Subject: Let Peace Begin With Us

From: Shing-Te Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 13:39:22 -0400

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          Contents and words in this file are permeated with Grace 
          and Blessings of Master. All rights reserved. No part of 
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          The Supreme Master Ching Hai Meditation Association.
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                     Let Peace Begin With Us
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                             Lecture by The Supreme Master Ching Hai
                                                            Malaysia   
                                                     October 1, 1989 

Ladies, gentlemen and all my friends:

Before beginning any lecture at any place, my heart is always deep in
the thought of how to make a perfect speech in order to offer the best
benefit to the listeners.  So every time, before making a lecture, I
always pray to God, to the Buddhas, that they may mercifully help me
and speak through me.  Then our friends in all directions, including
the devas, the ghosts and whoever is present will derive the best
benefit from my two hour lecture.

So today I've been praying very hard.  I have not gone to the temple to
pray, I have not gone to the church to pray.  But I've prayed in the
church of my heart.  I have used this precious body as a church, as a
temple to pray to God, to the Buddha, because I would like you to
derive the best benefit, and have the most memorable time from
listening to this lecture. Each time I pray like this, there are
blessings and there are benefits.  This is the reason why everybody
prays everyday.  We go to the church to pray to God, to the mosque to
pray to Allah, or to the temple to pray to the Buddha because we do
feel the benefit.  We do feel the blessing from the Buddhas, God, Allah
or whatever name you might worship. Because of our different
backgrounds and different cultures we call "the Creator of all things"
by different names.  We call the greatest power, which loves us so
much, by different names.  Some call it God, some call it Buddha
nature, some call it Tao and some call it Allah, so we should not
argue.  It doesn't matter in what kind of religion we believe.  No
matter if you are Christian, Moslem,  Buddhist or Taoist, everyone
believes that his or her religion is the most beneficial, and so do I. 
Whatever is best for us is good for us.

But then, we sometimes have a desire to see the head of our religion. 
For example, if we are Buddhists, we would like to see, to have contact
with the Buddha, with the Bodhisattva, with Shakyamuni Buddha or with
Quan Yin Bodhisattva.  If we are Christians we sometimes would like to
get in touch with God, with Jesus, with Saint Mary or with the past
saints that we are praying to everyday.

I do not know if you want to see Buddha or to see God that much, as
much as I did; but I did want to see Buddha I did want to see God.  I
wanted to talk directly to God, directly to Buddha about all the
anxieties, doubts and the suffering in my heart that came from my own
experience, and from the experience of other suffering human beings.

Before becoming enlightened I always went to the church and to the
temple to pray everyday.  If I saw a church I would go in and pray.  If
I saw a temple, I would go in and worship and pray to the Buddha.  I
remember that I had only two prayers.  When I went to the church, I
said to God, "Dear God, if You really exist, please, let me see You;
make in it anyway, but let me see You one day.  I just want to see You,
and nothing else."  That was my first prayer.  And one day in the
temple I prayed to the Buddha, "Dear Buddha, if you really exist,
please show yourself to me.  Also, let other people see you.  Please
let us see you, let us know your glory, so that we may believe more in
your compassion and power, and that we may feel secure in our heart."

I'd pray like that many times but I did not see God or Buddha.  So one
day I got a little bit fed up [Master laughs], and I cried.  It was in
the morning when I did the morning service to the Buddha.  Do you know
how the Buddhist do the morning service?  Yes?  You get a wooden fish
and a bell, you knock it like this: ko, ko, ko, tung; ko, ko, ko,
tung...[Master demonstrates] while you repeat the mantras, like the
Tabei Chow: "Namo hanadanadorayeye namo ariye polojeti...,"  etc., then
you repeat the name of Quan Yin Bodhisattva:  "Namo Quan Shih Yin
Pusah", or the name of Amitabha:  "Namo Au Mi To Fou" - like that many,
many times.

