After General Han Xin aided the Emperor of Han to defeat Chu and thus attained the rank of lord, he summoned the washerwoman (who used to provide him with food when he was poor) and rewarded her with a thousand pieces of gold; he also summoned a young lad who had once humiliated him and gave him a thousand pieces of gold as well. While repaying kindness is a common human sentiment, choosing to forgive a past enmity with such generosity demonstrates the magnanimity and nobility of a true gentleman.
Yet, in the end, General Han Xin did not meet a natural death in old age; he died of a tragic death that still evokes deep lamentation across the ages.
There’re two reasons for this: first, although there’s an excess of benevolence in his character, there’s somehow a deficiency of wisdom; second, the extensive killings he committed on the battlefields inevitably led to his own violent end. Such is the natural law; it is hardly surprising.
by Grand Master Lian Chi (蓮池大師), the Eighth Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism
韓淮陰 – 錄自明末蓮池大師《竹窗隨筆》(初筆)
淮陰佐漢滅楚，既王矣，召漂母與之千金，召辱己少年，亦與之千金。夫報恩者人情之常也，不報怨而反酬以恩，可謂有大人之量、君子長者之風矣! 而卒不獲以壽考終，千古而下，猶可扼腕。雖然，其故有二: 一者仁有餘而智不足，二者多殺人，不免於自殺。理固應然，無足怪者。
Buddha Mind 