All beings are saved, thank You. All beings are going to be saved by You or by this sutra that You teach. Thank You so much. My God! You see how many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas sacrifice for us. And we just do a little meditation, keep the Five Precepts, it’s not hard. Must do it.
So the 49 days is the time that we could decide his fate for him or her fate for her. We have to pray. Make offerings. Take his possessions out. If can, then sell all his possessions and give it to the poor people, the church, the temple, to good charity causes. But of course, if he has children and all that, we must leave some for them to survive. Just take whatever you can, then he will be liberated.
“‘Throughout 49 days, those whose lives have ended and who have not yet been reborn will be hoping every moment that their immediate relatives will earn blessings powerful enough to rescue them.’” That’s why sometimes they come back in your dream or they appear shortly before you. But they can’t speak too much sometimes. They can’t talk, they just look sad and then you know they need your help and immediately, immediately! Because you don’t know at that time how much more time is left for them until their fate is decided. Once their fate is decided by the judge, nothing you can do anymore. No more time! But 49 days before that, a lot of time, we can do many things for him. Can recite a lot of sutras.
“‘At the end of that time, the deceased will undergo retribution according to their karma. If someone is an offender, he may pass through hundreds of thousands of years without even a day’s liberation. If someone’s offenses deserve fivefold uninterrupted retribution, he will fall into the great hells and undergo incessant suffering throughout hundreds of thousands of eons.’” That is billions, trillions, gazillions of years. Imagine it’s you. Imagine you’re there helpless, being tortured day and night, every second of your life and you know it and you feel the suffering, not like you don’t feel. And no one to help you, no one you can call. Too much suffering, you can’t even open your mouth. You can’t even remember to pray. So do pray before. And if you have no relatives to help you, then it’s finished. You have to. Such suffering, so long, so long, my God! How terrible, how terrible! Imagine if it’s you. So how unbearable, how terrible, how horrible! God, I don’t ever wish anyone would have to go through this.
Everything in this world is illusion, but the law of the world is not illusion, The law of karma is not. You will feel it if you’re not liberated from the law of karma, either through the Master power or through the faith in Buddhas or doing good deeds and always keep vigilance on your life. Everything you do, you think, or you speak must be always good and pure, pure intention. If not, rather don’t say. I am a Master, I have to say everything, many things. But if you don’t have to be in the position, you keep quiet. You don’t tell others about the bad things of this person and then that person tells further and further and further. Telling the bad things of others, you have to also share that karma. Not only if you do it yourself. So be very careful, all right? Remember the three monkeys. (Yes.) Even the monkeys can teach you. No seeing, no hearing, no talking about bad things.
“‘Moreover, Great Elder, when beings who have committed karmic offenses die, their relatives may prepare vegetarian/vegan offerings,’” you see that? “‘to aid them on their karmic path. In the process of preparing the vegetarian/vegan meal and before it has been eaten, rice-washing water and vegetable leaves should not be thrown on the ground even.’” Wow! Even the wash water, before it’s been eaten, should not throw the wash water, the dirty water, on the ground, the washing water for the rice and the vegetables and fruit.
“‘Before the (vegan) food is offered to the Buddhas and sangha, no one should eat it.’” You have to be careful of all this also. Not just make offerings, “OK, I eat first.” Don’t even taste it. You have to know how much. If a little salty, a little less salty the Buddhas don’t mind, as long as it’s not offered to the live sangha. Even less salty, then you can offer more soya sauce or more salt for the sangha, for the monks who come and recite or the monks that you offer the meal. But don’t taste it before.
Wow! The Bodhisattva is really compassionate. He knows all details about suffering and how to escape from suffering. He’s really compassionate. All of us, we should thank this Bodhisattva and right now, the Ksitigarbha, means the Earth Store Bodhisattva. Great being, You are a great being, great, great, great. Thank You so much. I’m about to cry. I feel so touched by His sacrifice and goodness. So beautiful, beautiful! Thank You, we all thank You. The world thanks You. All beings are saved, thank You. All beings are going to be saved by You or by this sutra that You teach. Thank You so much.
