Except when you’re a Master, then it’s difficult. Everything you do, you have to do it for others’ sake. Just like Lord Mahavira had to starve for five months and a half almost, in order to help women to be liberated, I mean, to start a period of women’s liberation out of slavery, like the princess. It’s just a symbol.
So, He broke His fast here, Lord Mahavira. “The next moment, Chandana’s shackles broke into pieces.” Divine drums and all that, singing everywhere from the Divine realm. “Flowers, fragrant water, and perfumes showered from the sky, and the courtyard of Dhanavah was filled with heaps of gems.” Jewelry, diamond stuff. Wow! That should happen to us here.
Actually, sometimes you smell some fragrance inside our hall, or when you meditate, or when Master is nearby, something like that, it is because Heaven also showers us with perfume. It’s just not many people can smell it. Not everybody in the crowd smells this. Some people have their wisdom eye open, they can smell and then recount it for us. Just like sometimes, the Buddha talked and gave speeches, lectures, and then many of the heavenly beings came and listened to Him, and sat with people, but not many people saw that. Ananda, even though he was so versed in memory, he didn’t often see this. He had to listen to other people tell him the experience. That’s why, in the book of the Buddha’s sutras, it always says, “Thus I have heard.” He heard only, and then he recorded it. Not, “Thus I have seen in my vision. I’ve heard inside.” No. Not until after the Buddha’s Nirvana that Ananda became enlightened. Maybe that was the first time he saw the (Heavenly) Light inside or heard the (Heavenly) Sound inside. That’s the thing. So sometimes, you smell the sandalwood perfume or anything like that, the flower, that is because the heavenly beings shower it on us, but not everybody smells that. One of your sisters, she passed away already, from Hualien. Actually, she should have passed away a long time ago, but after the Quan Yin Method she kept living on, for decades. Blood cancer, but she kept living on for decades. She was a little skinny though. And she was one of the most devoted Taiwanese (Formosan) disciples that I know. She meditated a lot. And sometimes, she meditated, and Kṣitigarbha Buddha would come and give her something and it stayed there even after she woke up. He gave her a round jewel and it was still in her hand when she awoke out of samadhi. She still had it, for example.
“Her beauty had magnified a thousand-fold” even. She was already so beautiful. And now, after she had been harassed, punished, and tortured, all her karma – past karma or this present karma, whatever she did, or however the maya arranged it – it was falling away, so she became a thousand times more beautiful. Believe that or not, she was already so beautiful. And plus, she had offered this special meal to Lord Mahavira. To offer to a Saint, enlightened Saint, or not too enlightened Saint even, with your pure heart, you have merit, oh, immense already. Not to talk about offering to Lord Mahavira, who was a super-Saint at that time already. So, of course, her merit was just a thousand-fold more, so she became more beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful. Maybe not a thousand times more beautiful. I don't know how beauty can manifest a thousand-fold more, but it’s just kind of saying that she became radiantly more beautiful than ever before. “And gods and goddesses adorned Chandana with beautiful garments and ornaments.”
“This resolution of the period of penance of Lord Mahavira Swami may be deemed as the first step of the human endeavor for women’s liberation.” Maybe He had to go through that, so that women’s status would be more elevated in this world, not to talk about spiritual yet. So, more liberated, more respected, more free. Because in the old time, women could not go out of the house. In some countries nowadays, it’s still like that, cannot go out alone. People will look down upon you. You have to cover yourself or disguise yourself, whatever, or go out with somebody, or cannot go alone. You may be harassed or molested even. So they think Lord Mahavira had to endure all this in order to help human’s status to begin to step into a liberated kind of society. That was the story. There was another story, another ten dreams of Lord Mahavira. Next time. Next time, we’ll have it. Terrible, terrible. Next story is very bad, I’m warning you. If you’re scared, don’t come next week, in case I come out. I will try to make my calendar longer, so you can bear it. Terrible. What the humans all do to real practitioners, you have no idea. It’s terrifying.
It’s almost time for your dinner. (No.) How come my disciples and my dogs are the same? I mean in this respect. They never have enough of me. They’re never tired, they never want to go away. I need a rest sometimes. I do. But they don’t want to go. Sometimes they run back and forth. The attendant, the assistant comes and gets them, and sometimes they come back inside, back and forth, wagging tails, and then I say, “Go!” I have to be stern, like, “Go!” Otherwise, they don’t want to go. They keep looking back and stay there. I say, “We don’t have all day, just go.” And then a few minutes after, they eat and play and go out and then come back again, like new! They’ve never seen me for a hundred years! And then they don’t want to go out again. Oh man. OK, then.
Thank you, translators. Thank you. I was telling them the problem in Kaohsiung that I cannot stay. I would have liked to and bring you there to have warm weather, sunshine every day, but I got sick. Too sick, really. Every time I coughed, I almost like fainted because I coughed too long and too deep, like my blood all ran out. My body became empty and weak. I could not continue to do that. So, I said even if the maya arranged that I go there and get sick, I can avoid it. I can cheat him and not go. That’s what I’m saying.
