If you don’t treasure it, you don’t meditate well; then you will be just like outside people. Then you will wait until all the stones turn into sentient beings, and then you can meet a Master again. Wait until all the stones on this planet become humans, then you can have another chance. It is like that. The Buddha kept telling Ananda, “Don’t go to Nirvana yet. Just stay and help the sentient beings in the Dharma-ending age because many will fall. They don’t understand anything.” […]
I remember when I was in the Himalayas – different parts of the Himalayas, different ashrams, different Teachers, Masters – I never tried to find time to talk or to make friends or anything. One of the person who was in the same ashram with me you interviewed a long time ago on the old Supreme Master TV. He said, “Master was always very quiet, very quiet.” That’s what I was, always inside. And doing something, whatever I did to help – typing the letters, helping the office, and then cleaning the ashram. Did whatever I saw needed to be done, and then the rest, I meditated. Mostly all day busy, at night meditated. Some of my colleagues also came to my room, and we meditated together at night. They just came in and meditated like that. They had their own rooms, but because they knew I meditated, they all came together and meditated. Not a lot, just maybe about six – five, six people, in a small room.
You really don’t know your luck. You don’t appreciate it. You take it for granted because when I first came out, I was very free. If anybody came, I could give initiation right away. So you don’t treasure it. If you don’t treasure it, you don’t meditate well; then you will be just like outside people. Then you will wait until all the stones turn into sentient beings, and then you can meet a Master again. Wait until all the stones on this planet become humans, then you can have another chance. It is like that. The Buddha kept telling Ananda, “Don’t go to Nirvana yet. Just stay and help the sentient beings in the Dharma-ending age because many will fall. They don’t understand anything.”
Even have a Master, you’re still so like blind. It’s still habits. See each other, and then group together or get together and “blah blah blah blah blah” nonsense. Nothing really that important at all. Mostly at home, even when you call people on the phone, your friends, your family, or you talk on the street or in the coffee bar, if you write it all down or record it and listen to yourself again, it’s all garbage. Helps nobody, right? Waste your time, energy, and your spiritual merit. Man. How many more years will I have to tell you so that you really understand your luck and treasure it and you really understand that your time is short? Just now, some people came in and out, they are not that young. I saw many older people, past the menopause years already. Meaning that it’s not like kids, you know? Not like kids that don’t understand the logic and the reason. They still stay outside and “blah blah, blum blum.” So don’t criticize me ever. Don’t think I’m strict or anything.
I don’t want many disciples; I want good ones. And if they’re already initiated, so I let it be. But then, if they’re no good, they don’t have to come here. I don’t like it. Just like when you harvest something and then you try to select which ones are useful, which ones are good, and some of the harvest is no good. Like some rice is not full, just an empty shell, empty husk. Then you blow it out. In the old times, we also did that, so to select the good solid rice. The rest was thrown out or recycled into maybe fertilizer or something. So, if you want to be useful, worthy, you have to take care of yourself, take care of your spiritual practice. If here, in my ashram you don’t do well like that, I wonder how you do it at home, how you even do anything well at home – I mean for meditation.
You did not have to stay; the three-day retreat is over. So you’re free to go home already; nobody forces you to stay. But if you stay, that means you want to, and you make the best of it. You don’t come here just to make friends or make acquaintances because you like that guy or you like this girl. It’s not the place for that. If you want matchmaking, it’s very simple. There are many on the Internet, right? Or do it at home. Don’t come here just for that because you will create so much bad karma, and you’ll lose so much good merit that it’s really not wise to do that. A lot of people came and did that before. That’s why I do not have a lot of residents or monks and nuns left. There are not many left, compared to before.
It’s OK, you do what you do at home, but here you should not display any kind of improper behavior, making a bad example for other people and contaminate other people’s minds. Because we can infect each other, influence each other, especially those who are not well on their way yet. They are impressionable. They think, “Oh, this elder sister,” meaning maybe not old but long years initiated, “she does that, so if she can, then I can also do that. It’s no big deal.” A picture is worth more than 10,000 words. If you’re doing something and people see it, it’s more effective than what I tell you here only by mouth. So you have to make a good example for each other, not ruining the others’ practice and making bad karma for yourself.
