A few centuries ago, there was a king. He was really lousy – very dictatorial and self-centered, very lousy. He disliked an official because of his straightforward manner. He was a righteous man, and he often advised the king to do good. So the king hated him. One day, the king couldn’t tolerate him anymore. Many government officials got on a dragon boat to have fun and enjoy themselves on the dragon boat lake. […] Finally, the king could not bear it. He said, “I heard that you are well-educated, so you should know this. What must one do to be a good citizen?” He replied, “We must be loyal to the king and patriotic to the country. That is common knowledge. You don’t need to be well-educated to know that.”
The king hated him even more, so he said, “If you are loyal to the king, if the king asks you to die, you would go and die? Is that right?” The king set a trap for him. The loyal official immediately said, “Yes, yes, Your Majesty. Yes.” Then the king said, “OK, now I order you to die. Jump into the water now and die.” He jumped in immediately. […] Then they threw fake flowers, plastic flowers, into the water to bid him farewell. He seemed to have heard everyone’s sorrowful crying and came out of the water again. He didn’t want to die, so he resurfaced and went ashore, totally drenched, like a wet bird-person.
The king said, “Huh? You didn’t die?” He said, “Yes, I did. When I was down there, I met Qu Yuan.” The king asked, “How did you meet him down there?” He said, “He drowned there, so all waterbodies belong to him now. His soul is wandering around. He saw me go down and immediately came to me. He even chatted with me and told me to come up.” So the king said, “Why did he say that? I ordered you to die. Why did he tell you to come up?” The official said, “Qu Yuan scolded me a lot. He told me I was a fool. Because in his lifetime, he encountered a bad king, so he had to die. Now I have a good king, so why should I end my life? I thought he was right, so I couldn’t die, and I came back.”
Did you hear that? (Yes.) That’s better, OK? If he had died, I would have beaten him up! I wouldn’t liberate him. That is a true story, a story from Âu Lạc (Vietnam). It looks like the Aulacese (Vietnamese) official was a bit smarter. They were better at protecting themselves. They knew how to advise the king better, they shouldn’t use that kind of very serious methods. In the whole world, if you cannot convince one single king, why do you need to die? Maybe if you wait a bit longer, that king will die. After the king dies, you will serve another king. Save your talent, wisdom and intelligence to serve the whole country, not just one king. If He is a good King, we should serve and respect Him and contribute our talent completely to Him. If He is not, we should preserve the talent and wisdom that God gave us, right?
God gave us the talent and wisdom, not to the King, but to us, for us to serve the whole country, the whole world. Not for the King. If the King doesn’t know how to use us, we can wait and find someone else later. Our goal is to serve the country, serve the people. Bring people happiness, not to serve a king and then let Him praise us for it. For example, we have a very… very pretty peacock(-person) and we force her to marry a toad(-person). The toad(-person) doesn’t like the peacock(-person) and doesn’t want to marry her. Then are we going to feel hurt, and then kill the peacock(-person)? Will we? (No.) That would be very silly. So when we do anything, even the right thing, if we do it at a wrong time or in a wrong occasion, it would be useless. This is wisdom.
If you think you are smart and just rush into anything, that is no good. Like recently, there is a kid’s movie called “Lion King.” Do you know it? Have you seen it? (Yes.) This is a good movie. What do you call it in Chinese? (Lion King.) Lion King. Did you watch this movie? (Yes.) OK. In the movie, the young lion(-person) wanted to emulate his father, to act bravely. But he almost died and killed his father. Of course, he didn’t kill his father himself, nor did the father die because of him, but the root cause was that. He didn’t listen to his father, then other things happened. One incident led to another. If it was not for the first incident, the second one wouldn’t have occurred, and then his uncle could not have deceived him. If only he had listened to his father. He was learning bravery at the wrong time. What did his father tell him? “I’m only brave when I have to be.” That is true bravery.