It’s just like there is a show on our [Supreme Master] TV about near-death experience with Kimberly Clark. She had a near-death experience and during that time, she knew everything. She saw about her future, that she will go where, study, and meet what husband, and marry, and blah blah blah. She didn’t want any of that. She didn’t want a husband, nothing, so she didn’t marry. You can cheat. You can cheat destiny if you want to. If it’s only for yourself, it doesn’t matter. You can practice meditation and avoid it or not want it. You know it intuitively, even if you don’t see it as clearly as Ms. Kimberly Clark, but you can have intuition that you don’t want that, then you can cheat. Meditate more, cover it up.
Except when you’re a Master, then it’s difficult. Everything you do, you have to do it for others’ sake. Just like Lord Mahavira had to starve for five months and a half almost, in order to help women to be liberated, I mean, to start a period of women’s liberation out of slavery, like the princess. It’s just a symbol. She had been in shackles like that and then Lord Mahavira had to come and eat from her offering. And then even just coarse food like that. It was not real food even – bran, and rotten, stale – so that the women in this world would begin an era of liberation. It didn’t happen immediately, but it did happen slowly, slowly.
And nowadays, we have women presidents, women prime ministers, women ministers, a lot, a lot. Maybe president and prime minister, it’s less, but ministers, a lot, a lot, and women everywhere. Women, even drivers, truck drivers, women go to the moon, women go to space stations. Oh, women go anywhere! Before, it was unheard of. Before, it was not possible. Women were locked, closed behind the walls, high walls, didn’t go anywhere without accompaniment, like a brother, sister, or parents, or friend. And only now and then could go out. Normally, could not go out of these walls. You stayed within your parents’ house, within the four walls, the walls in the house already and the walls outside as a fence.
Many countries were like that before. In Âu Lạc (Vietnam), China, it was also like that. Before, they even bound the feet of the women to make them crippled, so that they couldn’t go far anywhere without help. So wicked, this world. Long time, not too long ago, a few hundred years ago, they bound the women’s feet until they were crippled, became small. And if your feet were big, you could not marry because you were not virtuous. You had to be crippled to be a virtuous woman. Oh God! I cry when I see all that stuff. Luckily, we don’t have this nowadays, anymore. Binding until the…Girl! When they were small girls, they already began binding them, and they cried and cried and cried, but the parents had to ignore them, because that was the tradition at that time, a fashion. And if her feet were not small, bound until crippled, small, on the feet like that, binding, binding until they became small and crippled, then she could not be married out, and she was a bad girl, something like that. Oh, my God!
What a wicked world we live in. Anything, not just hell punishes us or tortures us, we torture each other here already. Or in Africa, the woman’s organ has to be mutilated, otherwise, she is not a good girl and cannot marry. Really, when I read all that, I just could not bear. Not just torture animals, torture each other, for no reason! And what for the girl has to be married off anyway? Can she not just live alone and be free? And even blaming the girl if not married, then she’s not a good girl. For what? It’s proof of nothing, if you’re married or not. Right? (Yes.) OK, never mind. We’re not gossiping anymore. You go eat, I’ll go do something, I don’t know what. This is for the people outside, OK? For foreign initiates. The fruits are for foreign initiates, OK? The foreigners go eat in the kitchen. They have prepared for it.
How are the comrades? (We are fine, Master.) Âu Lạc (Vietnam)? (Yes, Master.) Why do you sit way over there? OK, where do you come from? (Âu Lạc (Vietnam).) I know, but where? (From Bảo Lộc.) Bảo Lộc? (Yes.) That far? (I am from Gia Lai. Pleiku City, Gia Lai province. Gia Lai. I am from Gia Lai.) Ah, Gia Lai in the highlands, right? (Yes.) How did you fly here from Bảo Lộc? You had to go to Sài Gòn in order to board a plane to come here, right? (Yes, I had to go to Sài Gòn.) Ah, you took the bus to Sài Gòn, then boarded the plane to come here.
I’ll take this off to let everyone see for a while. It’s because I need to protect my eyes. They don’t have lighter shades, only the very dark ones. It’s winter now; it is not necessary. Earlier, there was a lot of sunshine. OK, very good. Today, you occupy over here. Wonderful! Goodbye. (Goodbye, Master.) It’s not very cold. I’m very strong. It’s fine, not that cold. (Getting cooler at sunset.) Now it’s just a little bit cold, not like in the Himalayas. I have to go. Take a few more looks. OK, it’s too cold. Don’t stand here for too long. (Hallo, Master.) Hallo. How are you? Sorry, I won’t eat there today, OK? (OK.) If I want, I’ll get a lunch box. Understand? Thank you. (Yes.) I have to go back to work. A lot of work, too much. Thank you. Have you been working in the kitchen? Didn’t you go inside to listen? (No.) I’m sorry. Next time. Taiwanese (Formosan), our own people. It’s all right. You can see me any time. Next time, OK? Bye-bye. Thank you. (Thank You.)
