The Seven Days of the Butcher Chunda

The sun had just risen above the bamboo grove, and mosquitoes hummed in the stifling air of a small village near the monastery. A breeze slipped through the door cracks, carrying the scent of straw mixed with the heavy aroma of roasted meat. In the courtyard of a spacious wooden house, ironwood planks creaked under the feet of passersby. Chunda, a butcher with a protruding belly and upturned lips, stood with arms crossed, gazing at piles of golden roast pork on bamboo trays. The sizzling sound of fat dripping onto hot coals sounded like his own delighted laughter.

"My meat is so good that everyone who eats it praises it. Money fills my pockets every day; why bother with temples?" he boasted. He turned away when he saw several monks walking past the gate with their alms bowls, frowning and spitting contemptuously onto the ground.

Chunda was not poor. He had spent his entire life raising and slaughtering pigs using a method recorded in the scriptures but rarely seen by the world: tying the pig tightly so it could not move, beating it from head to toe until its flesh was bruised but it remained alive; then prying open its jaws with iron tools and pouring hot water down its throat to flush out the intestines while it still lived; scalding its skin to peel off patches of hair while it gasped for breath; and finally cutting its throat to catch the blood and splash it over the skin to make it red. His roast pork was famous, bringing him wealth and comfort. Yet, he never once stepped into a temple nor gave a single coin in charity.

However, material possessions have limits, and worldly blessings are finite. When his karma ran dry, Chunda suddenly fell ill. His body burned with fever, his eyes rolled back, and he began to emit high-pitched squeals. "Oink oink... ugh! It hurts! Do not hit me!" he cried. His wife rushed to embrace him, but he swung his arm violently, knocking her to the floor. He crawled along the walls, scratching them raw, hid under the bed, and then overturned the heavy wooden frame. Terrified, no one dared approach him. They quickly barred all doors and windows, trapping him in the narrow courtyard where he ran back and forth, screaming.

"What is wrong with my husband? Why does he scream like a pig being skinned?" his wife sobbed to her cousin. "I do not know, but no one can get close to him. Let us keep the doors barred and wait for a ritual specialist," the cousin replied, shaking his head, his hands trembling as he heard the screams from the courtyard.

He screamed for seven days and nights. His cries echoed throughout the neighborhood, audible even from the distant monastery during the quiet night hours. Monks passing by assumed the butcher was killing pigs continuously for a week. On the seventh day, Chunda’s body turned black as if burned. He let out a heart-rending shriek and collapsed dead.

A monk approached the Buddha and asked, "World-Honored One, what did that butcher do to kill pigs nonstop for seven days?" The Buddha sat in silence, his compassionate gaze lowered. "It was not killing pigs. Chunda has died and has already descended into Avici Hell." At the moment of death, he clearly perceived himself as the pig being beaten, scalded, and slaughtered. This was the immediate karmic retribution in this life. After death, the suffering in hell would be ten thousand times greater.

His family later recounted that on the night he died, a cold wind blew through the door cracks. There were no more pig sounds, only the lingering stench of blood and the eerie silence of a family devoid of spiritual roots. They realized that wealth built upon the karma of taking life could not preserve even one final day of peace.

The Meaning of the Story

Those who commit evil through the profession of taking life may enjoy wealth in this present life, but when their merit is exhausted, they will experience the suffering of karmic retribution immediately in this existence, and suffer ten thousand times more in the next. Cause and effect (karmic law) are precise; do not be blinded by desire for profit and forget to cultivate virtue.

Compiled from a dharma talk by Venerable Thich Chan Quang