There are many things that you do, which are very funny. You do it so funny, that I don’t know how to teach you anymore. For example, wearing gloves. When I was in a cold country, I wore my gloves and forgot to take them off. Or when I had to shake hands with other people who were sweating a lot, or had a certain kind of perfume. Men and women, they used different kind of perfume, and people’s sweat is also different [in smell]. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight hundred people with sweat like that, so shaking hands all the time, I would feel uncomfortable. That’s why sometimes I had to wear gloves, but only in that kind of situation, for example. Or touching something dirty, for example like that. And then I was worried when sometimes I had to bless your food, so I had to keep my hands clean.
Now I dare not wear gloves anymore, because everyone would copy and wear gloves like me, and the whole group looks weird. Now have you stopped wearing gloves? I said already, today, officially. Whoever wears white gloves, his ID card will be confiscated. What for do you wear gloves? For example, there are many people around me, sometimes they worry that their hands are not clean, perhaps greasy, or that they just haven’t yet washed their hands. Then they wore gloves to carry my basket for me. For example like that, then it is OK. But just forget the gloves altogether. Just seeing one, two or three people wearing gloves, everyone also wears gloves. Not beneficial at all, understand?
When you do something, you have to understand why. If we don’t understand the reason, even if we do a good thing, it becomes bad. But if you understand why you are doing it, then even if it looks bad, it is good. Do you understand? (Yes) You have to understand what you do, why you are doing it, and if you do it with sincerity, then there is nothing good or bad. I wanted to say something, but I forgot. Yeah, there are more, more.
The people misunderstand a lot. For example, I told you when cooking for everyone in the ashram or somewhere in the public, you have to wear… wear what? (Face mask.) You have to speak Aulacese (Vietnamese); otherwise, no one understands what “mask” is. The elderly ladies don’t know what a “mask” is. Speaking half Aulacese (Vietnamese) and half English, but your English isn’t good, and your Aulacese (Vietnamese) is poor too. “Mask” is something I don’t understand, so I asked you what it is called? (Khẩu trang [face mask].)
Face mask. Yeah, it means you use a cloth or a piece of paper to cover your mouth so that you can talk. So, if you talk to the initiate(s) in the kitchen, you would not splash your saliva onto people’s food, making it unhygienic. Because we don’t know whether you have brushed or rinsed your teeth. No. I mean, when did you brush, three days before or three days later? If you splash your saliva onto the food that people eat, then it is not hygienic, number one. Number two, you could be sick [at that time]. Sometimes you don’t know if you have a cold or flu, but you have the virus inside your saliva, or in your breath already. If you breathe heavily into the big pot of soup, then a lot of people will get sick. So is it true what I said? (Yes.)
So you have to wear gloves so that your hands are clean. Sometimes your nails are long, and the virus hides underneath those nails, and you didn’t wash them in time, and you scratched somewhere. Sometimes when you are jealous of your husband, you scratch him. And the jealous stuff is still attached to the nails, so if you don’t wear gloves, the virus will contaminate the vegetables. And it’s pitiful for the people who eat it. They would go home and all of them become jealous. Jealousy is contagious. That is what I meant. If your legs are tired, you can stretch them out. So what I meant was we should avoid contaminating other people and sometimes the children too. Or the elderly whose immune system is already weakened, or the children who don’t have a strong immune system yet, then you can contaminate them very easily. As for those who are healthy, then it is possible that they don’t get contaminated.
Our Association is big, and sometimes, it’s not just our initiates, but outside people also come in to eat. So I told you that you must wear gloves when you get the food, for example. If you are handling the dry food, then it’s OK to wear cloth gloves. But if you are handling the wet stuff like vegetables, raw lettuce, etc., then you have to wash them with salt water, or potassium permanganate solution. Then you have to wear gloves so that your bare hands would not touch the raw food, or the cakes and candies that are already opened and have no wrapping. What I said is according to hygiene, good logic, not that I am being strict, making things different than the norm. But many people don’t know, just copy like that.
