And that is how you are kind to yourself. That’s how you are planning a beautiful life for now and the future and for all others around you – for all your children, grandchildren, great-great- great-grandchildren, for further generations from your clan, your family. […]
I really miss the Himalayas times and the Hao Tsa times. Hao Tsa is a mountainous area in Taiwan (Formosa) where I used to go to do retreats, either alone or with a couple of residents. And then, sometimes I took the whole residents’ group at that time to come with me: we pitched tents on the bank of the river, and we lived simple, very simple. […] So these two places I miss very much; I wish I could relive it anytime. And there’s also another place I like in America – one of the mountains in San Jose, California. And that mountain is the only one that still has trees, plants and wildflowers that bloom so beautifully in spring. […]
I love that place very much. Every night we just made a small little fireplace with three stones and collected the dry wood around it to make vegan meals. And we lived in a second-hand, fourth-hand, fifth-hand trailer. And there’s a little water well on that mountain. There is also a lake in the front, which is the water supply for that city. I really loved that very much. […] These couple of places, I’d love to stay there forever, because nobody’s around – only you, the mountain, the bird-people, the trees, and some small source of water. Now it’s completely different.
At that time, my finances were limited, our food supply and clothing, everything was limited then. But I was the happiest. Now I could have anything I want. I could have things sent to me if I want. But I don’t enjoy that much anymore. And I eat very simple, even just brown rice, sesame, salt. And if some vegetables, then it should be those no-pain kinds. And if fruit, then just melons, cucumber – that’s it. No more of those normal foods that humans usually consume. No oranges, no apples.
I don’t even buy juice because it would take a lot of work outside there to make juice. So I just eat melons directly, if I have any. And even the skin of the melons, I made into pickles, so I have vegetables as well. If I want to, I can eat them for freshness. You just put water, salt, vinegar, and a little sugar. And the peel, you cut into small pieces and put into a jar or a glass container, and you leave it in the fridge for three, four days; or for up to a week even, you can eat them – fresh, very nice.
So we don’t need to make a lot of landfill garbage. And also, the peels are very nutritious – more nutritious than the flesh inside of the melons. Because when you eat melons, you can make the peels into a vegetable pickle, and that is quite a lot of food already. If it’s convenient, then you can buy these melons, eat the flesh inside, and use the peels to make pickles as your daily vegetable. It’s a lot, so I don’t have to buy a lot of things. That is quite luxurious already. And life can be more contented that way. You don’t have to do a lot of washing or cooking or produce a lot of garbage. Because nowadays, people sell you things for delivery that are already packed in plastic bag, small or big. And that produces a lot of garbage in the end.
Because I guess it’s still the pandemic risk, and many other risks of illnesses, like even bird flu nowadays is spreading all over already, and many other strange sicknesses or old sicknesses are revisiting. So people, when they deliver, would wrap things. They sterilize the vegetables, and then they wrap them in plastic to keep them hygienic for you. So in this kind of situation, we produce too much garbage for the landfills and the environment, and choke the waterways and contaminate the rivers – all kinds of water everywhere. Nowadays, a lot of water sources are contaminated with forever chemicals, microplastics, and all kinds of harmful things. The water is not as pure as before, as in the Buddha’s time. But even in the Buddha’s time, the monks were already advised to use cloth to filter the water so that any worms or insects would not die in the cooking process.
And even if the monks drank some milk at that time, the milk was humanely made. You know that. Some rich humans had cow-, ox- or sheep-people, and they just milked them with their hands. Very gentle, and just enough to use for their family or a little bit for the village. Not like how we produce en masse nowadays with all kinds of machines hooked up to the poor cow-people’s breasts, sucking all the milk out, and we snatch away their babies. Even eat their babies!
Oh my God, there’s no end to our violence. I don’t know how most people’s hearts can bear to eat all this if they really know how the (animal-people) meat is made and from what. They just see the package. They cannot picture the cow-people suffering, struggling, kicking while being murdered or having their throat cut, or the babies being separated from the mothers, crying all the way and going to be chopped to be your veal. And all the fish-people jumping, gasping for breath in the net, or being caught alive, kept alive, and having their heads chopped, to be eaten while still alive. Oh my God. You know, many other things like that. And the crab- and lobster-people screaming when people throw them in the boiling water to be cooked alive, and all the shrimp-people still jumping while being cooked. Talking about that, it is terrible for the heart. I don’t want to. I don’t want to, but I have to remind people that these are the facts. The truth is like that; the truth is, the flesh, the meat that you stuff into your mouth, comes from tremendous suffering and pain of the innocent beings who have done no harm to you. Talking about all this is really heart-wrenching.
Yesterday, I could not bear it – seeing so much suffering, physically and non-physically. You can see it in your mind even if you don’t watch TV because your soul is free. You can roam around and look everywhere you want. Sometimes I have to shut it all down, otherwise, I can’t live. Yesterday, I was in so much pain and suffering seeing too much sorrow in the world. I normally don’t pray to God for anything for myself. But yesterday I had to. I had to kneel down and say, “Please, please, just for my sake, please, stop all this. Don’t punish me with all this suffering that I have to see, I have to feel, I have to know.” It was terrible. I cannot bear it.
But, you see, we are the ones who create all this. We are the masters that could stop all this. So, I’m just begging all of the people in the world: Please be kind to yourself. Because if you really, truly, want to be kind to yourself, then be kind to all others. Stop all the suffering for the animal-people and for the humans in the wars. And that is how you are kind to yourself. That’s how you are planning a beautiful life for now and the future and for all others around you – for all your children, grandchildren, great-great- great-grandchildren, for further generations from your clan, your family. Please be kind to yourself.
I’m sorry to have told you all this. I just talk as it goes, whatever comes. I don’t write down anything. I don’t have any people who write for me. I don’t have anyone for a teleprompter or notes or anything at all. I’m talking only into recording devices. I use two in case one doesn’t work or I might have forgotten to record on one. It did happen also sometimes, so I use two in case one is not working and the other is picking it up.
Photo Caption: Each Existence Has Its Own Time! Make the Best of It.
