Teacher Rui-Lie Lee ???? The Underworld #1 Court 冥界 法庭

(English subtitles) Lectured by Daoist teacher Rui-Lie Lee (李瑞烈, 1921-2015).
Subtitles:
Once, a young man said: “Nowadays people talk about the King of Hell and the hell, is this possible?” Why not?
“Basically, I didn't watch it at all.” Do you like to watch it?
“Yes, I do.” I can take you there to watch it if you like.
“Really?” Yes, It's late now, tomorrow. For us here, I will take you to the City Court tomorrow. When we are in the court, the trial is about to begin, there sits a man to sentence the criminals a few years in prisons. Who is he? That is the King of Hell. Next to him, A man has a dark face and looks grim. The prisoners are most afraid of this one. Why? He is the prosecutor.
1:00
How do they call Prosecutor in the underworld? It's called the Martial Judge. In the underworld, there are two men beside the king of hell. In the underworld, there are two other people beside the King of Hell, one is the Martial Judge and the other is the Civilian Judge. We also have those here. Beside the judge, one side is prosecutor, which is martial judge; the other side is secretary official, which is civilian judge. Three people handle sentences in the underworld. Three people also handle sentences in the sunny world. None of the three can be absent.
So, what is the same as our worshiping rituals? What does the Daoist priest correspond to? What do you think the priests are like? The priests are like, in modern terms, lawyers. Why do the priests become lawyers?
2:00
Yes, you see, after a criminal is caught, he will definitely find a lawyer to defend himself, so that the lawyer defend for him, and the serious crime becomes a minor crime, and the minor crime becomes not guilty. It's the same in the underworld. When the king of hell is sentencing, doing worshiping rituals is like you are pleading to the king of hell, seeking for a minor punishment or not guilty. But you have to know that minor crimes can be pardoned. For serious crimes, no matter how many rituals you do, it is to no avail. For example, in this society, if you vandalize, defraud, steal, or slander,
3:00
the lawyer defend for you, speaking this and that at length. Finally, the judge said, what you said makes sense, he will be sentenced to a misdemeanor.
If it was a minor crime originally, he also debates for you and says, “He was misled by the environment, and he did it unintentionally, he didn't do it on purpose.” After this word, he was sentenced as probation, and he no need to be put behind bars and was released. Therefore, your penalty will be reduced.
What if you commit a felony? Felony refers to crimes such as robbery, murder, and dismemberment. Why don't you hire a lawyer to defend you and see if you can get away with it? If you can escape, we wouldn't need to shoot so many at the execution ground every year, and no need to hold so many death row inmates. If everyone was good at debate and exempt from guilt, the death penalty is no longer necessary.
4:00
Then jails will hold nobody. Right? If you made a minor mistake in the world and explained it to the judge in the underworld after death, you may get a lesser sentence. But if you are not loyal, not filial, not kind, or not upright, and have committed grave sins, when you are judged in the underworld, I believe you won't get exempted after death even if you do 100 worshiping rituals.
So I say: You cannot escape from serious crimes, but the misdemeanor can be forgiven. Nobody in this world can say they never did wrong, including me, I also did trivial misdemeanor. We people have two kinds of faults, one is intentional and the other is unintentional.
Intentional means he did it on purpose. Unintentional means that although he made a mistake, he did not do it on purpose.
5:00
Even the saints make mistakes, how can we mortals be free from making mistakes? What did you say? Saints make mistakes?
Or you can read the Analects, Confucius says: “Yan Hui does not make mistakes twice.” What's the meaning of not making mistakes twice? It means not making the same mistakes twice. No twice, so he made once, which Not twice, so he made one mistake, which can be regarded as unintentional. Then he knew it and said, “It's my fault,” and he would not do it the 2nd times. That was unintentional.
Everybody has many unintentional faults. Do you believe that? Let me give you a few examples and see if anyone doesn't commit these.
6:00
For example, it pours rain today, or the wind blows in gusts. Oh, bad sky. You scold sky. How bad is the sky? People are bad but not sky. I can tell you directly that the sky is definitely not bad. What else should I say? You may say, Weather is not good. It's the atmosphere of sky is not good, it's not bad sky. If you say bad sky, you scold sky. Right? If someone curses the sky, is he guilty? Further, sometimes, when you lose money, "Deity, why don't you bless me? xxx" What is this? Scold deities and curse ghosts. Are you guilty or not? Let me ask you.