Lectures

 Strength of Faith


     Do you have fun practicing here? Your halos are bright now, but I wonder how long you can keep them! When you apply yourselves to practicing, your body will be covered around with the halo emitting from your sincere heart.

     In the ancient times, any sages who practiced with the Buddha walking out of the place where he had met and had been blessed by the Buddha had the natural surrounding halo of lights. The lights of each person will be different from each other depending on his merits, fortune and spiritual level of practice. They are the inner experiences that the sages recalled and they are drawn again by the painters. That’s why we can see the painting of the Buddha with the halos around now.

     Actually, everybody of us has the halos all. However, people nowadays look outward to the physical world so much instead of looking into the spiritual aspect. Then the layers of ignorance of the mind created from the ambition, the greed, the hatred, the delusion, the old-fashioned prejudice, the jealousy and the envy of our human will block the halos away and do not to release them out. Our human beings always look at these things until they forget to look at the inside of themselves. For that reason, if the human beings are unbound from these layers of ignorance, the halos will then glow again automatically.

     Like when you turn the power on, the whole house will be brightened. But if you close all the door and windows and pull back all the curtains, you cannot see anything from outside. The house is just a shell created by the cements, sands, stones. When you draw the curtains out of the windows, you will see the whole bright light again emitting from inside of the house. Similarly, inside of our human beings has brilliant lights already, but because you cover the wisdom eyes yourselves that you can only see the darkness. When your minds are relax and no longer apparent by the prejudices, then your inner Lights will emit naturally, but not receive from anyone else. So, you should open your minds and your noble hearts to embrace the sublime greatness of the universe coming to you.

     A living Master is the infinite Light which will illuminate automatically to wherever he goes. As long as the He is still alive in a physical world, the Light will always exist constantly in every corner of the world. Like when the sun comes out, all the darkness is dissipated. There are some places that the light cannot reach to due to the karma in that area. But the Light is still exist there without going anywhere else until the karma is cleaned completely, the Light will reach that place anyway. Those who are ready to receive that source of light will become enlightened.

     A Living Master is the Ocean of Love, the Compassion, the source of life, the breath of all beings, the Light Power existing in the every sentient beings to nourish them and drive back all the darkness and ignorance in them.
A Living Master ishighly respected in India. His eyes have the power like a thousands of gathered spotlights. Wherever his eyesight can reach, the Power his Light and love will come there too and wash away all the superficial karma and bring there a new peaceful air. His Hands will clean the Karmas away when he touches something. He will release from the pains and misfortune for any beings he met wherever he goes to.

     The Monks and nuns who stay with a Living Master too long sometimes cannot bear these Powers because they cannot digest them well. But those who meditate well and have pure and gentle mind can stay close to the Living Master. You should not let your mind in trouble, questioning like: “I should be like this, like that”. Then you will be affected by your ego and are deadlocked by yourself. The practitioners had better get rid of their mind of ego to lead innocent lives.

     As in Vietnam, those who live in remote rural areas do not know how to talk sensitively. For example, when meeting a girl in the early morning with her tired, listless face due to her sleeplessness last night, they said: "Your face look like a bad luck today " while they can I use other more subtle ways to greet her like: "You look so tired today, it seems you are not well , don’t you?...".

     In the past, When I was 16 years old and I was in the same high school with a young girl from Vietnam who was about at my age. She looked very beautiful, gentle, quiet, dignified like an East Asian girls. Every morning, she met and greeted me very gently. Most of the schoolgirls at my school respected me so much because they know that I was a spiritual practitioner and kept the vegetarian diet..

     One day, I got to sit next to her desk in the school cafeteria at lunch time but she did not realize me. She sat talking with her ​​classmates  with extremely coarse words while sitting with one leg on a chair  and then picking her nose like a gangland. I could not imagine such a beautiful and gentle girl could say the gruff words and have such uncouth action that made me shock. The Vietnamese have the idoms :" Don't judge a book by its cover " .
You cannot judge people from their appearance only. When you watch the drama, you feel that the actors/actress play a part of a beautiful, vivacious, funny character but behind the stage they may have a sorrowful life being full of tears. When completed the drama, they have to return to their real lives.

     You never see through the real lives of all beings. But I use wisdom eyes to see through you. So if you have any problems in your practicing, I will give you the prompt advices. There are some people who sometimes do not listen to me because they still see some good things remaining in front of their eyes. But they cannot see what will happen behind a wall.
Let me tell you a story about the faith.