I have explained many times already. But there are always new initiates, and I could not explain in time, and they haven’t watched all of these videos. That’s why they come in and see everyone wearing gloves and face mask, and then they go home and do the same. They cook just for themselves, but also wear gloves and mask, what for? Living single, what do they wear gloves and mask for? How tiresome! If that person did that to himself/herself alone, it’s OK then. But sometimes, that person even teaches others to wear gloves and mask, even though they are all single. And sometimes, the other single guys are not initiates, so they don’t understand and say, “This Lady, what weird things She teaches?” Is that right? For example like that. Then, if one of them happens to be a journalist, he would write bad stuff, calling us “the glove-wearing religion”! How tiresome! Really tiresome! Once you are famous, it’s very troublesome. I knew that being famous, I would suffer. I just didn’t expect I would suffer in such a weird way, so funny like that. Being spoken against for something so trivial.
So when you practice, you don’t just listen to my teachings, but you have to contemplate on what I teach. And supplement it with your inner wisdom by meditating enough, so that you can understand what I meant behind those words. You have to understand the main meaning and the profound meaning of my teachings. It’s not about hearing something and then doing it, saying, “Master told us so.” And just copying what others do, just like… That’s why in some religious organizations, people just practice outward rituals. They just bow to the [wooden] Buddha, and don’t know whom they bow to. We should bow to a living Buddha. What for do we bow to the wooden one? We only bow to the living Buddha. It’s useless bowing to the dead Buddha. But never mind.
What I mean is, where did this bowing tradition come from? It was from India. The Indians when they meet their teacher, or the high priests, especially their Guru; for example, when they meet their true Guru, they will prostrate, meaning bowing down to the ground. And our Aulacese (Vietnamese) people studied Buddhism which was from India, and saw how the people in the old times prostrated to their Guru. Also, when the [main] disciples of the Buddha, who were also Buddhas themselves or at least high-level Bodhisattvas, went to spread the Dharma, people also prostrated to them. Same as now: the Aulacese (Vietnamese) and the Chinese people who didn’t get to see me, they prostrate to my disciples. My disciples jump to one side, but people still bow to them. My disciples told them not to prostrate, but they still did. Begging them not to, but still, they prostrate, for example like that.
And people sometimes prostrate to me suddenly, others don’t know why, and I could not avoid it fast enough. Like yesterday, I went to the press conference. There was a Westerner who just knelt and bowed to me, right in front of the press table. People didn’t know and thought that I like it very much, or that I told others to prostrate to me. No, you know [I didn’t’]. I forbid prostration. But sometimes they have done it already, so what could I say? Because they know the traditions in India or some other countries, where people are very respectful to the Enlightened Masters. Sometimes, it’s not my disciples. Sometimes, I was at the airport and encountered someone who practiced spiritually. When they saw me (the Light), they knew me, and they prostrated to me right at the airport. What could I do? It was just a tradition only, especially for the Indians. Sometimes, I went to an Indian restaurant, and if they knew me, then they would prostrate right at the entrance door. Because their tradition is like that. So, when the people who practice Buddhism saw others prostrating like that, they thought they were supposed to do the same. So they continue to do that.
And some religions are very cute. We practice the Quan Yin Method, so we know what the posture is like. But some religions, they just do the same like us, everyday, but they do it incorrectly. It is wrong just a little, but that “a miss is as good as a mile.” Some mosques or temples, if you come in there, you would find it very cute: People sit very similar to us, and you would think they practice the Quan Yin Method. No, it is not. And they kneel, prostrate, sit like that.
