I’m only telling you, that if you want to be successful in anything, you’ve to be serious. People in the world, even just doing business to earn money, to earn their living, the impermanent living, and their so-called ephemeral, lovely “karma,” they already have to make that much effort. Then, in order to save ourselves, to be liberated eternally, in order to deliver ourselves to the place of everlasting happiness, satisfaction, and freedom, and to help our five, six, seven, or eight generations attain liberation, we cannot slack off.
(He brought some guests.) (He brought some guests.) He brought guests to accompany him. It’s too hot to sit like this. It’s rather hot today. What to do? Then you sit further to the front. (Come. Sit in the front. Those basking in the sun on the side, come and sit here.) Those basking in the sun, all come to sit here. (Those already sitting inside, don’t move.) (Thank You, Master.) You are welcome. You’ll be able to see me. (Those in the sunshine, it’s cooler to sit here.)
Look at me now; if you’re afraid you won’t see me later. No big deal. I’ll look just like this. Even though in different clothes, I look the same. My body hasn’t changed. More or less the same. I dress beautifully only for you. As a courtesy to you. We all do that when we see guests, don’t we? We Chinese are very hospitable.
Alright. I’m going in. Why do you wear the flower like that? (It’s the flower from Master.) Someone gave it to you? (The flowers are from Master’s basket and given to guests as a gift.) Is that so? But you’re not a guest, so why did you get the flower? (I took it.)
(Master, the ornament on Your head is so beautiful.) Really? (It’s really very beautiful.) I just wear it casually. Nothing special. (It’s so beautiful.) My hair is getting longer, so I combed it toward the back. (Yes. It looks very nice like that. Yes.) Leaving a little ponytail. I just folded it up. That’s all. (So smart. Master is so skillful.) So skillful? No big deal, anyway. You can also do it. (Yes.) It’s just that my hair is not long enough. There’s nothing more I can do about it. So I comb it all to the back. I don’t like the hair floating around in front of me. So I managed it to be like this. That’s all. (It’s indeed very beautiful.) Is it beautiful like this? (Yes. Very nice looking.) Thank you. Can’t help it. You’d say it’s beautiful whatever I do. This is prepared for the guests, right? Wait a moment.
Sometimes it’s like that. That’s why we, as spiritual practitioners, should not slack off. Got it? (Yes.) Sometimes it might happen that God comes to see us, and then we’re all not present. Then, what to do? So we still have to make an effort every day. People in the world are very dedicated, working very hard for their business. Do you know that? In order to do business, they’d travel everywhere, no matter how far, wouldn’t they? (Yes.) Be it winter, summer, cold or hot, however inconvenient it is, they all have to go. Isn’t it so? That’s why those people could develop their business and earn big money.
I’ve heard that in Taiwan (Formosa), there’s a very famous businessman who used to do for others. Wang Yung-Ching. Yes. I knew it. OK. OK. It doesn’t matter who he is. The name is not important. What’s important is his personality and his talent. What I mean is, he used to deliver rice to people’s houses, didn’t he? (Yes.) Yeah. And then people all liked him very much.
Why? Because he was always on time, right? Besides, he noted down on which date and to which household he delivered the rice. Then he figured the approximate time that household was about to run out of rice, and he delivered the rice there automatically. Because sometimes people forgot to place orders or failed to find him, etc. He just went everywhere. After delivering the rice there, he’d put the leftover rice from last time aside, and poured the new rice into the container first, and then put the old rice back on top of the new one. This way, people would use the old rice first, so the old rice would not get moldy or generate worms, etc.
Why was his business getting better and better? It’s because he had a good conscience. He was very serious in doing business, wasn’t he? If we, meditating spiritual practitioners, are not more serious than him, it’s a pity. We cannot say that we love God. We cannot say that we long for the Tao. How can our determination be less than a rice deliveryman? And we are longing for the reverse.
Therefore, it’s not that I’m strict with you. I’m only telling you, that if you want to be successful in anything, you’ve to be serious. People in the world, even just doing business to earn money, to earn their living, the impermanent living, and their so-called ephemeral, lovely “karma,” they already have to make that much effort. Then, in order to save ourselves, to be liberated eternally, in order to deliver ourselves to the place of everlasting happiness, satisfaction, and freedom, and to help our five, six, seven, or eight generations attain liberation, we cannot slack off. Yes? (Yes.)
Besides, we can never enjoy enough the benefit of this kind of business. Yes? (Yes.) We receive the meritorious reward in this life; our life becomes more and more comfortable, and our wisdom more and more developed. Then, everything we do goes smoothly. Therefore, the business we’re doing is more important than any earthly business. Yes? (Yes.) I’m just reminding you in all kinds of ways. If you truly want to attain the happy realms, you have to be diligent. From time to time, I use a lot of examples, a lot of stories and a lot of enticing words and sweet talk to tell you to practice spiritually. Sometimes you don’t listen, then I have to use other more unpleasant ways. It’s because I’m afraid that you’d forget what you’re looking for, forget the spirit of doing business.