That day after I had done this and hadn't seen the Buddha, after
praying so many times, I started to cry like a baby - you know, when
you get nothing you stamp your feet and say, "Why haven't I got it?" 
[Everyone laughs.]  So, I was crying very hard and I said, "Buddha, it
is not that we don't believe you, it is that we don't see you, and we
feel so much longing in our heart.  How can you expect people to
believe you when they don't see you?"  [Applause.]  I was crying and
sobbing so hard that a neighbor came and knocked at my door saying,
"Wha..wha..wha.. what's the matter with you?  You won't do anything
silly, will you?"  I said, "No, no.  Why?  Why would I do anything
silly?"  "I heard you crying all morning!"  She thought that I was
doing something stupid. [Master laugh.]

I was only crying to the Buddha, and I cried so hard and so loud, that
I woke up all the neighbors.  I felt so ashamed.  But since that day I
realized that even if I prayed everyday and even if I did my morning
and evening prostrations and recitations before the Buddha's image, I
would not feel satisfied in my heart because I had not seen any sign of
the Buddha.  So I decided that day that I must go.  I must go and do
something else.  Since this way didn't work I had to find another way. 
I couldn't just stay there and get nowhere. 

Because I was longing so much to see the Buddha, I went everywhere, 
prayed in every temple, and worshiped in every place in the world, 
that had temples, churches, monks and nuns. Whenever I heard of someone 
that had a little enlightenment or was famous, I would go there, bow 
and ask for some enlightenment.
 
So many, many years passed like this, but I didn't get much.  I had
some, yes, I had some of what you call "Gan Yin", which means some
kind of intuitive response that you get when you pray to the Buddha or
God.  One day I kept staring at the Amitabha Buddha - I was a d evoted
Buddhist, also a devoted Christian - and said,  "Why don't you take me
to the Western Paradise [laughter]?"  Then I added, "Give me some Gan
Yin, some response."  And then he did. 

I was so sincere and heartbroken, that he felt I deserved some response, 
so he lifted me up very high.  Suddenly I felt nothing underneath.  I was 
so scared; I said, "No, no, no.  Put me down."  It's a feeling like you are 
flying. Do you know?  No?  You have had that experience, huh?  [All laugh.]
If you pray very hard, your body will become light.  You'll get some Gan
Yin, some response from Buddha. Then sometimes you'll go into samadhi. 
That's what we call "Nien Fo San Mei" (in Chinese) which means when you
recite the name of the Buddha you become excited, you have ecstasy -
"Ru Ding"(in Chinese) samadhi.  You sit there and you feel so
absolutely beautiful, blissful, tranquil and haven't a worry in the
world.  That is what we call samadhi in Sanskrit, or San Mei in
Chinese.  Yes, in the west they also say samadhi, meaning you enter
into a blissful, tranquil state of mind where you have no sorrow, no
worry and no fear.  That's what we call samadhi. 

In the samadhi state we feel absolutely perfect.  We feel that nothing in 
this world bothers us. Nothing happens at all and everything is perfect.
Sometimes when we enter into this condition we feel the world is perfectly 
in order. Therefore when Lao Tzu entered into samadhi he exclaimed:
"Tien hsia ben wu shih," which means under the sky there is no problem; 
everything is in perfect control.

Now, that was one little experience that I had when I was sincerely
praying to the Buddha and to God.  But then that was all I had, nothing
else.  So I yearned for more and more, because the Buddha gave me a
little bit and I did not get enough.  You know what it is like when we
have some good, tasty food.  If people let you taste only a little bit,
of course you'll feel frustrated and you want more.

I wanted more.  So I kept running here and there looking for some
solution.  Only after getting enlightenment, I mean the true, big
enlightenment, not the small one, did I realize that everything 
already exists within ourselves, and we have no need to run so fast or
anywhere to look for it. We only need to be quiet, be still, and
discover.  Most of us think that it is the Buddha who gives us whatever
we have prayed for.  No, no, we already have it. It's just that we do
not know we have it.  When we pray very hard and sincerely then our
ego, our mind disappears. We do not feel separated from the greatest
Power which we call God, the Creator, the Tao or the  Buddha nature.
Because we are not separated from that power, at that moment we
suddenly become wiser, we suddenly see things more clearly, and then we
see that we have already got these things. They do not come from the
sky.  They already exist in our store of merit. 

