets a scolding. (Timing is everything.)
After a richman dies, his two sons want to split the inheritance equally. When they consult a old man how to, they are told to cut a shirt into 2 equal parts, break a vase into 2 equal parts etc. (You must careful whose advice you are listening.)
A village people love to see potter building pottery. A man in the village says: "the king today is giving away gifts, why spend time here seeing building pottery. But the whole village ignores him, only he goes to the king's feast & get a gift. (Are you too concentrate on your life to get a gift from Heaven.)
A son sees gold inside a pond. He keeps diving to get the gold but is futile. His father says the gold is on the tree, the gold inside the pond is its reflection. Looking up, the son sees the gold in the tree. (Life is like finding gold in the pond when the gold is in Heaven.)
A heaven king is creating humans. His disciple wants to create also. But the heaven king forbids. But still the disciple carry on creating a human. The heaven king becomes jealous because his disciple also can create human, criticize the created human head too big, hand too big etc. (Will you be jealous if your disciple surpass you.)
A sick man sees a doctor. The doctor says he must everyday eats mushrooms to nourish. After the sick man eats one day without recovering, he stops. He says if mushrooms one day cannot cure me, many days mushrooms also cannot. (Sometime it takes more than one day effort to cure things.)
A circus makes camp in a hill. It is said that the hill has a man-eating ghost. That night a circus member wears additional ghost costume clothing to keep warm. His other circus members thinks it is the man-eating ghost, quickly get up run. The ghost clothing circus member sees the other members running. Run also. Seeing the "ghost" chasing behind them, they run even faster. (Sometime we are being chased by a ghost - ourselves.)
An old house is rumoured to live a man-eating ghost. Man A temporary stays in the old house for the night. Man B hearing that the old house has a ghost wants to get the ghost. When man B tries to open the door, man A thinking it is the ghost, stops the door from opening. So both men keep on at the door thinking it is the ghost. (Arguments are like these 2 men at the door thinking it is the ghost.)
A wife wants to poison his husband. So when his husband is sent as an envoy to another country, his wife makes 5 poisonous breads for him. When the husband journeys out to spend the night, he goes up a tree because afraid of fierce animals. Then come 5 bandits who discover the poisonous breads under the tree. Eating the bread, the bandits die. The husband killing the bandits, get reward from the foreign king. (Sometime disasters bring happiness.)
A man goes to sea to search for treasures. The man tells all his theories how to steer the ship to the crowd. When the actual ship steersman dies, the man is make the steersman. But the man only keep on saying out theories, finally the ship sinks. (Life is more than theories.)
A husband & wife place a gamble who ever speak first lose the biscuit to the other person. So they just stare at the biscuit, not talking. Then come in a thief into their house, seeing the couple do not move. The thief begins stealing the house valuables. But the couple still does not speak, wanting to win the biscuit. (Sometime for some small benefits, you lose a bigger benefit.)
A person is scolded & beaten in a wedding. Ever since, that person remember this enemy. For 10 years, he remembers. Then someone tells him of a curse, but the curse although will hurt the enemy, but will hurt the person using the curse first. That person so hates his enemy says he will use it. (Hatred brings self injuries.)
A couple after getting married, discover his husband always eat very fast. When ask why? The husband says it is a family secret. Every of his ancestors eat very fast, so he must follow. (Some traditions are stupid.)
A stupid servant is sent to buy fruits. The master instructs the fruits to be brought must be sweet. So the stupid servant bites a bit on all the fruits to ensure they are sweet. When brought back, all the fruits are rotten. (How can you taste all your happiness before cultivation?)
A man has 2 wives. Wife A wants the husband to be with her, wife B also wants the husband to be with her. So the husband says he will sleep in the middle & not move. That night, sand water rains down into the man's eyes. Keeping his promise of not moving, his eyes become blind. (Do not marry second wife.)
A husband accompanies his wife to go back to his in-laws. That husband has a habit of stealing eat raw rice. When caught again, the husband just keep his mouth full of raw rice, not speaking. Everyone thinks the husband is ill so ask a doctor to cut open his mouth. (Isn't it better to admit the truth.)
A person is asks to lead villagers to fight bandits. When begins to fight at night, that person so afraid he falls from his horse & pretends to be dead. Next morning he comes back with a horse tail saying his horse is dead. The villagers: "you go out with a black horse, how come come back with a white horse tail?" (Lies will be exposed.)
A religion Bo followers get food rearing from public, but they are very dirty. So the king issues a decree says that Bo followers must clean themselves after urine & shitting. But the Bo followers just keep the appearance of being clean, but in real life is still very dirty. (Do not cheat rearing.)
A person uses a basin to put rice to feed his beloved camel. But the camel's head gets stuck inside the basin. An old man suggests he cuts off the camel head & then break the basin. Following the advice, the camel is dead. (Do not cut the head.)
A country man after visiting the city, sees the beautiful princess in a carnival. Ever since he comes back, he just lies in the bed thinking of the princess. Finally all his rice fields go to waste. (Sometime it is just an impossible one-sided love.)
A grandmother tells his children that donkey milk can cure all illness. But they have never see a donkey. Finally one day someone has a male donkey. Not knowing donkey also has male & female, one son milk the penis of donkey & get the donkey urine, thinking it is donkey milk. (You must know enough knowledges.)
A richman tells his son that they are going to collect property at another village. They must go together. But the son thinking his father is old, go himself. At the village, he does not know whose house to collect & finally waste efforts & return. (You must get the details.)