Before, I used to be very tolerant, much more tolerant. I just maybe scolded them, reprimanded a little bit and then business as usual. No more! I’m getting older now. I don’t have a lot of time to waste for this kind of people who come just to “suck blood.” I mean spiritual blood. Got that? (Yes.) So you see, before, we used to have a retreat, and if it ended on a Sunday, then anyone else could come in. Now you don’t see it anymore. Sunday, only you, and then you go home. I mean mostly now we have a Saturday-Sunday retreat. Sunday, that’s it, nobody comes in. Up to now, it’s like that. I don’t feel like letting anyone come in and take away your precious two-day retreat’s accumulated energy. You’re hot? Hot or crying? (No.) OK. That’s why I don’t let people come in. The people that come in sometimes they just have nothing better to do. Or just come to have a look at me, see what I’ve got.
And the two-day (retreat) people meditate and then go out. Some people like to come in after the retreat; they can suck in the energy. I hate that! That’s why, after retreats now, I don’t let anybody come in anymore. If you go home and slowly dissipate your accumulated good energy during the two-day retreat, then it’s inevitable. Inevitable that you go out, back home, then, of course, your energy from meditating for two days also may be dissipated. OK, that’s inevitable. But I don’t like people coming in on purpose just to take away people’s hard-earned spiritual merit points. It’s like stealing. I’m sorry, I just know too much, it’s bad. In the beginning, I didn’t know that much. I didn’t see people very well. I didn’t feel anything. Maybe I felt, but I did not feel so clear. That’s why some people say, “Ignorance is bliss!” I lost that bliss.
That’s the trouble. I just don’t feel it’s fair that you spend your time and your precious capacity you have in your life to come to meditate, and then people just stream in from anywhere and then just take it away from you. Just come in from outside and then do nothing. And have not cleaned up or anything inside. Just come in. And you just went out with strong energy, and then it’s just sucked away like that. That’s why I don’t let people come in anymore. But, telling you like this, maybe one day I’ll be forced to do it for some reason, I don’t know. Before, I had just bought a small land in Hsihu, very small – not the whole piece so big like this. Then people wanted to come in, outside people. It was just me and the monks, we did nothing there. What for they come in? I never wanted to entertain people or let anybody in.
I just bought that piece of land because many monks and nuns came. I had no room, no house. Just went around pitching tents and somewhere we could not always do that because it was people’s land. We didn’t know whose land and where. Sometimes, we really pitched on the street, a small street where at night there was nobody. And then in the morning, we had to quickly move because we had no clearance around. And it was dark, and the fifth-hand car didn’t want to go anymore. Just lay on the street so we had to park there. I had to camp there. At night, you cannot even see anything to repair. Our small little flashlights – just enough just to see like maybe a few square centimeters before you. You know those small lamps you hang on your keyring? We didn’t have a lot, so we bought anything small.
So when I could buy that piece of land, I thought it was for us to have somewhere for the monks and nuns to stay. For me alone, it’s easier. But we had a lot of monks and nuns at that time, quite a few. And then everybody wanted to come in – not just disciples, outside people. And then it became like an open public place up till now. But now the world is in trouble; it’s better we meditate than just entertaining people who are not even listening well. Just come as tourist. But I’m not sure if people will leave us alone. I’m not sure.
So if you have this time – can come and see me and we have peace like this – treasure it. OK? I cannot guarantee anything. The world is a very… complicated place. Nothing is always under my control because it goes with the karma of the world, and of the disciples as well. Being an initiate doesn’t mean you don’t have any more karma. You do have still – a lot – so that you can continue to live, to give and take. OK?
Photo Caption: Just for Cooling Your Eyes, So It’s Easier to Look Inside.