Why have I said such things?  Because I would like to remind you, that if 
in our life, the conditions are not so good, if everything we desire 
doesn't come to fulfilment, it is because we forget to look for what we 
want.  For example, Buddhas exist, Jesus is still there, God exists, Allah 
exists, whomever you pray to exists.  But we don't see him because we 
forget to look for him or we forget to look for them.  Not only does the 
Buddha, God, Jesus or whomever you believe in still exist, but everything,
every single thing we want  already exists in our store of merit.
Otherwise we wouldn't want it. We wouldn't have any idea whatsoever of
what to want. 

For example.  In Africa there are some very uncivilized tribes of people.  
They have never seen television before, not even in the past thirty or 
the past hundred years.  So the idea to go and watch television never 
crosses their minds because in their memory television doesn't exist.  
So everything we wish for in this life, such as wealth, happiness, 
bliss, contact with God, Buddha, etc. already exists in our store for us.  
Our past memories from our past lives in this world have
already registered these kinds of images; therefore, we want them now. 
Otherwise how could we want them, how could we ever know that such
things exist?  We want them because we know we had them.

So, when we are enlightened or we get the greatest wisdom, we will
discover these things in our storeroom.  The Buddha doesn't give them
to us. God will not grant them to us -- they've already granted them to
us.  It's just that we have forgotten to use them. That is why we have
a way to recognize God's love, to recognize Buddha's compassion, which
is, to be still, to be quiet and to listen to what God or Buddha tells
us. There are two parts to practice everyday:  the first part is to
pray for what we want, and the second part is to listen to what God or
Buddha tell us - where to get what we want. If we are always asking and
do not listen, do not receive, then we will not get it.  Most of the
time we are too busy praying for something and don't know what God
wants to tell us.  For example, if we go to a teacher to ask some
questions on an English subject, we have to be still, be quiet and
listen to the answer.  Is that not so?  Yes?

So now, if we ask God or Buddha for something, and keep asking everyday
in the morning, at noon time and in the evening then it is always  "we"
who are talking.  Of course we will not know what God's answer is and
what Buddha tells us to do.  That's why our life doesn't improve much,
even though God always mercifully wants to help us, even though the
Buddhas in the ten directions always watche over us and want to give us
many instructions, such as: how to handle our lives, how to solve our
daily problems, and how to get the greatest intelligence in order to
survive in this world, and to get through the different levels of
worlds in the whole universe. 

We must be still sometimes, and that's what we call "meditation." 
Now, if we sit there and we are still thinking in our heads, then 
that is not meditation but just "talking in silence."  [Master laughs.]  
Therefore we must know how to meditate, how to sit still, and that's 
what I want to offer to you.  There is a way to do that properly and 
correctly so that we may receive the message from God, from Buddha, 
from Allah or from whomever you believe in the most.  We have to be 
still sometimes to get the message through. Not that God doesn't listen 
to us; not that Amitabha doesn't listen to us; it is we who don't 
listen to them.  

That's why in my book I say that if you recite the names of the Buddha
and God, it will not serve you much.  I do not mean that God and Buddha
won't listen to you; but that we are too noisy, we talk too much, and
we do not listen.  So there is a way to solve this problem.  Everyday
we still pray to the Buddha, we still pray to God, but then we must
save some time to sit still and listen to the message that God wants to
give us, that the Buddha wants to direct to us.  Is that logical?  Yes? 
Thank you.

So now we come to the second part: how to sit still.  Most of us are
not still ; we get even worse when we sit.  Is that not true?  Now, if
you do not believe me, then tonight after you get  home, try to sit
still and put your mind blank for five minutes.  If you can do that,
you are my master.  [All laugh.]  It's very, very difficult.  You may
put your body in a box, you might close yourself like this, but the
mind is still running all over the place.  That is not the way to
meditate, and that is not the way to listen to God's or Buddha's
message.

