This sentence comes from Zhu Bolu's "Zhu Xi Family Instructions" and is not a Buddhist language.

The original text is "If you want others to see you kindly, you are not truly good; if you are evil if you fear others will see you, you are a great evil." It means that if you do good deeds and want others to see you, you are not a truly good person. Those who do bad things and are afraid that others will know about them are truly evil people.

How can it be true and good to gain fame and reputation under the guise of doing good deeds? If you do something good, you just want everyone to know it. On the contrary, if you do something wrong but dare not face it honestly and bear the consequences, but try every means to cover up the crime, that is a grave evil of compounding mistakes. It expresses the meaning that good deeds should not be publicized and evil deeds should not be concealed.

Extended information:

"Zhu Xi's Family Instructions", also known as "Zhu Xi's Maxims on Family Governance", is a famous book on family education. The great success of how to behave in the world lies in advising people to be diligent and frugal in managing their homes and to be lawful and self-reliant.

The core is to make people become upright, knowledgeable, strict self-discipline, tolerant and kind-hearted, and have lofty ideals. This is also the consistent pursuit of Chinese culture, which is conducive to building a happy family and then building harmony. society.

The whole book is written in a form that is easy to understand and pays attention to the parallelism of the language. It is catchy and easy to remember. It has been widely circulated since its publication and has been respected as "the classic of managing a family" by the literati of the past dynasties. During the Republic of China, it once became one of the must-read textbooks for children's enlightenment.

Zhu Bailu (1627-1698) was originally named Zhu Yongchun, with the courtesy name Zhiyi and his nickname Bailu. He was a native of Kunshan, Jiangsu, and a native of Kunshan County, Jiangsu in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Famous neophysician and educator. Zhu Bolu devoted himself to studying since childhood and became a scholar, aiming at an official career. After entering Guan Ming Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty, he had no intention of achieving fame. He stayed in his hometown to teach students and devoted himself to the study of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. He advocated the simultaneous advancement of knowledge and action and practiced it, which was quite famous. He is the author of "Abridged and Supplementary Quotations of the Book of Changes", "Lecture Notes on the Four Books", "Persuasion", "Collected Poems of Shai Geng Tang", "Collection of Shai Na" and "Wu De Lu", etc.

Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Zhu Xi’s Family Instructions