Wild greens grow all over the mountains, we can eat them. (Yes.) I teach you not to steal, but when I went to the Himalayas, there was no one there. So, I plucked the wild greens to eat; I didn’t steal from anyone. If I didn’t have other vegetables, I would pluck and eat the wild greens. (Yes.) At that time, if you were still talking about wild greens from India, or wild greens from Âu Lạc (Vietnam), then you would have starved to death, my child! If you practice spiritually in the mountains, God gives us the wild greens to eat. If no one eats them, they would wilt and die anyway. Understand? (Yes.) And if we don’t eat them, we die! If we die, then it is wasting God’s effort to nourish us all this time. “I give it to you; it grows right in front of you, and you won’t eat it. Then what can I do now?” For example like that. We have to be flexible. (Yes.)
We practice spiritually; we must have wisdom, not only morality. Morality without wisdom, we may apply wrongly and hurt many other people, or if not, hurt ourselves. Like Qu Yuan, who was loyal to the king and advised the king, but the king didn’t listen. He was a stupid king; how could he listen to the right advice? When the stupid king didn’t listen to him, [Qu Yuan] jumped into the river and died, contaminating the fish down there. With such a stubborn mind going down there, the fish ate him and became stubborn too. (Yes.)
Or Jie Zitui, who cut the flesh of his thigh for the king to eat during a time of dire need. Then later, when the king wanted to reward him, he felt embarrassed, thinking that he was a person of integrity, so he ran away. It was fine if he escaped, but when the king went to search for him, he wasn’t moved by the king’s sincerity to come out and say a few words, “That is OK, I will not accept the reward, because it was God’s Will what I did at that time. I knew it was God’s Will for you to be the king, so it was not my credit. You should not reward me. If you want me to be happy, then don’t reward me.” That would be OK. But he didn’t say anything; he forced himself to die. He died due to fire in the cave, and forced his mother to die with him. He’d rather be burned to death than come out. Because the king thought that if he burned the forest, then Jie Zitui would carry his mother out because he wouldn’t let his mother die. But he let his mother be burned to death. Then he was not a moral person, not a person who knew God’s Will.
It was God’s Will. God already brought things to your house so that your mother would be relieved of suffering after years of waiting for you. You went to serve the king, and now it is time for glory, and you didn’t let your mother enjoy a little bit of happiness during her old age. Then it is unfilial to the mother and disloyal to the king. You didn’t listen to the king, nor to your mother, and were against God’s Will, then you didn’t believe in God. You only believe in yourself, believe in what is right according to you only. God already brought things right to his door many times, and he still refused. If he refused, then he should have gone out and said a few words. Saying, “I wish not to receive anything.” It’d be OK like that. But he was so impolite to the point that even when people brought things to him, he still stayed in the cave and let himself be burned to death. He died, and the king would suffer for his whole life. He died, and the king would suffer and feel remorse, see that? (Yes.) The king didn’t do anything wrong. Why would he force the king to suffer mentally to such an extent? Therefore, worldly people don’t know the extent of morality. Morality is not like that.
Morality has many ways, many directions. We have to be flexible. We have to use our wisdom. If we insist and hold on tightly to the word “morality” or the word “integrity,” then we can die easily. Sometimes we can hurt others as well, like the case of Jie Zitui. This case I talked about in the Chinese tapes in great detail. Now I only talk briefly. These stories, you already know, so I won’t be too long-winded. There were a lot of people like that. Just because of a small and insignificant word, “morality,” you would harm your precious body and hurt others. So, if you don’t practice spiritually and don’t have wisdom, then whatever you do is wrong. Knowing morality, you can still do wrong, much less those who don’t have morality. You see, those who don’t know morality, they steal and kill people. And the ones who know morality, like Jie Zitui, said, “It’s God’s Will that you are king; it was not my credit.” Knowing that, he still was so stubborn and killed himself and his mother, too.
The sin of killing your mother is very grave – for whatever reason – and will be punished in a non-interruptible hell. Do you understand? Killing parents, beating parents, or beating Buddha, you will be punished in a non-interruptible hell forever. So what for did he talk about morality? Do you see that the person who knows a little bit about morality, but has no wisdom, can be detrimental to such an extent? The ones who don’t know morality kill people and steal things. We look down on them and say, “Oh, those people are immoral and unreligious.” Those people don’t know and act like that. We can understand. But he knew about morality, and yet was so fanatic like that.
So can you see the harm in life when you don’t have a Master to guide you, or don’t have wisdom to make you see things clearly? So having morality doesn’t mean they are doing the right thing. Being moral to the point that he killed himself and his mother. Who has the heart to kill his own mother? And Jie Zitui was famous as the most filial person at that time. But being filial like him, that kind of filiality could be fatal to his mother. Do you see clearly? (Yes.) He said he wanted to be a moral person, who has loyalty and integrity and all that. Because he wanted to protect his false fame, he heartlessly let his mother be burned to death. She was waiting for many tens of years for her son to come back, and she got nothing. When her son came home, she had to endure more hardship, and that was OK. But she was burned to death because of a filial son like that. Do you think he was filial or not? Was he or wasn’t he? (No, he wasn’t.) No, he wasn’t. However, the whole country of China, hundreds of millions or tens of millions of people? (One billion people. More than a billion people.) Yeah, more than a billion Chinese people worshipped that person. The person who didn’t obey God’s Will, wasn’t loyal to the king, nor filial to his mother. We can see clearly. (Yes.)