My God! You see how many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas sacrifice for us. And we just do a little meditation, keep the Five Precepts, it’s not hard. Must do it. You owe it to them also. You owe it to the farmers, to your parents, to your sisters, brothers, to the planet to be good. Only meditate, Five Precepts. Nothing much I ask from you. You don’t have to come to see me if you don’t want to. You stay home, you believe in me. Believe in my teaching, then it’s good enough. Meditate. Do good.
When someone who is good and said – this time, I only said European – but somebody good and said, “Everybody else come quickly.” Even though it’s their fault, but it’s good for you so that you can see me sometimes, some of you. And if you cannot come here… Or you can blame me if you want, but it’s your (bad) karma. You don’t make me responsible for everything in your life. All right? I do my best already. I’m a thousand times busier than you are. Daily, in different things. Inside, outside. So, do what you can. You come see me if you can. If you don’t have enough financial support, if your brother, sister helps you to come, it’s OK. If they don’t, you just stay at home. I’m always with you. You don’t need to come to see me. I didn’t force any of you to come see me. You offer me your time and some of your finance for the ticket but that benefits you. I didn’t ask. I offer you also many-fold in return. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, I also offer to you. I did not, like, just to sit here and receive things. I receive your love, for which I thank you very much, but I offer also. Even if you offer me anything, I offer a lot also. I offer things to other people. Maybe it doesn’t seem beneficial to you if I offer it to the poor people, but it benefits the world you live in. It makes the good energy for you, for your children. Makes the planet grow better. Understand me? (Yes.) So even if I don’t offer to you directly, but I do offer also. Everything good benefits you also. So, do not think in a negative way.
Try to remember the Buddha saying what: charity, offering to the Buddhas, to enlightened saints, monks and nuns. I didn’t offer it to them because I think they’re enlightened monks and nuns and they benefit me. No, no. I offered to them because I love them. Because I thought, OK… I didn’t know they were working in the field either. I thought they just sat there and relied on some disciples to come and offering something. But not many Koreans will have time to go all the way to Youngdong, so I thought they don’t have such good (vegan) food all the time. So, whatever good (vegan) food, I offered to them because probably they didn’t have it for long time, or they never had it. Like when they gave me a lot of these sakya (sugar-apple), like guanabana, something like that. It looks like Buddha’s tuft here, that’s why they call it sakya, meaning “the Buddha’s fruit.” They gave me some and I asked my nun attendant, “Do they have this fruit in Korea?” She said, “No, we cannot plant it.” She said, “Tried, but it doesn’t grow.” I said, “OK, quickly bring this bowl full of fruit to offer to the nuns. I don’t have enough for one each, but they can share. Tell them that.” Because they don’t have.
Because I feel that a monk has nothing: no family, no husband, no kids, no wife already, and just some (vegan) food to live on and doesn’t have enough. That’s why I offered it to them. You understand? (Yes.) Not for merit – nothing! I care nothing for myself. Everything here, I truly realize that it’s illusion. Nothing for me. So, you have to give in this kind of spirit, in love. Help because you think they need it. Don’t ever think of merit. The Buddha said all that, explained it to you, but you don’t think like that. You have to give with love. Then I tell you, merit will be manifold even if you care for it or not. But if you give without love and then you… you have some merit, but it’s not wholesome.
It’s not much, what I offered to them. Of course, they ate with the assembly. But something good that I think they might never have it, they never tasted it, because in their country or because being a monk. That’s why I tell you, you have to respect them. They could stay outside, work, earn a lot of money like you. Have a husband, wife, kids, have a house, car. But self-denial, because they believe in the Buddha. They believe that being a monk is the way to liberation. Because they think that the nature of life is ephemeral anyway. I respect that ideal. I respect that they hold onto that belief. That’s why we respect them. Takes a lot of self-denial to do that. So, you don’t say, “Same. Same, initiated by Master. It’s same.” Not same! You enjoy everything. They don’t. Do you understand now? (Yes.) So, give them place and respect, give way when they walk. Do anything in your respectful way. Don’t think the same, calling them “brother,” “sister,” same Master, same initiate. Not the same. They are extra.
