Good morning. Wow, so much wind, and we have such a strong tent. Now you’re free to cough. Congratulations! Cough as much as you want. You’re free. How are you? Feel good? (Yes.) This morning, I looked in the mirror, and I thought, “Wow, who is this beautiful lady?” I wanted to ask you this question because you always ask me questions. This is a question I have. Thanks for your love. My face looks better after meditating with you. We sleep so fine. It is mighty fine to do some retreat. You can recover. My dog(-people) have no chance to come here, my bird(-people) are out of sight and sound. Wow, it feels so good. No telephone, nothing. It’s also very good for me. It’s good that you could just come every day, and then I can hide here. Hide among you.
Any last questions? No? We’ve done it. Yah! We’re almost to the year 2002, can you imagine? Jesus Christ. Remember when we were in retreat in Thailand? (Yes.) That’s the year 2000, right? (Yes.) Oh, and we thought we were grand. Everybody worried that we’re going to die. Yeah, and the world would come to an end, and… And we’re still here. I told you in London that I’d be around, but I didn’t know that you would be also around. It turns out that you’re also around. Am I dreaming? Is it my real body? Yeah, it is. Ooh, ouch, it hurts. Is that you? Yeah? Yeah.
Brother, we are all getting old. My God. We’re getting old, for sure. But after meditating a few days, I see you look younger. Do you see that or not? (Yes.) Yes. I’ll lend you this mirror. I keep looking at myself. Excuse me. I’m a little embarrassed, but I look good, man. The skin looks better. (Yes.) Or is it the weather? (Skin looks better.) Skin looks better. Men look more handsome. Well, meditation is really good, good, good. Good, good. You feel better? (Yes.)
Yes. It’s not the same when you say, “Wow, I’ll take three days off and meditate in my bedroom.” You won’t do it. I bet you won’t do it. You will be jumping up and down on the bed, and then your dog(-person) also keeps jumping up and down with you. And then that’s it, three days gone, doing nothing. But here, we really meditate. I mean, you really meditate. I just chip in now and again. Oh, it’s very good to meditate our style, freestyle. But you do really meditate, though. I must say that you’re good, good, good.
Do you see anything? Why are you laughing? Yes or no? (Yes.) Yes. Even if I sit just a little bit, I see something. I don’t know what it is, but I saw something. Do you know what it is? Something. And then I get scared because it looks like I don’t have a body, and I get scared. And then I come back, and my body’s still here, thank God. That’s how you are doing all these three days – get scared, come back, and then try to get out again; get scared, come back, and then get out again… The Korean? Korean sister? Where is she? That’s how you guys do all day? Get scared.
My God, if I don’t let you get out of the body, you say you don’t have experience. And if you get out of the body, you say you’re scared. You don’t know what it is. “What is that, Master? How come my body’s like a feather?” But the “feather” can get scared! Funny! If you ask my bird(-people), they would laugh. What kind of feather is that? You really see something? Good? (Yes.) A lot of things? Yes or no? (Yes.) Oh. Only one person. Yes or no? (Yes.) Good, good. Yes or no? (Yes.) My God. God help you if you did not see anything these days. I’ll be praying for you.
It’s so easy to see it on retreat. (Yes.) Easier than at home. (Yes.) And at the group meditation, is it also easy or not? (Yes.) Easier than here, or here is easier? (Here is easier.) Retreat is easier. How come? How come? Tell me. No, it’s not that. (Put down everything.) Put down everything? Everything? You mean food also? Everything. Put down everything. You have to. There’s nothing here to put down. I think a retreat is better. Because you know you just have to sit. Everybody else does. Nobody else to play with. So you have to come here and play with your wisdom.
It’s fun to have a retreat. (Yes.) Yeah, I feel very funny. Ha, ha, ha! But this retreat, I feel especially much better than many other retreats. I scolded only one time. And really, really, that person really had to get out of here before I even scolded. So it was not even necessary to scold at all. It’s like putting a kid in a university and he, “Wah, wah, wah!” all day long. And the professor cannot teach, and the students cannot learn. Nothing good for the kid either. The kid should go somewhere else and get vegan milk, get a dummy, get toys, whatever. And not be in the university.
Some of the people who come into our group, they’re not for meditation or not for Buddha or anything. Or else they wouldn’t ask the same question for ten years. Just come in anytime, just to, I don’t know what for. The maya knows the purpose – just to make trouble. Similarly, even any disciple, who has very little sincerity at all and does sit a little bit at home, does get something. There’s no such thing as “I sit every day and get nothing.” Or, “I keep a vegan diet and still have problems.” No, no such thing. If we have a problem or something, we should check the diet.
Sometimes, even my attendants, they make mistakes. For example, they see, like, pickled vegetables, and he just buys it and brings it home. And I almost ate it. But I read it (the ingredients) again, and there was some fish(-people) sauce in it. (Oh.) The Asian people, like the Aulacese (Vietnamese), the Thai, they put fish(-people) sauce in the vegetable pickles to make it taste good according to their tradition. So you have to always be careful. Sometimes, the cookie looks harmless, but there are a thousand things in there. My goodness, what do they all use to make a cookie nowadays? By the time I get through the list, I don’t want to look at any other cookies anymore. The ingredients list, it’s so long. And sometimes they print the words so small already, it’s still so long. My goodness. What do they all put in cookies?
I hope we don’t have to read the same, long list for like bean sprouts or tomatoes. Now that we have, like genetically modified food, maybe we have to read a long list after a while if they continue that way. When they pack a tomato for you, fresh tomato, and you have to read carefully the ingredients – everything ready in one tomato. So, if you eat one tomato, you don’t have to eat anything else. That’s the economic idea about it. But my goodness, you have to read for so long before you find out whether you can eat that harmless cookie or not.
And sometimes, the whole thing is all vegan. Vegetables, and soybeans, and “Oh, everything’s all vegan.” And the last one was, “eggs.” Have you read just to come to that? My God. Sometimes I read a lot, I read the whole thing. I didn’t see anything that says, “eggs.” But when I read carefully again, there’s “egg whites.” But they broke the word, just sometimes because the column is small, so instead of “egg,” they put “E” and then “G-G white.” Oh, my God. And at the bottom of everything. And if you’re not careful, you might eat something that says, “No egg,” or you don’t see any “egg” in there, but there’s the “G-G white.” I’m not joking. It happened. Did you read those things? (Yes.)
You see “G-G white?” Mostly they put “egg white,” so then I have experience already. Now I look for the “white.” I read quickly but pay attention not only to the “egg,” but also to the “white.” And then, I’m very experienced now. So I look for two words instead, or many more words, maybe sometimes dried beef (cow-people meat) or whatever, but mostly cookies. We’re limited to look for the “egg” and the “white.” But then, I’m surprised, it’s “E-G-G yolk.” My God. My attendant, he doesn’t know. He says, “It has no ‘egg white,’ Master, no ‘egg white.’” Oh my God. I’m sorry, I want to laugh but I’m crying. What we all do in this world just to eat a cookie, my God. And I became vegan to… I mean, we became vegan to simplify our lives. Simple living, high thinking. But we used to think, high reading; now, high column of ingredients.
Photo Caption: Greeting Passerby with a Friendly Smile