Now there is a better way to do that.  We may pray to the Buddha, to
our own Buddha nature inside or to our own mercy and goodness which
also exists inside us, which the Chinese called "Hsing Ben Shan"
meaning the human beings original goodwill or goodness.  Therefore if
we believe in God, then we pray to God; if we believe in Buddha, we
pray to the Buddha; if we believe in "Hsing Ben Shan" meaning the
goodness inside us, we pray to the goodness inside us; but, pray to the
highest power, wherever that may be.  Always pray to the highest power,
the highest God, the highest Buddha.  Do not pray to the small gods,
like we call in Chinese "Shern"(the spirits) or "Guei"(the ghosts),
namely, the local gods because their power is "local." [All laughed.] 
That's why we should not pray to a local one but to the highest, the
top one, then what we get is the highest, the top power, understand
that?  [Loud applause.]

We pray for what we want, but it must be a good prayer.  I do not mean
that God will help you succeed when you pray to kill somebody or to rob
a bank.  No, no, no, that would not be helpful.  What I mean is, you
pray within the limits of human compassion, logically and for the peace
of human life; you pray for compassion,  peace or the highest guidance
so that your life, the neighbor's life and the life of the nation may
be prosperous, wise and peaceful.  Then everyday God will guide us,
Buddha will guide us in how to do things.  Suddenly things will change,
things will become better, smoother and you'll do things better than
before.  Your decisions will be wiser and quicker than before.  That's
when you know God is guiding you.

So during the meditation or whenever we have time we should sit still
and close our eyes and our ears should not be listening to anything
else.  Put our attention on the thinking center - the brain.  [Master
points to the center of Her forehead.]  Approximately inside here in
the middle. We "look up" a little bit over there, to the opening gate. 
Then we sit silently. We rest our mind, our heart, our thinking and our
desire - everything we rest here.  Do not think much. Do not desire. 
Just rest here and repeat the name of God,  Buddha, Allah or whomever
you believe in the most.  Rest like that.  Just call the greatest power
in whom you believe.  From here [Master points to the center of Her
forehead] you call in silence, letting it help, sustain and bless you
everyday in everything you do, in every way you think - to serve
mankind better, to serve yourself and your family better, and to get
more wisdom.

After doing that you will feel different.  You will truly know there is
a greater power than our brain, which we call God, Buddha Nature or
Tao.  I don't care what you call it because we have the freedom to name
things differently.  That is how we listen to God or to Buddha. If we
do not do this everyday, we will not get much of the message from
Buddha and God; then, we do not know whether God really exists, whether
Buddha exists, and whether they love us or not. Now, if you do not get
this benefit from the meditation you are now using, then I have another
way to help you to recognize the love of God, of the Creator and of the
Buddha.  When you see different flowers, look at the heart of the
flower, look at how beautiful they are and how nice they smell.  That
is the purpose of their existence.  It is because God, Buddha, Tao or
Allah loves us so much that they created these to please our senses, to
make our life more beautiful, more bearable and more comfortable.  And
when you look at the eyes of your child, you'll see they are sparkling
with intelligence, love, curiosity to learn and  warmth, that he gives
you everyday through family love.  That is how God or Buddha expresses
their compassion and love for us.  Otherwise, if we don't have these
things, like the love of the children, the flowers, the beautiful sky,
the stars, the moon or the sun, our life would be so miserable.

So, even before we know whether God, Buddha or saints exist or not, we
already can tell that there is an unconditional love that comes from we
don't know where; there exists an unconditional love for all the people
and all things in this world.  God doesn't only love human beings, but
also animals; Buddha doesn't only take care of us, but also cares for
everything.  So you see even the grass is made for the cows, the female
birds are made for the male, the honey is made for the bees and so on.

Therefore in the Christian Bible it is said, God made everything for
every being accordingly; in the Buddhist sutra, Buddha explained that
the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas sometimes transformed themselves into
animals, birds, flowers or water, in order to serve  and help sentient
beings.  There are similar sayings in different languages and
scriptures.  

So, in order to know God's or Buddha's love for us, we must appreciate 
all of the creation around us;  we must look more carefully, more 
attentively and more gratefully at all things that come into our use.  
Otherwise it's easy to forget and easy to be ungrateful.
The Creator and the Buddha do not mind if we are ungrateful to them. 
They do not seek our gratitude.  It is just that if we forget to be
grateful, then we lose our sense of grandeur.  We forget that there is
a greater power which looks after everything.  And in that case we will
feel too lonely, too desperate and too much suffering.

