Really treasure your time and your opportunity, your wealth, your house, your happiness. Not because you need, not because we’re greedy for these things, but your house, your wealth afford you to have a good safe place to meditate, afford you to come here to see me sometimes, to ease your longing, and maybe to take home something that you need. Maybe my words, maybe my love, maybe something that we cannot prove. Take home something. So, if you don’t have wealth, then it’s not good, is it? Right? (Yeah.)
So, it’s not to look down upon money or wealth, position, or your comfort in life. Treasure it, appreciate it. Without them, we won’t die, of course. It’s just less convenient, less comfortable; that’s all. So, if you can afford it, you have wealth, you have health, you have a good home, happiness at home, then you are very lucky people. But just use it, use it for your own advantage; not cling to it, because it will be your master, then you will be in trouble, you will not be free. To free yourself; only that.
But everything is good for you, everything in this world is good, if we know how to use it. Like a car, you must know how to control it; otherwise, it will be harmful to you and other people. And like electricity, you must know how to channel it, to install it; otherwise, it will shock you and may kill you or others.
Everything in life is good for you. I’m not saying, “OK, we’re practitioners, we don’t need anything.” It’s for sure. We don’t need anything inside; inside you put down. You don’t care, inside only, but outside you still need. Don’t think, “Master lives in a cave. I’ll also go live in a cave.” That doesn’t make you become a Buddha. It just makes trouble for you; you are not used to it. The cave’s leaking; you don’t know how to do it, and you might not be healthy. I live there because, I don’t know, I just like it there. Not because I copy you, or because that makes me become a Buddha. It’s not like that. It’s just the situation here, or situation there. Like before in Hsihu, we could not build anything, so we just made caves. Because a cave is legal, it’s OK. …
Not because I make a cave, so that I become a Buddha, or I become like an ascetic practitioner; it’s not. You just live according to your means, according to your situation, then you’ll have peace. Don’t try to force things, don’t try to be too much extraordinary, and then you will have no willpower anymore to deal with so many challenges in life. Just let it all be. I live in a cave here because it’s more far away, more isolated for me. And, so I don’t need to ask the disciples to build a house for me. …
So, do not do what I do if you cannot; don’t do that. Don’t abandon your family or girlfriend/boyfriend, or husband/wife for me, because I did that. It’s not necessary. You put down inside your heart. Not everybody has affinity to be a monk or nun. And not everybody can be a monk as a monk.
