Simple life. If you go on holiday, you just go straight to Miaoli. There’s nowhere… You see, Christmas, you don’t have to buy anything. No turkey(-people) meat. No Christmas tree nonsense, all this. No cutting any trees. You just go straight on the airplane and land in Hsihu. It’s a very simple life now, indeed. (Yes.) Yeah. And when you went on holiday before, you would pack a lot of useless stuff. Now you go to Hsihu, what do you pack? Sleeping bag, that’s all. Just make sure you don’t forget that. And the… (ID card.) yeah, initiation card. Yeah, so simple. […] See, Christmas, go to Miaoli. (Yes.) New Years, (Miaoli.) Miaoli. Buddha’s birthday, (Miaoli.) Miaoli. And nothing else. See? So simple and pure. Well, talking about that. And so, when we go on a holiday, sometimes we get sick, because we eat a lot of funny stuff out there. Funny fish(-person meat) and rotten (animal-person) spareribs, and things like that. So we get sick, sometimes TB (tuberculosis), and all kinds of hepatitis. How come it becomes “Thai” now? Hepatitis. All kinds of things sometimes. So, it is safer just to go on retreat and eat vegan, tofu, and bean sprouts, and all that. And then you sprout up all the same. Right?
I know many monks who were vegan since childhood, but they grew very strong. My refuge master, teacher, the monk in Germany, he’s about five times bigger than me. Oh, very strong. He’s an Aulacese (Vietnamese) monk, and he became a monk at the age of 10. So you can see, the Aulacese (Vietnamese) monks all eat vegan, whether they are the Hinayana or Mahayana. That means the “Small Vehicle” or “Big Vehicle” – they are all vegan. So, he was vegan at least since 10. Oh, and he’s very big. I have pictures to prove it. When I stand next to him, I seem like a frog(-person) next to an elephant(-person). It’s true. Yesterday, I saw some of the old pictures and I thought, “Wow, my God, this guy is really big.” He’s like an American, very strong and round, and he’s only about 49 now. And he speaks six languages. (Wow.) Yeah. He writes Chinese better than the Taiwanese (Formosans) do. He can write Chinese too. Of course, he writes Aulacese (Vietnamese), and he can write Japanese, better than the Japanese people. And of course, he writes German, and English, and French, and maybe extraterrestrial language. He’s a pretty cool guy. Not bad. Now. Where were we now? Oh my God. I wandered all over the place.
Now, Number 77. Seventy-seven. (Seventy-five.) (It’s 75.) (Seventy-five.) No! Seventy-six already: “In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.” (Yes.) Ah! Now, 77. Don’t cheat me. I am… I am already… I hardly keep up with all of this “nonsense” and you make me walk backward. No! I’m already glad that we climbed up to 77. “This so-called Universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.” Alright? Got it? No? So simple and you don’t understand.
The Master tried to convey the message that this topsy-turvy Universe, the world that we live in, or maybe many other worlds in this Universe, is like a cinema, it’s like a theater. So why don’t you just look upon it as a theater and be happy, enjoy it, just like you watch a movie, or you watch a show. That’s what He (Lord Shiva) meant. I don’t know, can you do that? You can, huh? Well, lucky for you.
I still look upon the world sometimes as a very miserable place, because people are very miserable and it touches my heart. Perhaps I know it’s a theater. Perhaps I know it’s a movie, a show, but still, I’m upset sometimes. So now I don’t read newspapers, I don’t watch TV. I don’t want to hear anything. It upsets me. Refugees and all that, I drop everything. Since I can’t do anything about it, I tried my best, so I’d better just stop it, stop worrying about it, and stop bothering myself about it, and concentrate on what I can do. Instead of fretting about what I cannot do, I just concentrate on what I can do to serve you, to help whomever I can and who comes to me.
Just like even when you watch a movie, you know it’s a movie. You know the actor is Alain Delon or Elizabeth Taylor or whatever, but still you cry. (Yes.) You know at the same time that it is a movie, but you cry at the same time because the story touched you, touched your emotional center of the heart, and makes you feel the way the characters in the film feel. And that’s alright. That’s alright. I cry too sometimes when I watch a touching movie, and I laugh when the movie is funny. If you only laugh when the movie is funny and you cannot cry when the movie is sad, isn’t that funny? Is that not so? (Yes.) How can you do this and not the other? If we can laugh at a very comical movie, then of course we can cry with a very sad drama. Is that not so? So it’s OK. It’s OK. Everything is OK.
So now, just like the movies and shows, we watch this world and sometimes we laugh and cry with it. It’s alright. It’s alright. Don’t worry. But the Master advises you to happily look upon the world as a show. Or perhaps this makes you feel better, if you can. Perhaps that’s why He can stay in the Himalayas forever, and I can’t. I probably was more involved in the movies, in the movies business, than He was. Perhaps at that time, He didn’t have movies, so He had to look upon the world as a whole show – amuse Himself.
Number 78: “O Beloved, put attention neither on pleasure or pain, but between these.” You know that already. He means to still your mind. Whenever you want to be in peace and harmony within yourself, then you must still the turbulent mind, whether it is in extreme happiness or in extreme sorrow. Perhaps today you have been in extreme pleasure because you fall in love for the first time, or you hold hands for the first time, and the one you love also loves you, and you feel extreme, extremely happy. And that extreme happiness could hinder you and make you out of balance with yourself. Then in that case, you should not concentrate too much on the extreme pleasure when you meditate, but cut it out. Concentrate on the before, before the event happening, before you know that man or that woman, before your extreme happiness. Remember that time; nothing happened, very quiet and balanced. So concentrate on that. Or maybe today you left the most beloved person, or friend, of your life. Then you feel an extreme, extreme sorrowful state. Then, also try to concentrate on the state of balance between pain and pleasure. Therefore, get back the Mastership for yourself. Understand that? (Yes.) I know you do. You have all these experiences.
Now, number 79: “Toss attachment for body aside, realizing I’m everywhere. The one who is everywhere is joyous.” Can you do that? Well, during the initiation, you have been also advised to forget the sensation of the body, to forget the in and out of the breath, forget whatever the body is telling you or demanding of you at that moment. That’s how you easily enter samadhi, and then enter the omnipresent state. It means you are everywhere. The one who is so free, so omnipresent, so easily anywhere at the same time, must be a very happy person, very joyous person. So that’s what it is. Try to realize that state. It’s easy said, no? Very easy when He says all this, it’s very easy. Don’t you think so? Yeah, just try to realize “I’m everywhere, and omnipresent,” and all that. Try. When He says you can, then you can. Otherwise, He wouldn’t say so, no? Or do you think He just makes us mouth-watering for nothing? Can, huh? Many people can do that. Perhaps He can. He has done that, so He taught His wife or some of the immediate disciples how to do it.
Number 80: “Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So, accepting, let them be translated.” Translated into what? Into action? Oh, alright. I think you all understand. Right? OK. Good. Then we move to 81. I’m extremely impressed with your intelligence. Now, 81. Why bother about the things you already understood?
Photo Caption: “All Seasons Are Beautiful”