Outside we should be grateful for all the things that we receive. 
Inside we should sit still sometimes and know that the Buddha exists;
we should listen to the voice inside, the still voice, the voice of
God, the voice of Buddha.  If we do that everyday we will see a great
difference in our daily dealings with others, in our intelligence and
in our viewpoints.  That is what we call "meditation." 

Now, it would be too easy if we just had to sit meditate listen to God's 
voice and get so much. So there are some little conditions that we should
pay attention to.  They are printed in the books outside. Now first let me
talk a little bit about these books.  My little books are not really my
books but the books of my disciples.  I've never written any books, nor
can I write Chinese. It was all my disciples' work.  I only talked and
they recorded the talks, published them and put my name on the cover. 
That is how I got famous and got into trouble [all laugh]. 

I stayed in Taiwan off and on for about five years and never had any 
trouble. Everywhere I went I was welcomed and loved, given some money, 
something to eat and some clothes to wear because I was a nun, a very 
unfamous nun.  So I had no trouble.  Then somewhere some Taiwanese caught 
me and asked me to talk about something and to teach them the Quan Yin 
method, so I did.  They recorded everything I said, even those things 
that I said to them personally, that were meant only for them.  Because
people's levels are different, sometimes you can say something to this
person, but not to the other person.  Is that not so?  Then they just
blindly put everything into print [master laughs], put it into the
open, and I started to get into trouble.  That's how you got to know
and that's how I got into trouble.  Almost everyone who had loved me
before have now become my opponent   but never mind.  It is only a
small trouble in comparison to the benefit people get, so I do not mind
getting into trouble for that. My disciples have very good hearts and
they desire to give others whatever benefit they get. I cannot stop
them because they have a good motive.  If I stopped them, then it means
I do not have as much compassion as they do.  Therefore I let them do
whatever they feel is beneficial for others.

In these books (The Key of Immediate Enlightenment), both in English
and Chinese, I was actually speaking to my disciples at that time on
how to advance on the path of knowledge. For example, it's not enough
that everyday we do like this - sit straight and close our eyes, in a
Buddha-like fashion, and then everybody knows you are a great
practitioner.  [Laughter.]  It's not enough.  We must make meditation
become a way of life.  For example, when we meditate we will get in
touch with God's and Buddha's power.  Then we have to let this power
manifest in our daily dealings with others by becomeing more loving. 
That is the evidence of our advancement. Now, if we want to prove that
we are more loving, then we must do a little charity: we must help the
poor, we must be more obedient to our parents, look after the old, the
infants, the widows, and refrain from overindulging in enjoyments.  We
must see the suffering of other creatures as our own.  Therefore we
shouldn't rejoice at the killing of animals and in the eating them. 
That is the reason why we should be vegetarians.

If you do not want to follow a vegetarian diet because there are too
many problems, such as because of business, because the wife refuses to
cook, because..., because..., and because...[laughter], there is an
alternative way.  For example, when the Buddha first accepted some
monks into His monk order, these monks, as well, as other lay disciples
were used to eating meat because in their home country grass and
vegetables couldn't grow.  So the Buddha said, "All right, then you
slowly change from eating meat to eating vegetables."                 

So, in accordance with the Buddha I also offer some alternatives.  For
example, we should try to be vegetarians whenever it's convenient for
us, and we should try, as much as possible, to make an excuse to be a
vegetarian instead of making an excuse to eat meat.  That's what I mean
by leaning more and more toward compassion and extending love to all
the creatures.  All religions mention that we should extend our love to
all beings; not only to human beings. So, whether we believe in any
religion or not, we can all  believe in "Hsin Ben Shan," in the
goodness and compassion of our own heart. We should try to save as many
lives as possible.  It doesn't mean that if you eat one piece of meat
less that many things will change; but it is the princi ple of training
our heart towards compassion.  Understand that?  Let our compassion
grow; do not kill it.  The intention is important.

