You should also remember that in the old times, people had more time than now. I wonder why. In the old times, people had less facilities and they had to do everything manually. […] They just had enough food to eat, two meals, three meals a day and just a few clothes. They didn’t go anywhere, so they don’t have to show off their cleavage or their waist, 125 like mine. For example. So, there was no need for expensive clothes, for very glorious perfumes, or a very, very elaborate hairdo. And no need for cars either, because they didn’t need to go anywhere. They perhaps had less desire because they didn’t know what does the next city have to offer? They didn’t care. What they didn’t know, they didn’t bother with, they didn’t desire. Is that not so? (Yes.)
Nowadays, it’s not the poverty that makes people suffer because poverty exists from time immemorial. It’s not the poverty that is very disturbing nowadays anymore, but it is the richness of the neighbors that is disturbing. What you don’t have is not that disturbing. It’s what they have that disturbs you. Therefore, there is a joke that says a woman, she’s allergic to diamonds. Whenever she sees diamonds on another woman’s body, she felt sick. That’s the problem. Because the mind always compares. Whatever he doesn’t have and the neighbors have – that makes him sick. If he doesn’t have and the neighbor doesn’t have either, no problem.
Because we have illusions all the time. We think if all the rich people, their money comes to our pockets, then we’ll become as rich as them. But it’s not so, it’s not so, the theory. The theory may be like that, but the practice is not. Because if we sit there and eat the money, it doesn’t matter how big the bank is, even if it’s as high as Mount Sumi in India, you’ll still one day eat it all off, eat it all down, make it flat like the lake in Hsihu here. And maybe even dig a hole into the Earth with our eating and sitting.
So, God gives us equally the brain and the equipment of the same body. So everyone has the opportunity and has the duty to make themselves rich and comfortable, at least have enough and be comfortable. Not to take away somebody else’s possessions which maybe they worked very hard to earn or maybe their parents worked very hard to earn and left it to them. Or God has given it to them, or they have given it to themselves due to their own very meritorious deeds in the previous many lifetimes. So, if we want to be rich, it’s not to rob someone else of richness and give it to ourselves, but to work harder, to use our intelligence, to become wiser, more intelligent, to learn in every way possible to change our lives, and also to do more good deeds, more charitable acts, so that the merit will rebound back to us. If not this life, then perhaps next, or perhaps to our children.
Human nature is not so easy to control. Because they know. They know they have been “have” before, they have been the “have” before. So now, if you strip them off naked, they will try again to make the “have” again. And the intelligence, you cannot rob them from. And once the human has the intelligence, the talent to make business going, to earn money through business in investments, then they continue to do that in secret, in illegal means, or in any other worse ways possible to get back the “have” status for themselves. It is human nature to always strive for better and should not stand still or should not be contented with a worse situation.
God has made all this world rough and terrible so that we can make it right. Just like you go into a shop to buy painting colors and brushes. The paint, the oil colors, and the brushes are nothing to look at. But these are the tools you should use to make a beautiful picture for yourself to enjoy. And you enjoy doing it while it lasts still. Not only when it has finished and become a beautiful picture, but while you are doing the painting, you relax, you enjoy, and you’re happy, because your creativity has grown into something visible.
So similarly, do not blame God for the misery of this world. Do not blame God for the black pig(-person) that is not colorful. You just paint him. For example like that. So, if you are not satisfied with the life that you think God has put you in, then change. Try your best to change. And if even when you die, you haven’t changed anything, at least you died trying to change. Then maybe after you die, you’ll find your finished result in Heaven. Well, comfort yourself. Now, we can go on and on and on forever about this, about this creativity in the world. So you understand now.
Talking about creativity here, number thirty: “Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breast and assuming delicate configurations.” What is that? OK, let’s forget it. Yeah, that’s the easy way. OK? Number thirty-one… OK, let number thirty become your koan. Whoever can solve it, I’ll give you some (vegan) cookies.
Number thirty-one: “With intangible breath in center of the forehead,” my God, “as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death.” Well, I think Shiva is a very humorous Master. At least, He gives us some jokes, even though many thousands of years have passed. At least, He’s more funny than Jesus. Oops! I’m sorry. I mean somebody else. Wrong name spoken. I forgot that He’s still around (Christmas time). It’s only the 27th. 27th yet. It’s not yet New Year’s, so... Sorry, Guy. We just had Christmas a couple of days back. Oh, have some good laugh anyhow. Don’t be so serious. Alright, so I think we’ll just leave it and go to… go to number thirty-two. I think you all understand better than I thought. Let’s pretend that I also understood, so we don’t have to talk about it anymore, since we’re all done, through.
Now, number thirty-two: “As subjectively” – oh, You’re getting more complicated each day. I think I will leave Him altogether. Fancy staying in the Himalayas, so simple the abode, and talks so complicated like this! “As subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as objectively, circles flow into worlds, and worlds into principles, find yourself, at last, these converging in our being.” Oh, I wouldn’t like to have words and sentences all over my being. OK, never mind. If you understand that, you practice it, I don’t want anything to do with it. Oh, my God. He’s trying to be mysterious, so that we will think He’s great. Anybody who speaks something that people don’t understand, they always think, “Wow, that person is great.” At least we have some good laughs, huh? (Yes.)
Number thirty-three: “Gracious One, play, the Universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.” Oh, that we understood. That is OK. Well, if we could have a Universe as an empty shell, it’s not bad. It’s big enough for us to frolic around. Do you understand or not? No? It’s so easy. Now, just think the Universe is an empty shell. Is that easy enough? (They don’t know how to frolic.) And then you run... (They don’t know how to frolic.) They know how to frolic? You show them. (We’re doing it now.) What? (This is frolicking.) Just run around laughing, joking, and playing football with Jesus, and dare the Buddha to play baseball, things like that, see how They react. I bet They don’t know how to play these. It’s a new invention of the Americans. Just play around in the Universe as your own house. An empty house, an empty shell, and you run around in it. Do anything you want. Let yourself wander and see whatever's in it. It’s all empty anyhow. It’s very easy.
Number thirty-four: “Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides of the material.” For example, this is a bowl that you eat the rice from. And don’t see the sides of the bowl. That’s easy enough? Yes. “In a few moments, then you become aware.” Aware of what, I don’t know. It just says “become aware.” Aware of the bowl. Of the rice inside that it doesn’t spill out because the bowl is without the brim. So you be aware of the rice, then it doesn’t fall out. Otherwise, you have nothing to eat. That’s a very important practice here in Hsihu, especially on retreats and Sundays when many thousands of people have their bowls empty and look at yours. Because the kitchen team, sometimes they cannot cook, they don’t know how much is enough. It depends. The cooking team varies, it’s different every weekend. So sometimes people are generous, they cook a lot. And other people say, “Enough, enough!”
I know a nun here, she always recites the same “mantra” every weekend over and over again, “Enough, enough.” So, I taught her another “mantra” to cure her “sickness.” But she always, because of karma’s habitual thinking, recites the same “mantra,” “Enough, enough.” So I asked her to go onto a retreat and practice that “method” for herself. Otherwise, every weekend, people don’t have enough food. And I don’t like people to come to my house and eat, and are only half-filled. Alright? (Yes.) And she doesn’t change. She’s too old to change. Some people are pretty old in their habit; they just don’t change. It’s not that they are bad or they are against you or that they are not willing to change. They're just too old to change. That’s why many in the Catholic order or Christian order, they don’t receive people above 30. Because it’s harder to train people after they are set in any pattern of habit or way of life. Capiche? (Yes.)
Photo Caption: “Welcome to the Wild Beauty in the Wilderness”