     There was a Master going to a village and know that this village will suffer from a disaster. So he told everyone in the village that: "I know this village is about to encounter a disaster. Believe me !... "

     Villagers asked: “Who are you? Where do you come from? Why should we believe you?”

     The Master replied: “I do not force you to believe me, but if you do believe me, it means that you believe in yourselves.”

     People asked: “If we believe in you, what should we do?”

     The Master replied: “You do not need to do anything except to believe that I'm a Living Master, then you will be saved. If anything happen to you, then you just say: "I believe in the Living Master". Then you will live in peace and happiness naturally.”
     
     Seeing that many people are still in doubt, he said: “The faith is costless and I do not need anything from you. That you just believe that I am a Living Master who could save your lives is enough. I just give you the confidence. You had better to receive it because this is a valuable method and a power that help to secure your lives.”

     When he came there at the third time and see that many people are still in doubt. They said: “You look like the other Masters in the world. So why should we believe you?”

     The Master said: "Having a belief for yourselves is good and doesn’t harm you anything. Because the village will be attacked with an epidemic by witchcraft and so it will kill a lot of your lives. (The wizard used magic to kill people to appropriate the human’s energy to practice black magic). If anyone believes in my advice, his life will be saved. "And he walked away after speaking out.
A few days later, it happened as what the Master had said before. A hurricane stroked the village and took many lives in the village. When the hurricanes went away, those who believed in the Master were still alive and healthy. They came out looking at their neighbors and see many sick people and deaths. But they do not know why?!
After sometimes, the Master came back and saw that the village was ruined. Those who didn’t believe in Master lost their children from the epidemic. But those who have their parents or children believed in Master remained in safe and peace.

     The belief in Buddha or a Living Master is costless and what you need is just earnestly believe an enlightened Master capable of saving you and it’s the only thing that will work.
The belief is a power which can treat many diseases. When you believe in a Living Master, your lusts will shatter automatically. The door getting into your mind is opened to be corresponding to the Master Power. So there is saying: “like knows like”. This is not mystical or superstitious at all. You can say that the power is from the Living Master or from the Inner Wisdom. But whether you accept or reject this concept, the power is actually within yourself by nature. I also advise people that we should believe that there is a real Living Master or a Living Buddha who is capable of salvation- That is true.
Today I will tell you my own experiences with a Buddha statue.

     One day, I went to a temple in India located on the Ganges. The scenery is incredibly beautiful with sparkling and gentle water leisurely drifting downstream. Looking far away is the Himalayan range extending endlessly with white snow. I sat hugging the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha (this statue was gifted to be by a Thai monk) to reflect upon my spiritual life of 20 years hardly seeking for the truth, suffering countless hardships in crude and ignorant life of a human, turning at my last shift without strength to struggle any more. Then I recalled my time spending through many sufferings in practicing as monk and then leading marriage life with my wife and children in wealth and fame ...So many stories with different feelings and emotions mixing together causing me exhausted and depressed. My mind is incredibly sad because even I have practiced for many years but I still did not get enlightened, still feel so sorrowful.

     I sat on a rock at the Ganges holding the Buddha statue in front and thought: "The Shakyamuni Buddha was a great Master. He was a flawless, a prince having full of glory, wealth, and fame but he still abandoned his throne to seek for his liberation. And he did it successfully but why I could not do so. I am neither a prince nor have such high rank as him, but for the money, I can also afford more than my whole lifetime. "
I confined in Buddha statue and put my faith in the Buddha. I lamented myself, blame myself, comforted myself and then say a prayer: "Today, I put all my faith in the prayer. If the Buddha is really sacred, really exists in the space and in every human’s spirit. And if you are the compassion, the living source of human beings, then please prove to let me know. Now I will throw this statue into the water. If my strong belief is true as so, the statue will float on the surface, flow back upstream to me. Then I will continue to practice in the rest of my lifetime and bring all my practicing to devote to humanity no matter how much sufferings or pains I have. But If the Buddha statue did not rise up, then I will be sunk in the realm of a human life, continue to be an ignorant person.