There are many religions, they cherish very much their shawl and the mat they sit on. Their personal mat to sit on (for meditation), nobody can touch it. Each person brings in his or her personal mat, which no one can touch. They sit and bow to Buddha, to God, whatever, then they roll the mat up, for them to use alone, no one else can touch it. So it is the same as what you do now. You bring your own chair, cushion here to sit on. You also wouldn’t want anyone to sit in your chair or on your cushion, right? It’s like that. Especially, the people out there, we would not want them to sit on our meditation cushion. Because it is personal. We feel that this cushion is our meditation cushion, not for anyone else to use it for other things, for example like that. Or for them to step on or sit on it, that is a no-no. We feel like there is something sacred, something miraculous, every time we sit on our cushion. But there is time when we can yield the cushion to other initiate, or if there are not enough cushions, we can offer it to our guests. But if it is unavoidable, we would not want to take that cushion out for other purposes or let someone sit on it randomly. For example like that.
But some sects, they don’t understand the meaning, so they are very fanatic. Because they heard the practitioners of the old, very old, many thousands of years ago, did it like that. It was advised that “Your meditation cushion, you should not let anyone use it randomly.” For example like that. Don’t let others sit on it. So now, they cherish their meditation cushion and mat. They don’t know what the meditation mat is, but no one can sit on it for any purpose. That means they wouldn’t let anyone sit on that mat to prostrate or to recite the sutra or anything. Only for us to sit to meditate… number one. Number two, there are people who go to some mosque or temple and they must bring a shawl to cover their heads or put it on their shoulder. They also would not let anyone touch their shawl. That shawl is said to be very sacred.
But as for the cloth that we the initiates use, sometimes when we meditate in the public places, and we don’t want others to see or just want to shield us from the sunlight, we would use it to cover ourselves. We call it the Quan Yin cloth. When we are doing the Quan Yin meditation, we don’t want others to see, for example, or want to block out some light. That’s it. Then later on, when we pass away, the disciples pass away, I pass away, the people will say, “My God, in the Madame Ching Hai’s religion, you must have a cloth, and then a cushion. And that cloth, that cushion, no one can touch. Only the owner uses them. Those things are very sacred, the demons would even die when you beat them with it.” For example like that. Yes, there is.
I read in one of the stories in a religion that I don’t dare to mention the name of, worrying that they say we are discriminating. And it is true that in that book is written clearly about a very famous religion. In that religion, you must have a cloth, and they say you use that cloth to pray. And that person, one time he encountered a demon, he used that praying cloth to beat the demon. He said his personal praying cloth is very sacred, can beat the demon to death. But the demon didn’t die, but baring his teeth to laugh at him!
The cloth is not the one that is sacred. Understand? It’s the person who beats [the demon] is sacred. If the one who holds the cloth has sacred power, then the cloth will be effective. He can use a book, a leaf, anything, to beat [the demon], it would be sacred all the same. Because it is the power of the person, not the cloth. It is possible that the person uses that cloth all the time to pray, so that cloth would be affected by his energy, more or less. His energy would stick to the cloth a little. It is the same as the fragrance of a flower, or of a perfume, when we are close to the person who sprays the perfume, we would smell it. Or two, three droplets of the perfume get on us, then it’s possible that the fragrance will last for one, two, three days. Otherwise, the normal cloth of a normal person, when praying normally, would not have any sacred power.
So sometimes, a shaman recites a mantra, and it is effective, but if we recite it, the demon comes to arrest us. For example like that. If that shaman is reciting the mantra, the demon is fearful, but when we recite it, we are afraid of the demon. Because the shaman has the power, understand? He practiced for a long time already, life after life, or he had his teacher who transmitted the power to him, so he has the power. It’s not that anyone can recite any mantra and it works.
That’s why it is said, “Special transmission outside the orthodox teaching.” One soul must have the power in order to transmit that power to the other soul. This process is invisible. Just hearing someone read the written instructions alone is not enough. The invisible power is not visible, so it cannot be transmitted using our languages or sutras. Therefore, initiation is required. At the time of initiation, the invisible power within our human body is opened. But the teacher must have the power in order to open up our invisible power. That power is the Power of the Universe. So if a person who has no power, has not enough real power, how can he open up the Universal Power inside our human body? We are a miniature world, we are a Buddha, a living Buddha.
Photo Caption: Humble Little Being, Big Joy Often Can Bring