Apart from keeping the Five Precepts, they keep more precepts than you. Many precepts I don’t tell you because you’re not nuns and monks. You’re not allowed to know it. Because some are delicate, you can’t tell in the public. Some are real detailed, how to keep the precepts. The real detail, it’s not wholesome to tell into the public. And also, they’re denied many things. They don’t sleep on a big and high and comfortable bed. Not all, unless they’re sick. And they meditate a lot more. They truly keep the precepts. They truly understand why they became monks and nuns, why they practice. Some of you don’t, because you’re too busy outside and distracted by families or jobs or earning a living and still attached to that kind of life. Some of you don’t. I don’t say all of you are attached. Even though you’re a layperson, doesn’t mean you are not detached. I don’t say that, but I say many of you are still not detached from the things you like to eat, from the clothes you want to wear. Detachment comes from inside. Then if you are too much in the world, it’s difficult to detach yourself, difficult to have time to think, to concentrate on spiritual practice. That’s what I said. I don’t mean in spiritual-wise, I don’t mean that you cannot become Buddha if you’re a layperson or you have less enlightenment, not necessarily.
I just respect them because of the ideal they hold, the renunciation they make, the self-denial that they try. They try hard to be a good person, to be a good monk. They try, it’s difficult, but they try. In this age of material greed and development and competition, they still try to keep like that. It’s difficult. So, I respect that. And moreover, I feel sympathy for the life they undergo, because I know it from my own experience. You need discipline, you need strong will to keep focused on spiritual practice and not be sidetracked by other comforts. It’s difficult, but it’s doable. If you really want spiritual attainment, you’ll do it. You just do it, then (it’s) natural. You don’t complain, you don’t feel this is hardship. Whatever you know is good for your spiritual practice, you do it. You will do it, just do it. You don’t mind sleeping in a tent or sleeping on the ground or sleeping in a small hut instead of a house. You don’t mind anything. If you know this is better for you, you do it.
So when you give, either to monks or a monastery or a church or temples, you do it, you must do it with love. You must imagine, if you can’t have love, you must imagine, “OK, what it’s like if I am that person. I don’t have family with me, I’m not having any luxury, I have to live on the ground, praying a lot of times a day, have nothing else. Many things I deny in my life. Now, suppose I love this so much, but I am a nun, a monk, I can’t have it. I love that so much, but if I’m a monk, a nun now, I won’t have it.” Imagine that. Then you feel love for the persons who sacrificed their life for a noble ideal, for a higher purpose. Then you love. Because I feel like as if I am them. That is the thing.
I feel as if I am that insect, so I can’t kill him. I feel as if I am the pigeon, so I must give her (vegan) food. I have to chop. She doesn’t like just bread, she likes my dog’s (vegan) food. This is a smart girl, a smart pigeon, the small pigeon. I give her (vegan) bread on the roof so that she doesn’t feel scared to go down lower, but she goes lower because it’s colorful (vegan) dog food. She tried to eat, but it’s too big, she can’t. So, after I saw that, I crushed it into very tiny pieces on the street for her, because she just likes it there. She doesn’t like it in the bowl and on the roof. What to do? So I put some water there and crushed it because the pellet is hard for the dogs, it’s good for their teeth. But I have to crush it with a stone on the street, because that’s where she wants it. I want her to eat in a bowl, clean. But, no! She likes it on the ground, dirty. What am I to do? OK, then if she likes that, that’s where she goes. I put on the roof, she doesn’t eat it. She went down and was looking at the place where I put it yesterday, and she didn’t see it and she was gone. So I took it from the roof, I put it out on the dirt for her. That’s the way it is. You have what you want. Even I know something better, but if that’s what you want, then you have it.