We work in the world every day. I’ve told you many times. We earn some money in order to feed this ephemeral body and a few kids only. We don’t have many wives. We have only one wife or one child and two or three wives? No, one wife plus two or three children. Then we have to work eight hours a day, at least. Or ten hours or even more than ten hours. In some families, both husband and wife have to work. Isn’t it? Still, they can’t work enough. Since they want their children to be as rich as others, have the same things as other children, the parents have to work even harder to give their children a more comfortable life. They don’t want to be the loser in the neighborhood. Therefore, whatever their neighbors’ children have, their children also have to have. Like that. So the parents have to work very hard to earn money.
But what do they get eventually? Nothing. Each has to go their own way finally. We never know when the Black and White Impermanence messengers will come to take us away. We’ll have to lie there surrendering ourselves to others; whatever possessions we’ve tried hard to earn, beautiful, gorgeous clothes, and fancy cars, will all have to be left here. Yes? (Yes.) And those kinds of things, will vanish after some time. It is like that even if we work hard all our lives.
Unlike us, the practitioners of the Quan Yin Method. The more we practice, the more we have. We have it when we’re still alive. We collect a lot of meritorious rewards, and so our lives become more and more comfortable. It’s not that we’re greedy for the meritorious reward. We naturally have it. We can’t say that we don’t have it. Right? (Yes.) And we shall have less or no disasters. We will get less or no sickness. Our business will get better and better. Our minds become calmer and smarter. And we can bring it along with us after we die. It’s all ours.
Moreover, while alive we only use a little bit of our meritorious reward. You could say only one out of one hundred million of it, that we can use in this world. The rest of it will still be waiting for us. After we leave this physical body, we’ll be able to enjoy the meritorious reward which is not physical. Therefore, only this kind of business is truly worthwhile investing in.
Sometimes, during meditation you see your True Self go to such and such realm of Light to have fun. The unimaginably beautiful world is indescribable in worldly languages. We go there only once in a while, and we are already happy for many days, sometimes even for months. Depends on how deep you are in Samadhi; you will be happy for so long. Sometimes you just meditate for half an hour or one hour, wow, you’re already so happy for quite some days! Yes? (Yes.) And that kind of happiness isn’t physical. Your body is also happy, and spiritually, it’s like no suffering can find its place on us. Yes or not? (Yes.)
And it’s just a little taste. You’re enjoying that kind of happiness, of meritorious rewards only a little bit. Only one billionth or one trillionth of it. Can you imagine how the rest of them waiting for us in another world are like? So I think it’s such a pity that people of the world don’t want to do this kind of business.
They do their utmost. Besides, you only meditate two and a half hours every day, or even less. If deducting the time you doze off during meditation, I’m afraid there’s not much time left. Right? You are very busy working when you go home, you take a bath, brush your teeth, wash your face, have a meal, and then come to group meditation. After entering the group meditation site, you go here and there, and to register, then half an hour has passed. After sitting down, you feel tired. You’ll rest for a while first.
So you sit there, relaxing yourself, and then if you’d like to doze off, no one would stop you. You’re just having a rest by the way, no? Maybe resting for one hour, then you wake up. “Huh? I haven’t meditated yet. Oh, I must hurry.” “Hurry up to focus on somewhere. Then it’ll be alright.” “It doesn’t matter where I focus on, as long as I’m focusing.” You won’t even remember where your wisdom-eye is. You forget it. Waking up from your deep sleep, you can’t find your wisdom eye. Forget it! Just concentrate. On your stomach is also fine. You happen to feel hungry now. When the stomach is empty, focusing on it is also good. Then listen to the noises it makes.
Luckily the Inner Master noticed it. You’ve been terribly busy. Busy about worldly things. So, the Master will give you a hand and pull you up. In just half an hour, you went to many worlds, saw lots of inner Heavenly Lights, lots of realms, and met many cosmic entities. When you come back, you have lots to boast about. “I have inner experiences. My level is not low. I see many things just by meditating for half an hour.”
In fact, it’s Buddhas helping us. Otherwise, how much can we meditate. Right? Busily engaged in worldly matters for eight or ten hours. At home we still have to take care of our family, relatives and friends. How can our mind concentrate so fast, yes? (Yes.) Without the Power of a true enlightened Master who gives us a hand, we’d still be swimming in the vexations of the world. Things are the same when at home.
It is better to go to group meditation. Right? (Yes.) It’s because our monkey minds specialize in imitating. It sees everyone sitting quietly; it also feels embarrassed. Now and then, it peeps around to see if anyone is moving. When no one else is moving, it also keeps still. No one interacts or talks with it; it feels ashamed and thus continues to sit quietly. After sitting quietly for a while, having nothing to do, you also enter samadhi.
This is like a dog yawning, and accidentally swallows a fly. Such is our yawning method. So Shakyamuni Buddha said there’re 84,000 methods for spiritual practice. Our Quan Yin Method practitioners are equipped with all these 84,000 methods. Yes? (Yes.) The dozing method. The lying down method to enter samadhi. The standing method of samadhi because they can sleep while standing. Sometimes you see the guards next to me seem to be agreeing on something, as if they agree with something in their mind. That’s their “fall asleep method.”