That’s why whatever we do, we must have wisdom and good judgment to see a situation clearly. Don’t be stubborn, saying that I am a moral person, so I don’t do this or do that. Do you understand? (Yes.) OK. I told you this story earlier; you know it, right? (Yes.) During Ancestors Day, the Chinese don’t eat hot food. It is called the Cold Foods Festival, which is to commemorate this man, Jie Zitui, who was burned to death. They worshipped him to such an extent. More than a billion ignorant people worship a man who isn’t worthy of anything to me. I do admire his good heart for cutting his thigh’s flesh to feed the king, because this is hard to do. Except for that, he was not worthy of anything. He set a bad example for others. Still, more than a billion people have worshipped him for many thousands of years already. He was from the Warring States Period, or the time of the Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms, which means many thousands of years ago. Is it right? (Yes.) They have worshipped him for thousands of years and still do now. Do you see how ignorant the worldly people are?
Not only this man, but many people [they worship]. But I don’t want to talk about it. I talked about it a lot already, in many Chinese tapes already. But we don’t have many talented initiates to translate and make subtitles for these tapes for you to see. So please try to wait. I also did my best and can’t do any more. I am so busy and can’t do this translation by myself. And what I said, I don’t repeat again. Whatever I said, I forgot. So, whoever wants to do whatever with it, can. Record, sell, publish, those jobs are for them. Sometimes, if I have time, then I would watch the ones that were not done correctly. Or the books that they published, I have to read them again to see if they wrote correctly. Sometimes they misunderstood my meaning and wrote it wrongly. If I can, then I would look at it, but if I am busy, I ignore it. That’s why it is very difficult to save all sentient beings. It is not easy.
I need a lot of talent. But the talented people must come naturally, spontaneously, not that I have to beg them to come. If I force them to stay here, I’d say, “I am your Master, and I tell you to stay.” And later on, his mind becomes complicated, and he misses some girl, then it’s troublesome for me. And he would contaminate the atmosphere here, so it is not good. That’s why I can’t just use anyone that I want, right? (Yes.) Whoever sincerely wants to come here, then it is OK. Sometimes, they come here with sincerity, but later are pulled out by the maya. So don’t talk about forcing him to stay. Even if I forced him to stay, he would pull himself out because he met the maya. He pulled himself out to meet the maya, not vice versa. Sometimes, he pulled the maya with him.
Therefore, since time immemorial, many Masters came down to Earth, but couldn’t save all the beings, because it was so complicated. Now, it is very good already, right? (Yes.) We have videos, televisions to record the videos, audios, and transmitting the audio, and all that, so it spreads [the teachings] far and wide already. It was more difficult in the old times. Therefore, now you understand why. In the old days, people such as Xuanzang had to travel for 17 years to India in order to bring the sutras back to China. He had to go through many mishaps, cross many forests and streams for 17 years before he could go back home. Seventeen years, it took him 17 years.
But now traveling 17 hours is already very tiresome. You spend the money and say, “My God! She keeps holding these 3-day retreats, 7-day retreats all the time like that, and if I don’t go, it would be pitiful. What if She sings songs or recites poems, and I am not able to listen? Or if on that day, She wears beautiful clothes, and I can’t see, then it would be pitiful. And when people come back and talk about it, I would regret it. So it would be pitiful if I don’t go. So I will try to go, but 17 hours of traveling is such suffering. Traveling by air for 17 hours is so tiring, and I also have to apply for a visa, and ask the boss for time off work, too. Oh my God, so many troubles… So much suffering! Couldn’t She hold fewer of those 3-day retreats? What for does She have to organize them 4 times a year like that?” So much suffering!
Because in the old times, communication was very difficult, so they had to climb the mountain passes, and cross the streams, for all 17 years as such. He [Xuanzang] had to experience so many tribulations, so many obstacles, in order to bring those “empty” sutras back to China. He took home so many sutras, and now they put some over here, some over there. No one understands when reading them. The more they read, the more they become dull. The more they read, the more they get attached to those sutras. Instead of flying out the open door, they fly into the glass windows and bang their heads and break their legs. For example like that. Then they do not gain anything. When a living Master is gone, the Blessing power of Their sutras could only last for a few hundred years. And the energy of that Master would gradually dissipate. Because He had to go to another realm, the energy had to be withdrawn. Because His energy was so vast, it took many hundreds of years to dissipate. But after many hundreds of years, it would be finished, nothing left. Concentrating on reading those sutras is like reading blank pages. Still, there were people who would climb mountains and cross rivers to go to [India] to bring back the sutras. But when Xuanzang went to India at that time, the Master’s Blessings probably were still there. And the Dharma (True Teaching) from Shakyamuni Buddha was still transmitted, not being lost completely.
So when I read the biography of Xuanzang, I saw that He did practice the Quan Yin Method. In the biography of Xuanzang, it mentioned the Quan Yin Method. Because the Quan Yin Method in Sanskrit is called “Shabda.” One of the sutras He brought back mentioned the “Shabda.” “Shabda” means the (inner Heavenly) Sound within us. Because I knew that word, I knew Xuanzang practiced the “Shabda,” meaning the Quan Yin Method, the (inner Heavenly) Sound current. But if we don’t know Sanskrit, then we just read the sutra, and that’s it. We don’t know what He called it, because He listed a bunch of sutras that He brought back from [India]. He brought back a number of sutras, and one of them mentioned the “Shabda.” “Shabda” means the inner (Heavenly) Sound, because I read about it, I knew what that sutra was talking about, for example like that. I knew the word “Shabda” means inner (Heavenly) Sound, so I knew that Xuanzang practiced the Quan Yin Method.
Photo Caption: “Brighten Your Day with Delicious Gift from Above” (All what shows here are no pain)