Last time a king asks his prince to carry a chair for him, the prince refuses saying it is a lowly job. After a war, his kingdom is destroyed, he becomes a shop lowly chair carrier, & has no regrets. (Life has many twists & turns.)
A man has shits rashes & is very painful. A doctor comes & says he needs upside down cure, but the doctor forgets something & go home & collect. Then man is very urgently painful, so his family thinking upside down cure means mixing urine with medicine to drink. So than man drinks urine & medicine & become worse. (You must not cure yourself using half instructions.)
A man's son goes into the forest, & is attacked by a hairy bear. With injuries, he goes to his father & says he is attacked by a hairy thing. The father quickly takes a bow & arrow go into the forest. He finds a hairy Sage, & wants to shoot him. The son stops him saying he is not the one who attacks. (Do not harm good innocent people.)
A wild man learns from a farmer how to farm. So the wild man makes his farmland level, but he does not want to step on the farmland to plant seeds thinking it will unlevel the lands. So he asks 4 people to carry him while he plants the seeds. 4 people legs are worse than 1 person legs. (Sometime a solution makes it worse.)
A monkey is trained to pick fruits in tall fruit trees. One time, the monkey picks a unripe fruits. His master is so angry that he gives him 2 tight slaps. The monkey feeling angry when the master is not around, gives the master's baby 2 tight slaps also. (Strong bullies weak.)
A heaven demon king is having a feast. After some time, the heaven demon king wants to sleep, he asks his subordinates to cover the moon because the moon is too bright. On human pane, the moon is having an eclipse. The humans think that dogs have eaten the moon, keep on beating the innocent dogs. (There are more than superstitions.)
Woman A is listening to woman B. Woman B complains that her eyes have diseases & are sometime painful. Woman A reasons have eyes will get painful eyes disease, so she decides to take out her eyes first before eye disease strike. (Running away from problem before problem strikes is a stupid thing.)
A father & son meet a gang of bandits. The bandits take away their clothes & their goods. The father reasons these are small matters, better not let the bandits take away his son's golden ear ring. So in the dark night, he uses a knife to cut off his son head protecting the golden ear ring. (Do not for a little benefits lose bigger benefits.)
Some big robbers go out to rob a rich man's house. A coward robber stays at home to guard the house. After robbing many riches, the big robbers split the loot. Because the coward robber stays at home, he is given the dirty rich man's clothing. The coward robber accepts without question but is able to sell for a high price in the market. (If you are content, you are the richest.)
A monkey wants to copycat humans scattering seeds to plant. After a seed falls off wrongly, the monkey drops all the seeds to look for that seed. (Do not for one thing loses the rest.)
A person finds a golden mouse statue on the road. So he hides it inside his shirt. On the way home, the golden mouse statue turns into a poisonous snake. Scaring him. Then the poisonous snake turns back into the golden mouse statue. That person reasons that poisonous snakes are golden mouse statue. (Do not make the wrong deadly conclusion.)
A poor man has to deliver plants from the village to the city daily. To & fro takes one whole day & is very heavy. One day, he finds a bag of gold coins. He happily go one side & count the gold coins. But, the owner should come back & beat him up, taking back the gold coins. (A person fates to be poor will be poor.)
A poor man after visiting a rich man's house for a feast. He reasons if he cannot be as rich as the rich man, then what the use of his wealth. So he throws his little wealth into the sea. (Little is better than nothing.)
A mother is sleeping, she asks his boy to guard the belongings. So the mother sleeps. A thief comes, tells the boy a sweet is more valuable than belongings. Give the sweet, & take away the belongings. (Small kids do not know the value of things.)
A woman is resting under a tree. Out of a sudden, a bear chases her around the tree. The bear uses her claws to penetrate the tree to grip hold of the woman. After a man comes by, the woman says if you grip hold of the bear, I will kill the bear & split the bear meat. Believing her, the man grip hold of the bear's hands. After that, the woman runs away leaving behind the trapped man. (Do you leave trouble to other people?)
A man is having an affair with a woman. When the husband comes back, the husband is standing at the door want to enter to kill the man. The woman asks the man to find the kitchen Mo Ni (i.e. the drains) & escape. The man misunderstands the meaning & looks for treasure before escaping. Finally the husband enters & kills the man. (Do not misunderstands the words.)
A male pigeon & a female pigeon is gathering seeds to put in their nest. When the weather is dried, the seeds contract 50%. The male pigeon suspects the female pigeon eating the seeds & kill her. When the weather is wet again, the seeds become normal amount again. The male pigeon then knows he wrongly kill his mate. (Do not let temporary anger make you kill your mate.)
Some carpenters are recruited as king's labourers. The works are tough. A carpenter feigns blindness & let go to go home. One carpenter then dig out his eyes to go home also. (Do not over do things.)
Two friends go on countryside tours. They meet a robber. The goldsmith friend hides inside the bushes. The other friend A gets rob. Friend A gives the robber a gold coin in exchange of not robbing his fur coat. The robber says: "how I know the gold coin is real?" Friend A says you can asks the goldsmith friend in the bushes, & get the goldsmith friend into troubles. (Do not get other people into troubles.)
A small boy catches a tortoise. He wants to kill the tortoise by burning it in a fire. the tortoise says: "I am not afraid of fire, I am afraid of water." So the small boy puts the tortoise in the water, & the tortoise swims away, escaping. (Do not always believe what you hear.)