There are some groups of practitioners who do not eat vegetarian food
because they think it's not convenient.  Everyday they have to engage
in entertainment, to exchange friendship or do business with others and
they think it's not convenient to keep a vegetarian diet.  So they
decide to fast one or two days a week in order to cut down the meat
intake, as a sign of leaning towards compassion to all creatures.
Therefore we've heard that such and such a group has a 5-day fast and
such and such a religion has a one month once a year fast.  These
things are the leftovers from a very old but very efficient tradition. 
In Buddhism we also have many kinds of vegetarians, like the whole-life
vegetarian, 2 day-a-month vegetarian, 4-day-a-month vegetarian and 6-
day-a-month vegetarian, etc.  to let people become more used to the
vegetarian diet.  But this system is a little bit complicated for you. 
For example, we oriental Buddhists have a very strict "lunar" calendar,
and eat vegetarian meals on the first day, the fifteenth and at the end
of the month.  If you are a busy working man, such as a business man or
a newspaperman, you cannot always check the "moon" calendar, or you
might not even have a "moon" calendar but only the "sun" calendar
[laughter], so it's difficult to know which date is which.  I suggest,
as a supportive sign of compassion for all beings that we take a
vegetarian diet whenever we remember, whenever it is convenient for our
life, and that is already much, much better.  Is that Okay?  Yes? 
Thank you.

In this way we are more relaxed in our mind and heart.  Why?  Because
whenever we eat meat, it is unavoidable that some of the hatred, anger
and frustration in the animal's heart caused when it is departed, will
be imprinted upon our subconsciousness; then we'll feel uneasy inside. 
When we sleep at night we have nightmares.  When animals see us they
are frightened of us and run away.  And when we are sick it's difficult
to heal because of the atmosphere of the hatred and anger which hangs
around the meat that we eat.

Therefore the more we eat vegetarian, the better our conscience.  We
will have fewer guilty feelings in our subconsciousness, and we will
sleep better with fewer nightmares.  So you should try.  It's better
for our mind, for our heart, for our health and for everything. Now, I
don't read newspapers as much as you would except.  When I travel and
sit in the airplane for 15, 20, 30 hours I have nothing else to do and
I can not sleep that much or meditate so long [laughter].  Then I grab
a newspaper and have a look.  Every time I looked at the newspaper
there was nothing good there [laughter].  No news is good news.

The last time on the way here from Hong Kong I read the Newsweek and
Time magazines.  I saw all kinds of disasters and catastrophes such as:
hurricanes, airplane crashes, murders and diseases.  There are now some
kinds of diseases that we never knew before in history.  For example,
one of the latest diseases is a kind of worm disease which is
incurable.  The worm will eat a hole from inside out and you will see
the worms crawling out from inside of the hole.  Can you imagine a
whole body  full of such worms?  The physicians have no way to cure it. 
When I looked at this I felt, you know, nauseated; I wanted to vomit. 
Not because of the terrible sight but because of the unbearable feeling
of pity for the patient.

Normally we have worms in the stomach, and that is already unbearable. 
Now, if you have worms all over inside the body and at any time they
can eat a hole and crawl out to let you have a look; your brain, blood
and flesh are all full of worms.... Can you imagine what kind of life
that would be?

So I think that we, who have good health and financial status, should
pray that God will never put us into this kind of situation.  We should
also prepare ourselves to be more clean and more receptive to God's
protection, so that we would never fall into such a pitiful state.  The
best way is to try to avoid indirect killing, such as eating meat.  If
we don't eat meat, nobody kills. In Buddhism, the law of cause and
effect is absolute and exact.  Whatever you do to others will be done
to you in one way or another.  Not only in Buddhism, but also in
Christianity it is said, As you sow, so shall you reap.  And if you
look carefully at other religions, you will also see the law of "karma"
- the law of cause and effect: Whatever you do will be done to you. 
Therefore Confucius said, "Do not do to others what you do not desire
for yourself".  He also knew the law of cause and effect, meaning
whatever you do you will get the result, bad or good. If we do not want
any bad results, we must start to do good things in order to get good
results.  I don't need to tell you about heaven and hell.  I am just
talking practically, for your daily lives. If we want a healthy mind,
a healthy body, a good conscience and a good night's sleep, then we
should have more compassion for other people and for animals.  If we
give others peace and security, then we will also get peace and
security.

