The Mother's Lighter

This is the story of a condemned man who blamed his mother for failing to correct a small fault in his childhood, a fault that gradually grew into a crime. It is a lesson about the importance of stopping mistakes while they are still small.

The courtroom felt heavy, almost suffocating. Dim yellow light fell across the hollow face of the young man standing in the dock. The death sentence had just been pronounced, and the judge's gavel still echoed faintly in the air. When asked if he had any final wish, he looked up with reddened eyes and said in a hoarse voice, "I want to embrace my mother one last time."

This request left the courtroom silent. Everyone felt it was a reasonable wish for a man about to lose his life. The panel nodded and summoned his mother. An old woman with white hair and a bent back walked in, her eyes swollen from weeping. Trembling, she moved toward her son and opened her frail arms, as if to embrace the little child he once had been.

But instead of a final, warm embrace, the man suddenly raised his hand and struck his mother hard across the face. The old woman staggered and collapsed to her knees, nearly fainting. The courtroom was stunned. The man cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks: "It's because of her! It's because of this woman that today I must die in such shame!"

Standing there, weeping and pouring out his heart, he said: "When I was small, I passed by a neighbor's house and saw their lighter, so I stole it. I thought my mother would scold me. But she only smiled, patted my head, and praised me: 'My boy is getting cleverer every day! You know how to bring things home for your mother!' From then on, I grew up that way. I stole from people again and again, and no one ever corrected me. Small faults became great faults. I became a thief, then a robber, and then a murderer."

He looked at his mother with eyes full of both hatred and pain: "If you had corrected me that day, if you had punished me, I would not be facing this shameful death today. It was you who nurtured my small fault into the great crime of today."

The mother sat on the floor, tears flowing, unable to speak a word. The courtroom sank into silence. Everyone understood that a small fault, seemingly harmless, if not stopped in time, will grow and destroy an entire human life.

The Meaning of the Story

This story reminds us that small faults in our daily lives, if not corrected immediately, will accumulate and become serious mistakes. Therefore, when we see others making a mistake, even a small one, we should respond with the right attitude and help them correct it, rather than overlooking it or letting it continue.

Compiled from a dharma talk by Venerable Thích Chân Quang