So, it is not like you can just repeat or learn from somebody else, second- or third-hand from the Buddha – that means produced from the Buddha’s teaching – and then you can be enlightened. It has to be a living Teacher. And many other monks also, like Ānanda and other persons – They had to be under the Buddha’s merciful Guidance, with tremendous Power from within the Buddha Himself.
In many scriptures of the religions, they all mention that you must find a living Master, a living Buddha, but many people just brush by it, and they don’t really pay attention to it. And they also don’t know where to find the Master and what kind of Master that will be. How could they even test to know if the Master is good or not? It’s not like you go into the store, and then you can try some clothes on and know that it fits you. It’s harder.
If the Master has teachings printed into a book or something, then maybe you can read it first, and then you will know that the Master is good for you. Or if you have enough fortune and/or a little purity and sensitivity, then you might see the Master in the inner realm of Heaven, of the liberated Realm, and see the Master doing this and that and rescuing other people – with your spiritual eyes, in your inner vision – then you know this Master is truly a Master. Or in His/[Her] Presence at the initiation, you can see the inner Light within from Heaven or you can hear the melodious Voice of God – the inner Heavenly Sound or Vibration we call it. Then, of course, you’re happy and you will cleanse all your karma the day that you are fully initiated. Your karma begins to leave you because positive and negative cannot mix into one.
So you see, after being the Buddha’s disciple and being taught by Him already to meditate or maybe this Quan Yin Method, He, Mahākāśyapa, still continued to eat once a day and live the way He did before with the 13 virtues, 13 disciplines of asceticism. But it’s not because He was an ascetic or ate once a day that made Him become an Arahant. No. Even if you eat three meals a day, you can still become an Arahant if you meet the Buddha, a great Buddha, like Shakyamuni Buddha. And if you don’t eat fish-people on Friday or you eat animal-people meat instead or you don’t pray a lot, or you never knew what spiritual practice was before, but if you meet a great Master, like Lord Jesus, then, of course, you will be enlightened, and you will reach your own Sainthood after – depends on how little karma you have already, and how is your purity, how is your sincerity, which will lead you forward and upward.
Many monks of Shakyamuni Buddha at that time ate once a day and maybe drank some fruit or vegetable juice in the afternoon. The Buddha allowed that. But it doesn’t mean because they ate once a day or they went out begging, that’s why they became Buddha. No, no. It was because they had a Great Master – the Buddha, the living Master – who imparted to them a good spiritual practice of meditation. It’s not that you force yourself into asceticism, then you become Buddha – it’s not like that. Whether you do or not do asceticism, you still can become a Saint if you have a Master who imparts to you the right Way. Because He/[She] doesn’t just impart to you the right Way, or even a mantra, but He/[She] imparts to you also His/[Her] Energy to support you, to uplift you, just like a blood transfusion, until you become well on your own – which, in this Dharma-ending time, is rather more difficult than in the Buddha’s time. But we can make it, and we have made it up to now; we still can continue to make it. And we will not leave the suffering people or beings as long as we’re still alive. We try, even though it’s hard, it’s heavy karma, and there’s all kinds of restrictions and limitations.
For example, how I live my life now, it’s like imprisonment. I can’t even walk out, go away even just a few hundred meters for a walk or anything like that. Even if I want to take some photographs, I have to see that maybe that place is empty, the garden has nobody looking, or take just some steps away from the door when it’s a quiet time, and the whole area is empty. And then when I come back, I have to pay for it spiritually. I have to make it up more, meditate much longer. But then, it’s quite busy sometimes. The Supreme Master Television additional work is, oh my God – sometimes it feels like forever. From yesterday morning until now, I haven’t closed my eyes because of too much work on Supreme Master Television for me alone. And I’m not very good with computers or high-tech or anything. So in order to find some English word that I have forgotten how to write correctly or to know the meaning of it, it takes me a long time. I have to take out a dictionary and look all over for it. And sometimes that dictionary doesn’t have it. I have only one with me; I can’t just carry everything when I’m on the run.
Sometimes, if I’m on the run for safety reasons, I have only one pair of clothes on my body and the handbag. Nothing else. Everything else, I maybe have to ask somebody to send later, or go without, or buy it on the road. So I can’t have a lot of dictionaries with me. I have 25 volumes of English dictionaries, very thick books. Each one of them weighs at least a kilo and is very thick and very big. But I can’t just take them everywhere with me. I took them sometimes before to different countries, but I can’t afford to anymore. That was those times when I still lived with people. I still came out and saw you in retreat, or saw you daily when you visited. But now, I’m just in “house arrest,” volunteer house arrest – can’t go anywhere, can’t do much. I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you some corner of my life, because you wanted to know.
You see, whoever you want to be your Master should have a lineage of transmission of Power. And if you’re lucky, you’ll find a Master, even if He’s a monk, or She is not a nun, but She has the lineage of enlightenment within Her Being, from Her Master, then you might be able to see Her real Master, or His own Master; or maybe He Himself is a Master.
The lineage of enlightenment doesn’t always stay in one religious order. It could run to another type of religion, which you think is a different religion, but it’s not like that. It’s not like you have different religion. Just like how Shakyamuni Buddha was an enlightened Master, great enlightened Master, and He transmitted His spiritual lineage to His close Disciples. And these close Disciples branched out and taught others, whoever came to Them in Their time. And there was even ten of Them, and They took turns. Or maybe They had only one leader of monks at the time who did all the transmission/initiations. And later when that monk passed away and went to Nirvana, then the next one would continue as a successor. And the next one, next one, all the way from the Buddha until Rāhula. Rāhula is His son, the Tenth Successor. We don’t know where that lineage, where that spiritual bloodline has gone to.
For example, when the Buddha was alive, He initiated people of many different religious backgrounds. So He probably had Brahmin disciples, and/or Muslim disciples or any other old traditional religion, but they became Buddha’s disciples. But as the Buddha was not like a dictator, He let any of His disciples continue to follow their religion. Just like in our initiation condition, I say that you continue to follow your religion and do whatever you do with the ritual of your religion. You don’t have to change anything.
Photo Caption: Enjoy the Reminder of Heavens. But Try to Find Heavens
