Interview with a Prison Guard: Shi Tingyu - 'Honesty Above All'

Interview Chief Writer: Venerable Shi Faru

May 30, 2026

Shi Tingyu:

Namo Amituofo. I am grateful to Namo Amituofo and Practitioner Su for leading us sixty prison guards to the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. It is very bright and beautiful here, with everything one could need in terms of food and clothing, which is vastly different from the environment I lived in during my lifetime.

At that time, I lived in the Xinjiang region, where my family grew many types of melons and fruits, as well as grapes for winemaking. However, the harvest of these fruits and crops depended on changes in the climate, unlike in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss, where all food and items of the highest quality appear before one's eyes. There are no discriminations, no flaws, and no need to make selections; everything is in its most perfect state. In my hometown, growing fruits required a certain level of skills; one had to know how to distinguish the good from the bad and make selections, keeping only the best so they could absorb the most nutrients and produce the sweetest fruit.

Since I was young, I followed my parents to learn this technique, hoping to help out at home. Our orchard was very large, and customers came in an endless stream every day; business was booming. Many customers came to us hoping that we would hand over the wholesale rights for our fruits to them so they could resell the crops grown on the entire farm. My father and mother did not think much of it at the time and handed it over to them. However, these merchants would use clever tactics to lower the price and use various excuses to reduce the payment, causing the rewards we received for our hard-earned crops to be significantly reduced. At that time, we did not understand the tricks of the trade; we simply grew the crops and handed them over to others to sell.

Later, after my parents passed away one after another, I continued to manage the family's fruit business. My parents had told me since I was young: 'Just be honest when doing business. As for those commercial schemes, we should not touch them. Whatever we earn is our own blessings; there is no need to force it.' If we encountered merchants who were more cunning and knew how to use their wits, we would just let them be; we focused on growing our fruits and did not need to worry too much about what followed.

At that time, many wine merchants also came to us to purchase grapes, as well as wholesalers from big cities who would distribute our fruits to various cities.

My life was always quite simple; I stayed in my hometown to grow fruits. With the passing of my parents, I suddenly lost my two closest relatives, and the house immediately became quiet. We were also relatively short-handed, so I planned to marry and have children to continue the family business.

Later, through an introduction by someone else, I met a girl from the next village who was also in the same industry. After spending some time together, we felt we could accept each other, so we got married and settled down, and the fruit business continued in this way.

Later, when I was about seventy-five years old, my body began to develop some ailments. Although there was no great pain, my hands and feet became inconvenient, and I could no longer work in the fields as I used to, so the burden of the family was handed over to my children. But before this, my body was actually quite robust, and there were no major issues. Soon, at the age of seventy-six, I passed away.

After I passed away, I still kept my mind on my orchard and my children, so I entered the space of the orchard as a guardian spirit. On one hand, I could take care of the fruits and vegetables, and on the other, I could watch my children continue to plant and maintain the orchard.

However, when my children were managing the orchard, they felt that the profit was too low, as most of the harvest was earned by the middlemen wholesalers. Therefore, they demanded to control the wholesale price at the source, but after many negotiations, there were no results. Gradually, the wholesalers stopped working with our family, so the children had to start managing the business on their own. They began to run around to the city, and later my son decided not to continue growing these fruits. After all, he thought that switching to become a distributor or wholesaler would have more opportunities to make money, so he sold the entire farm to others. And it was at that time that I left the space of the fruit farm and arrived at the Yama Hall in the hells.

Before the Yama Hall, Yama saw that I was a very honest person and not very good with words—just an honest and upright ordinary person—so he asked me if I was interested in taking on the position of a 'prison guard,' thinking that perhaps my integrity and simplicity could transform some of the beings suffering in the hells. I nodded; I felt that I could do any service-oriented work, and as long as it was helpful to everyone, I would be very happy to do it.

I served in the hells for a long time. Later, I saw that my son had also entered the hells. Although I wanted to help him, I was unable to do so. After all, he did not know how to be honest in this lifetime; he did not know how to be down-to-earth. He used schemes to try to earn more money and had bad mental notes, wanting to obtain more benefits from others. Such mental notes and behaviours are the reasons for being summoned to the hells. I could not help him, nor did I have the opportunity to advise him; I could only watch him suffer punishment. This made me sigh that after people die, they are truly on different paths, and even ghosts are on different paths. We could not meet or talk as we did in the past; it was as if we were in different spaces, unable to have any intersection.

Later, in the hells, one could hear the voice of a practitioner named 'Practitioner Su' giving Dharma talks. Later, I gradually understood that Namo Amituofo is personally abiding at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre in Australia, and as an agent, Practitioner Su explains the teachings of Namo Amituofo. These teachings are very powerful and receptive; every word and every scripture went straight into the depths of my heart, and I fully agreed with them.

This life in the world is not long, but one must be down-to-earth and do one's duty. Do not have greed when facing anything, and follow fairness, justice, and the Universal Principle, the Truth, and the Right Way; this is the way to effectively make use of oneself in this short life. Although I did not encounter the Buddha’s teachings in this life, I was fortunate enough to hear the Dharma in the hells, and I am very grateful!

Therefore, I am now sharing my story so that everyone knows: even a simple life, which may seem plain and unremarkable, may not be without benefit to oneself. Constantly pursuing a flashy, superficial life is the true source of disaster. Looking at everything on Earth from the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss, it is indeed full of many sufferings, while the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss is so beautiful. When listening to Practitioner Su's Dharma talks, I heard that the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss is also a world naturally formed by the Ultimate Vow of Bhikshu Dharmakara to save beings, as well as the Universal Principle, the Truth, and the Right Way. Such a beautiful world, built in such a simple and true way, yet able to achieve such a shocking result that is difficult for other worlds to reach, really makes me feel very amazed. The Wisdom of Namo Amituofo is truly inconceivable.

I never thought that the truth of the world was like this, which also reminds me of the purpose of my parents running the farm and growing fruits. That simple, peaceful, and uncomplicated way of management actually allowed our family's orchard to continue to expand, and my parents lived very fulfilled lives every day, without much illness or suffering at the end of their lives.

I only now understand that this is the goal that life should pursue. It is a pity that there was no Buddha’s teachings at that time, and I could not understand the concept of 'letting go of oneself and helping others' more deeply. I could only use our own understanding to try my best to do a little good, have a little more tolerance, and exert the spirit of helping others.

Now that I have arrived at the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss, the beauty and dignity here are truly difficult for the worldly realm or the hells to describe or imagine. Here, I hope that one day I can also practise to become a Buddha, and then return to Earth to help the beings who have karmic affinity with me.

Although I am not very good at speaking, I can practise what I preach and use my words and deeds to save those who have karmic affinity with me. I hope to use the most sincere and simple methods to let them understand the truth of life: everything in this world is illusory, and the true Buddha’s teachings are not sought externally, but by cleansing one's own heart internally, becoming pure and good, and helping those with karmic affinity in the simplest way.

I am grateful to Namo Amituofo and Practitioner Su for giving me this opportunity to be interviewed. Although I did not have any major ups and downs in this life, this simple life gave me the opportunity to obtain the position of a prison guard after leaving the human body, and to come into contact with the Buddha’s teachings. Now, I have already been reborn in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. All of this is a natural operation and the result of accumulating merits and virtues in the dark.

I hope my story can be a reference for everyone. Thank you all!

Namo Amituofo

Shi Tingyu