Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Los Angles, California, U.S.A. March 12, 1994 (Originally in English)

There was a person who was a very, very, you know, kind of very terrible person, she used to lend money to everyone. She counted every penny. And then one day, she was sick, and all the doctors already shook their heads, saying "There 's nothing we can do about it." So she knew her time was up. So she called about fifty of her debtors to come next to her death bed, and then told a servant to bring all the papers, the IOU papers, in front of them and burned them all in front of them. And then one of the debtors was feeling very, kind of emotional and said, "Oh, madam, we have not paid you yet, how come you burned all the papers, the IOU papers." And the madam, nearly dying, suddenly woke up, and looking them in the eyes, she said, "If I don't burn all these, when I go down there (the underworld), how can I have any proof to get the money back from all of you?"