"Sometimes
you might feel you haven't made any progress in your spiritual practice
and that it seems like a waste of time. Do you know why? Spiritual
practice includes our speech, body and mind. For example, you've
developed your mind very well in your spiritual practice and cleansed
it of evil ideas and impure thoughts. Every day you only think about
the living Master, the noble teachings and the practicing assembly.
You only think about Quan Yin spiritual practice, et cetera.
In
this case, your mind has become very advanced and 'civilized'; but
your 'body' may still lag behind in development and is not in line
with your advanced 'mind'. At that time, youu may feel that your
spiritual progress has come to a standstill. In some other cases,
you may have a pure body and mind, but your speech hasn't been cleansed
of its karma yet. There is another case, in which you have kept
silence for some time, not speaking as much as you normally do.
However, your body hasn't been cleansed of its karma, so you can't
make any progress.
This
is like when parents are walking with their child. The parents are
walking very fast, but the child, distracted by flowers, stones
and streams along the road, forgets to move along. The parents have
to stop and wait for him until he catches up. It's the same with
your speech, body and mind. If any of them lag behind, the other
two cannot move along. All three have to be balanced and coordinated
in order for you to make progress in your spiritual practice.
You
may feel that you have improved a lot at the three or seven-day
retreats, but that is not because the Master gave a lot of blessings
to those who attended the retreats and withheld the blessings from
those who didn't. It's because during these retreats, your speech,
body and mind were at their purest. First, your body didn't move
a lot, waste energy, or work too much, so you didn't feel very tired.
Second, you didn't talk, scold, or criticize other people. Third,
you didn't divert your thoughts elsewhere. You just listened to
my lectures and meditated. There was no time left for you to think
about other things. Consequently, your speech, body and mind were
almost all purified. In this pure and harmonious state, they were
open to all the blessings from God or from the Master, so you improved
a lot."
From "The Secret To Spiritual Progress"
News 88, Master's Words
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsintien, Formosa • August 22, 1986
(originally in Chinese)
"Wherever
we go, always observe the world with our wisdom eye, and treat sentient
beings with our God heart. When we treat people fairly without discrimination,
people will naturally treat us with good will in return. Even if
they treat us badly, it is another form of "benevolence,"
because it is God testing and giving us an opportunity to learn."
From News 92, Pearls Of Wisdom
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsintien, Formosa • August 22, 1986
(originally in Chinese)
"It
is so happy in Heaven that there is nothing to remind us of spiritual
practice. It is so agonizing in hell that it is impossible to practice
spiritually there. In the secular world, we have suffering, joy,
misunderstanding, ignorance, wisdom, enlightenment, the unenlightened,
and lots of different situations. Therefore, we can learn quickly
from various situations in life, and we can find sufficient material
from which to experience and train ourselves. We have the chance
to practice to become Saints, which we cannot find in other worlds.
Therefore, the human body is very precious. We must cherish the
chance to practice spiritually without delay."
From News 119, Aphorism
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Taipei, Formosa • December 1, 1986
(originally in Chinese)
Group Meditation Schedule
Group
Meditation