Same here, when we first practice, we are in a hurry. Some people haven’t practiced well and can’t meditate for long, yet they go out and boast randomly. People would feel disgusted. This is not the right way to spread the Dharma (True Teaching). The most important thing is to purify our body, speech and mind, and fulfill our duty. After we have practiced well, people will follow us even if we don’t speak a word. Do you think everywhere I go, I tell people to immediately become vegan and keep the Five Precepts, otherwise they’d die? (No.) No, everywhere I go I try hard to hide. So sometimes I go outside, wearing ordinary clothes, or dressed prettily like everyone else, wandering around. However, hundreds and thousands of people crowd behind me! They don’t know who I am, but they just crowd around to see me. Sometimes, as soon as I got out from the car, thousands of cameras were waiting. They kept coming close to take pictures; I was scared. Everywhere I go, I carry an umbrella so I can hide behind it immediately.
This is a true story. You can ask people like Kuo and Tong. They all know. They even hid behind me. Good guards. I said, “This has nothing to do with you. Why are you hiding? Shouldn’t you protect me?” He said, “We don’t know what to do?” There’re too many people, for example like that. At that time, we don’t need to lecture. It’s the same when you come here. You don’t come here just to hear me talk. Sometimes you just see me for an hour or half an hour. Then you meditate over there. You do your own thing. I don’t accompany you the whole day, I don’t do that. But you still come back. Why? Because there is something inside me. (Yes.)
Otherwise, there are so many people in the world, why look at this “silly” person? She is the same every day. Though sometimes wearing different clothes, but this is nothing. Everyone can buy clothes. And now She has designed so many clothes, whoever has money can buy them, then you’ll be just like Her, nothing different. I didn’t say that whatever I wear, you can’t wear, nothing of the sort. You like it. Whoever likes it can really buy it, no problem. There is a sale going on now. I told them to offer discounts for disciples. This way, people who don’t have a lot of money can afford it too. But we cannot offer too much discount on certain items, because the high-quality fabrics are sometimes very expensive. Not to mention the cost of designing, and the time I spent running around looking for the fabrics. That is tedious work too. There is a small discount, reduced price.
The story about cockfighting, do you remember it? The newly trained fighting rooster(-person), he wants to start a fight even before he sees someone coming. After prolonged training, just by seeing him standing there, all other rooster(-people) are already intimidated. They’d flee out of fear, so he doesn’t need to fight. We should practice to reach this level. We won’t need to say anything and everyone will like and follow us, and chase after us to ask questions. That’s when we’re good. Only when they seek us, then we answer. Otherwise, no. Don’t give people a hard sell. I have brought a few so-called attendants who came here to follow me. Sometimes they traveled with me. For example, after the fashion show, we passed through a place in France, Cote d’Azur, the place I mentioned yesterday. I took several of them with me.
I had told them that they should not show any trace of spiritual practice if they were to follow me. They should not talk to people about precepts, veganism, no alcohol, no meat, etc. You understand? If people asked, they should just say “This is my Boss.” That’s enough. Well, in the end they still revealed it inadvertently. They couldn’t help it. They were itchy here and there. I told them to stop it. If they didn’t call me “Big Sister,” they could just call me “Boss.” They were used to showing respect for me. If we said we were friends, people wouldn’t believe us. They wouldn’t believe that we were friends: “How could every friend treat Her like a King, or like a respected elder?” It was so obvious, so I told them to refer to me as “my Boss.” My Boss. That would be OK.
Well, in front of me, they called me Boss. Behind my back, they said, “I’ve already realized…” He was talking about himself, that he had already found his inner Self. He had transcended the transmigration cycle. He knew everything, the Kingdom of God inside, the hell below, the Saha world, Nirvana, and Heaven. All kinds of big words came out. Then my so-called new acquaintances, they just shook their heads and didn’t know what they were talking about. It was not yet time for them; these people were not ready to hear us talking about these things. If these people asked me, of course I would tell them. They didn’t ask, so I didn’t speak. They didn’t ask my attendant, but he forced them to listen to him. This is not the way to save sentient beings. Let him accept it naturally, if he really likes it, after knowing the basics, having learned the ABCs, then you can teach him to speak English. “How are you?” or “How is the weather?” It’s impossible to read Shakespeare or English poems to him in the beginning. He would not know what you are talking about.
