Causes and Conditions from a Previous Life:
He Starved a Monkey

前生因缘　饿死狝猴

Emperor Wu originally had deep faith in the Buddhadharma. During his time, Buddhism flourished in China. Using his power as an emperor, he built temples everywhere and promoted Buddhism. Consequently, many people came to believe in the Buddhadharma.

梁武帝本来非常相信佛法，在他那个时代，中国的佛教是很兴盛的，他到处造庙，以他皇帝的力量来提倡佛法，所以当时的人民都信佛。

However, he had also created very heavy karma in a past life. What kind of a person had Emperor Wu been in the past? He had been a Bhikshu, a Buddhist monk. While that monk cultivated up in the mountains, a monkey would come every day to steal the things he planted for food and to steal the fruit from the nearby trees, such as peaches, apples, and the like. The monkey stole and ate all the fruit and most of the vegetables the monk planted.

可是，他在过去生中造的业也很重。在过去世，梁武帝是一个出家的比丘。这个比丘在山上修行，有一只猴子就天天偷他所种的东西吃，像桃子、苹果之类，树上所有的水果，它都来偷吃。

Finally one day the monk managed to trap the monkey in a cave and blocked the entrance of the cave with rocks. Basically he planned to keep the monkey in there for a couple of days and then let it out, in order to teach the monkey a lesson so that it wouldn't steal his food anymore. Who would have guessed that after blocking up the cave he would forget about it, thus causing that monkey to die of hunger!

他种的东西被这猴子给吃得没剩多少，于是就把猴子圈到一个山洞里，用石头把洞门挡上了。本来他预备挡几天，就把它放出来，不准它再偷东西吃，孰不知他把猴子堵到洞里，却忘了，结果把它饿死在洞里头。