Do it with love. Everything you must do with love. If you give without love, then it’s very empty, empty. Even giving to a beggar, you have to understand their situation. Maybe you cannot, but at least give with sympathy, with humility, with protective thoughts, with good energy. Not saying, “Here, take it and go,” not like that.
Love is the essence of every action you take. Without that you are just an empty shell. Without love you’re nothing. Truly. Whatever you do, a lot of charity and all that, you’re just boasting with people, but you benefit nothing. The person may eat, fill himself, but he doesn’t feel that well. Because the energy you give is not uplifting. And you give a lot of money out, but you receive nothing. You don’t feel satisfied, you don’t feel happy. Because if that person is happy and you give with love, then you feel very happy, as if that person is you. And you feel even more happy than that person. It cannot be measured, but I know that.
So before you offer to the Buddhas and the sangha – a Buddha image or Buddha statue, OK, fine, or the sangha alive or not – but you don’t eat first. You don’t taste it. “‘If there is laxness or transgression in this matter, then the deceased will receive no strength from it.’” Wow! Wow! If you don’t take care and do what is said in here, then the dead people don’t receive anything, no matter how much you do. So be very respectful.
Even the water you wash vegetables with, you should not throw on the ground. After the Buddha eats and after people eat, maybe, then you can. Before that – no. Before the Buddhas or sangha you offer, then you don’t taste, you don’t eat. Always keep it clean, and better you cover your mouth with a mask and serve with gloves. So you don’t contaminate the food that you offer to the Buddha so that the merit can be transferred through purity and love to that dead person. Only purity and love can transport such material things into immense, invisible merit. Contaminated things cannot transfer this. It’s just like the tube, the water pipe, if it’s blocked inside by even just a small stone, the water doesn’t come out. Or if the pipe is dirty, the water comes out muddy, yellow, brown, bad. It’s simple to understand or not?
So this, you should take care. You offer the (vegan) food in front of Buddha’s statues or for the monk, you don’t throw the washed vegetable water away. Keep it there. Later maybe, later after eating. After all the meal is consumed, either by sangha or ... If you offered it, then you throw away. And don’t taste the (vegan) food before you offer it to the Buddha, even the deceased Buddha. Don’t taste the (vegan) food. Give it to the monk first, with all love and respect. If not, then the deceased will receive no strength from it. My God! Blocked, you see? Blockage, that’s why.
“‘If purity is vigorously maintained in making the offering to the Buddha and sangha,’” either the Buddha is still alive or Nirvana Buddha, “‘the deceased will receive one-seventh of the merit. Therefore, Elder, by performing vegetarian/vegan offerings on behalf of the deceased fathers, mothers, and other relatives while making earnest supplication on their behalf, beings of Jambudvipa benefit both the living and the dead.’ After that was said, hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of ghosts and spirits of Jambudvipa who were in the palace of the Trayastrimsa Heaven,” I told you, “made the unlimited resolve to attain Bodhi,” means to become Buddha. The ghosts! All the ghosts and spirits and even yaksas! And hundreds of thousands of millions of limitless numbers. A “nayuta” means long, it is uncountable.
“The Elder Great Eloquence made obeisance and withdrew.” He only asked for the sake of beings, he didn’t need to know. He was already the god. He was already a Saint, he didn’t need all this offering or he didn’t need to know all this. He didn’t need to know. He just asked for the sake of others. He knew already. And even if he didn’t know, he didn’t need to know. He’s liberated. Understand now? So, we thank this Elder Great Eloquence as well, and Ananda and whoever asked the Buddhas or Bodhisattva questions so that these Sages can answer. We thank them all. Thank You. (Thank You.)
It’s good. All right. Mama go eat lunch. I mean breakfast.