I have never killed anything ever since my childhood, not even an ant,
a worm or a bird.  And I do not like to see killing.  So you see, even
though in Vietnam where there were so many disasters, people being
killed and problems, I have escaped.  I did not have to go on a - like
the "boat people", I did not have any trouble, because I left Vietnam
before it was under the communists.  Understand?  Why was that so?  It
was because I had no hatred, no killing and no bad actions in my life;
therefore received good treatment.

So, from my own experience I can tell you that whatever good you do to
others, it will be done to yourself.  It isn't because I became a nun
or practiced the Quan Yin method that I say so.  No, before that I
already saw the results of compassion.  For example, in my country
sometimes the children would go and  get the birds out of the nests,
eat them and so on, but I never participated.  I always hated this and
told them not to do it.  And whenever I saw a bird wounded I would take
it home, care for it until it got well and then set it free. 

I think it's because of that, that the animals are so friendly with me.  
When I was in Germany, one day after reciting the Buddha's name I went 
out and a bird came up to me. It flew to my feet and stood there.  So I
said, "What do you want?"  [Master laughs.]  The bird chirped, chirped
and chirped as if talking to me; it stayed there for quite a long time;
we talked for about half an hour.  I don't know if the bird understood
me or not, but I did not understand it.  [All laugh.]  Anyhow we kept
talking, and it looked like a very lively conversation because we
stayed very close, like this, and it never flew away.  Many people saw
us talking and came out to have a look at this phenomenon.  When the
bird saw so many people it flew away.  It was frightened of them, but
not of me.

When I was in India I lived in the Himalayas, not in a good room, but
in a mud house. This mud house had only a few stones for a roof, which
could crash in on me at any time because the structure was not good. 
The mud walls had thousands of holes in it.  The wind could blow in,
the stars could shine through, and all the animals could crawl in and
be my friends. Everyday when I woke up after meditation I would find at
least five scorpions sitting there meditating with me [laughter].  Do
you know what scorpions are?  Their tails are very pointed, and if they
sting you once, then "good-bye."

Everyday the scorpions and snakes all sat around and meditated.  When
I got up and saw so many friends, I thought that this was not a good
place for them because if I walked around and was not careful enough,
I would step on them.  So everyday I had to take a big jar, put all of
them in it, and take them for a walk.  I put them on a big rock, and
then they would disappear. I think because I was so friendly with the
animals, that the animals were also friendly with me.  Can you imagine
animals that are like that?  If we are friendly to people, to every
person and to every being, then there wouldn't be any wars in this
world.

So today or tomorrow we begin our "peace program".  Everybody talks
about peace.  They make a lot of fuss go to a big hotel, and sit at a
big table to talk about peace - but, these talks go nowhere.  We must
begin with actions; we must begin by withdrawing from our killing
instinct; we must begin to protect all lives as much as we possibly
can.

Peace begins with us, with me and with you; then, peace will be with
the whole world.  We cannot sit here and wait for the president, the
peace-makers or whomever to come and talk for us.  No.  We must decide
it for ourselves.

Therefore, I think if we meditate and minimize our intake of meat, then
we'll become more peaceful within ourselves; and because we are more
peaceful, we will radiate a kind of invisible, peaceful atmosphere
around us, which will affect everybody.  Then we do not need to talk
about peace - peace will be there; we don't have to advocate peace --
peace will be there. Is that agreeable?  Yes?  Thank you.  [Loud
clapping.]  Yes, if we keep ourselves purified, then we can be closer
to God, or to whatever power that we believe in.  If we believe in God,
we will get closer to God; if we believe in Buddha and we purify
ourselves, we will get closer to the Buddha.  This is definite.  I've
tried it, so I can inform you about this.  Actually it's not that I am
informing you - you already know it.  I am only reminding you so that
you do not forget we have our own goodness inside us.  Do not forget we
have God dwelling within our body, and do not forget we have Buddha in
our hearts.

Do not forget we have God inside us.  We have the Buddha nature within
us.  Seek, find and awaken that power, to help you.  You will get help
and you will get blessings.  May all blessings be with you.