News 76, Cinema Scene

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Also Did Spiritual Practice

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsihu Center, Formosa, January 13, 1992
(Originally in Chinese)

Our power is from the grace of God and is the great power of the Buddhas. However, most people don't realize this, so they can't use the power. Now we are practicing the Quan Yin Method, each day we get a hold of "something" which is very reliable and can be used to save our lives as well as others'. That "something" is your own treasure that you have forgotten for a long time. We have it in our nature. Only after I told you how to use it did you come to know it. You have been "beggars" for a long time and have become used to it.

How can you dare to do anything energetically?! But gradually,you will. Now you've already begun to do things more actively. You can go outside and speak out like those Ninja Turtles. Those turtles can talk! "Pizza!" Even though they can only say "pizza,"it is enough to scare others. Why? Because how can turtles even talk?

They are similar to you! You are the kind of people who never say anything. Why do you talk a lot now? Regardless of what you say, people are scared already. Since you've been living like turtles for so long, when you occasionally say one or two sentences, people are frightened to death. Therefore, your relatives and friends now look at you with different eyes and seem afraid. Sometimes when they're too afraid, they use violence to oppress you, just like when people are afraid of those turtles who have magical power. Do you think that those four turtles look like you? (Laughter) "Introspect! Introspect! Introspect! We should introspect!" Aha, this is the same as meditation! When we meditate, we introspect. The turtles shout, "Introspect! Introspect! Introspect!", which is just like meditation.

Why did they choose the rat as their teacher? That was symbolic. The author who wrote this story must have done spiritual practice so he knew about the transformation master. The story that he wrote was exactly the same as our stories. The turtles represent a kind of sluggish and stupid dummy. They're sluggish hard-heads. They have hard shells and thick skins. When they are first enlightened, they only know "Pizza!", which is very much like the blessed food that we have! When the teacher forces them to do back-flips as punishment, they slowly count, "One! Two!" and think that their teacher doesn't see them.

The movie states that a true Ninja is the highest Master of all creation in the universe; it's talking about spiritual practice; it's talking about God, but only in a different way. This movie was written by a spiritual practitioner so people could use it as a reference and know about spiritual practice. Sometimes we have to tell stories. Perhaps in the past, people didn't like spiritual practitioners. If a spiritual story was told explicitly, people would criticize it.

What does the rat symbolize? It means that the method is so good that even a rat (a no special person,) who sincerely learns it can become very good; can become a teacher or a Buddha, and can attain the Truth. Those sluggish turtles with thick skins can see the transformation master after they have meditated for a while. This also means that the method is very good.

When the turtles go out, other people think they look like monsters. That's for sure, because sometimes when people come to our place, they also look at us the same way as they look at animals in the zoo. They notice that we're different than them, so they truly can't get along with us. That's why the turtles simply hide in underground tunnels and would rather live in a gloomy place. They can't get along with other people. As soon as they go out, people catch them or attack them. This is the reason. We're also different than others. The turtles' situation is truly like ours. Now you understand it clearly?! [A: That's why we need a Master! (Laughter)]

I've been thinking for quite a while, why they chose a rat as the teacher. The rat only quietly learned a little bit. It wasn't initiated with the method formally. Although it learned with the master, later it did well in its spiritual practice. Only when we are in situations with many obstacles can we grow up. The world is very annoying. That's why we want to pursue spiritual practice and then grow up a little; otherwise, we have to live our entire lives like turtles.

It truly can be like this. It's just that those turtles are special and different than others. They grew up a little; their shells were bigger, their skins were thicker, and they were heavier. However, at least they did some spiritual practice and had some magical power. They would do only good things, not bad. If they didn't have the rat teaching them, they would have become bad.

Being very young, they could fall in love - even turtles can be in love. This must be a joke! Truly! They're kidding themselves. When you watch this movie, you will know that they are exactly the same as you. If you still don't understand it, you should watch the movie again. You can watch some pure and simple movies. In fact, this movie isn't only about kung-fu.

The turtles might practice kung-fu, but they also do spiritual practice. It's difficult for us to stop our minds. If we put something in our minds and let it strive and struggle, we'll feel tired. Sometimes after you've watched a movie, you can't immediately let it go.

Occasionally, I let you watch. Some movies talk about principles of spiritual practice, human feelings or something related to you, so I let you watch. To watch a movie once in a while is harmless. It's good to relax yourselves, that is, to adjust ourselves. Don't be too tense. Sometimes when we're busy working and feel tired, our minds are tense. If we watch a funny movie in the evening, we can continue. We can do it sometimes, but not all the time.

It's because, even though we know the movie is okay, when we meditate later, the images will run around in our minds and it will take a while or a couple of days for us to forget them. It depends on how deep the impressions are! Any worldly thing can trouble us. However, it depends on whether you have a firm faith in the Truth or not. If you don't have it, even though I don't let you watch, you will watch behind my back or buy nonsense books to read, which have a similar effect. It depends on whether you want to watch them or not, whether you like to watch them or not, and whether you indulge in the movies or not. We will be influenced by whatever we see.

Sometimes when we read nonsense books, we keep thinking about them. Although we're not influenced by them, we keep thinking about them. Then our meditation time is delayed several minutes or several hours. It's already hard for us to meditate for two hours, but we will just sit there and keep thinking about Jing Yong (a famous Chinese novelist) or whoever, or the Ninja Turtles; then it will not be good for us. Since the movie about Ninja Turtles talks about spiritual practice and has a transformation master, I let you watch it. This means that they practiced the Quan Yin Method; otherwise they wouldn't see the transformation master. It's really funny that the turtles can attain the Truth and the rat can become a Buddha.

We have all kinds of animals here. (Master laughs.) We have rats, monkeys, turtles, pigs, roosters, ducks, cows and goats. (Master is referring to disciples born under these Chinese Zodiac signs.)

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