     Then I threw the statue into the water, immediately the statue sunk to the bottom. I sat lonely and feel nothing left to hope for. At that time, I still had robes and a bowl in my bag that I had kept for twenty years. I thought if the Buddha statue didn’t rise up, then I would throw these stuffs away and return to the normal human life. But there was an unimaginable miracle happened, I saw at my naked eyes that the Buddha statue emerged from the water. A breeze kept rotating the statue which was covered by silvery-white light as pure crystal gem. The Buddha statue slowly flow upstream coming to me. Now there was an inevitable surprise of my mind but I knew that it was true and I had to believe it. And this is the only thing that I bet between life and death in my life.

     Then I picked up the Buddha statue putting it in my hands and close your eyes to meditate. Since then, all the mystery of the Universe came to me. All the sorrow in my heart was faded out. My mind was empty like a gentle curtain of Light falling into place like no bottom without any attachment at all and was very happy. I retreated immediately there without eating except drinking water of the Ganges and bathing only and I continued to meditate continuously for fifty-nine days.

     I used to crave for liberation of doubts of the mind but I could not do because of insufficient faith. Even I believed that there is Buddha inside of ourselves but the mind is still disturbing. When you put all your faith into the Buddha, the Buddha nature within yourselves will manifest themselves which you can call that is the Enlightenment or epiphany of Buddha. Then you will also know that inside of the human being is the infinite Light.
The Faith is the Power of Love, of Compassion, which will lift us up as a bird flying in the sky or as a cloud gently gliding through the mountains and that help us forget difficulties in our lives.

     My own experience is a rare thing that human beings hardly believe in it. You should just pour the preoccupation out of your mind in order to be enlightened and get the glory inside. At that time, the whole universe will applaud you. What I can do, and so will you as well. It is whether you want to let go off your mind or not. If you still hold the attachment on your mind, you cannot advance on your spiritual elevation.

     It’s similar to be unable to fill a bottle with water if it is full already. If you pour out half of the water and then refill the bottle, It is also mixed because of two different kinds of water in there. If your mind is not completely empty, even the essence of the universe sent to you from the Buddha would be mixed with the impureness of the physical world. You must let go of all the negativity in the human world to contain the light, the compassion of the Buddha. Then you will see the noble in your heart and see what the Buddha look like. Even you could throw the whole mountain down to the Ganges, or you could turn it to as small as your finger.

     People make mistakes themselves by holding the prejudices to be the burden in their minds. This is my own experience rather than mystical thing at all. You will see the true self of the human beings that many meditation practitioners have mentioned: "All living beings have the great Buddha nature, Heaven, or God nature within themselves...".

     All I say to you is not from the scriptures but from the real book of my life. You just lead a normal life when practicing. Because the human beings attach so much to their ambitions causing them a lot of sufferings which cannot make them live peacefully as I do. You must go to the realm of death to find the true joy of life.

     Nothing makes you as happy as having a glass of water and a bowl of rice when you're hungry. If you want to eat more, you have to wait for your stomach to digest the old foods completely so that you can taste better with the new foods. It’s the same to spirituality too. If you want the full inspiration of the Grace and power of God, you have to push all the memories of sorrow and the negativity out of your minds then you will enjoy the new spiritual foods happily and completely. When you are at hunger and thirst for spiritual need, you will automatically dispose of all afflictions for the liberation.
You should relieve of the prejudices, the jealousies in your minds rather than to throw money to the trash which is a misunderstanding. We do not deny ourselves, but we don’t have to expect either. Let everything come to you naturally. That's the right way we should practice.

     You should always trust your Master, and then you will have everything. Enlightenment can be achieved when you have faith in a Living Master instead of only practicing on meditation. Then you will see the glory, the great compassion that make you feel like going to ecstasy as the incense in meditation. You will love swimming in the Ocean of love of Buddha.

     Human beings always try to hold their sufferings without realizing that the noble glory is just behind them. As the sages has said: "The greatness of the human is not a mystical but all is located here" (Master show to the audience where the Wisdom eye is). Those who do not want to practice now are not hungry yet. Someday, they will eat everything and listen to everything if they are hungry.

     Your life of practicing is the same. You realize just a little in your meditation because your minds still clung more at your physical lives and have not let off them yet. When you have poured them out completely, you are the owners of yourselves. You will only use your materials when you have them and accept with satisfaction even when you have nothing because your minds do not attach to anything from the human world already.
You should always focus on your wisdom eyes and keep your faiths in the heart when going home then you'll have everything.