But my attendants couldn’t help it; they were all very excited. It was a rare opportunity to save sentient beings. It was a rare chance to be a teacher, so they spewed everything out. Sometimes I didn’t have a chance to stop their talking. Because at that time I was… When I went outside, I didn’t want people to know who I was. What for? It was very difficult. When we were out in that kind of place, like those sightseeing spots, I can only show myself around for them to see. That’s enough, one glance is enough. If they followed me and kept looking at me, that means they had the affinity, the blessing. I couldn’t give a lecture and preach there, or talk about keeping precepts, the Five Precepts. Talking about irrelevant things there would scare people. He was there selling champagne, beer, or wine to earn money. And there you kept talking about no drinking alcohol, no gambling, no smoking.
And there I was, pretending everything was OK. Otherwise, they would have come over to question me, making me feel even more uncomfortable. I needed to rest for a few days. I didn’t want to give lectures there. And what lecture could you give in such a place? So sometimes, they invited me to drink champagne or something. You don’t have to explain to them the consequences of drinking alcohol. That was not the right time. At most, you just say you don’t drink. You don’t like it. You didn’t have to talk about the Five Precepts there. They wouldn’t understand what you were talking about at all. And reincarnation, cause and effect, blessings, karma, etc. Wow, talking a lot. It’s strange how you love to be teachers so much. It is good to love to be a teacher. Advising others to do good deeds is also good. Teaching others to practice spiritually, be vegan, and keep the Five Precepts is very good. But you should consider the place, the people, and the occasion. Besides, have you been practicing well? Will people have respect for what you say? Will they listen to you? I saw them talking all that, and people beside them were all shaking their heads, wondering what they were saying.
Afterward, he asked me, “That subordinate of yours there, something wrong with his brain?” He even asked me quietly, so I nodded and said, “Yeah. Yes. Just ignore him, he is like that.” What else could I say? But I added, “He is very nice, except that he is a little off in the head. He is really nice and very loyal. He is very cute and has a loving heart.” I just went along with that. If you follow me in the future and spontaneously start to show off, I will do the same and say that you are a blockhead. You really have to be a blockhead to behave like that. For example, that place was for tourists, dancing and singing, and it was very noisy. And you are there shouting to preach the Truth, as if on a battlefield. What for?
OK, it’s time. Go eat, and then rest. I will come again this afternoon or evening, or anytime, OK? I will let you rest for a while; you have sat for too long. One more question. It crossed my mind this morning. Is it too far for you men and women to return to the hills at the back? Is it very tiring? (No.) If not, then is it better to come back and meditate? Or is it too far away? Would you waste a lot of time going back and forth? (No.) Really? (Really.) Otherwise, you all can sleep here. I’m just afraid there’s not enough space. Because during the night you can sleep or meditate, whichever you like. Do you like that? OK, I have no problem with it. If you want, you may meditate or sleep here at night. Don’t bring too many things, or this place will become a warehouse.
Do you have too many things? (No.) How much? (A little.) How large? One sleeping bag? Three sets of clothes. This should be enough, except when I especially tell you to dress up beautifully. Because later we will have this… a banquet… Otherwise, you don’t need to. One set of beautiful clothes is not much. If it is too far away, and all of you squeeze in to sleep here, is it OK? Will there be any problem? You are saying there is still some space above, but is it enough? Enough to sit, but what about lying down? And what about the mosquitoes? Are there many mosquitoes during the night? (Yes.) Yes. How many per person? Did they bite you? I don’t see any mosquito bites on you. (Yes, it’s itchy.) No? (Yes.) How many? (Many.) How many mosquitoes? How many? You can donate blood, no problem. If it’s someone else I’d have more sympathy, but if it’s you then it’s no problem. Automatic blood donation system.
Photo Caption: Happy Plants Bring You Happy Mood
