News 90, Master Says
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsihu Center, Formosa • June 24, 1990
(originally in Chinese)

Moses led his people out of Egypt to the desert and then came to settle down at the foot of Mount Sinai. One day, the Lord spoke to them through Moses. The Lord said, I’ve taken you out of Egypt to this place. I’ve been protecting you and given you plenty of good food, because you’re my favorite people! I’d like you to become my special friends. Would you obey my words?

They answered together, “We would!” Then the Lord said, The day after tomorrow, I’ll come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. So the people started to cleanse themselves and wash their clothes, because the Lord was going to see them.

Keep The Commandments In Order To Become Special Friends Of The Lord

Indeed, when that day came, the people all heard thunder and saw lightning and a thick cloud upon Mount Sinai. They all trembled, because they knew that the Lord was coming! Would you tremble when you saw God? No? Of course you wouldn’t, because you haven’t seen Hirm. (Laughter) However, they deemed, as what’s recorded in the Bible, that the thunder that they heard and the lightning that they saw were in the sky. In fact, that wasn’t true! They were from inside. We all have had these kinds of experiences. When Moses and Aaron, two friends of the Lord, climbed up Mount Sinai, the Lord bestowed on them the “Ten Commandments” and instructed them to tell the people that only when they kept these commandments could they become special friends of the Lord.

The Lord also said, I’m the Lord. You should worship me and respect me only. You must not make any graven images or bow down to them. Each time you mention the name of the Lord, you must do it with veneration. Also, you should rest on Sunday. (This means meditation). Originally, the sixth day was the Sabbath Day. Since Jesus Christ resurrected on Sunday, the Sabbath Day was shifted to Sunday. However, the Jews still observe Saturday as their special Sabbath Day. On this day, people aren’t supposed to work, but only do things for God, such as chanting scriptures, reciting God’s name, meditating, or getting together at church to remember God’s name. It simply means to stop doing any worldly work!

An example of this is that you come here today and we study the scriptures of God and do God’s work together; and we meditate and remember God’s great name in order to serve Hirm. This is correct and is to Hiers liking. So you see, the wind stopped as soon as you came here today. (Master and audience laugh. Applause.) After you meditated for a while, even the rainstorm stopped. There was supposed to be a heavy rainstorm! This shows that God is pleased! (Master and audience laugh.)

The commandments include being filial and respectful to parents, not harming other sentient? beings, being loyal to one’s spouse, and refraining from having relationships with other men or women. They also include refraining from stealing, telling lies, and coveting things that belong to others.

This is just like what I’ve told you, that you shouldn’t covet things from other people. We shouldn’t take anything that doesn’t belong to us or that people don’t personally give to us, even if it’s only a blade of grass, because it’s not worth ruining our reputation and gentleman’s manners, not to mention breaking the precepts. It’s very bad already that our self-esteem has been damaged! Do we have to wait for people to put us in jail?

Being human beings, our self-esteem is very important. There’s no need to wait for others to tell you whether you’ve broken the precepts or to judge whether you were right or wrong. No matter what other people say, we know what we’ve done. This means that God knows or that our inner Master or God inside knows that we’ve done bad deeds. This is bad already! Therefore, we actually keep the precepts only for ourselves.

What I’ve just read to you are the “Ten Commandments” set out by the Lord. The Lord explained to Moses about how to apply these commandments in various worldly situations and wanted Moses to explain them to the people. When the situation was different, the commandments were to be applied accordingly. The commandments were meant to protect people, not the other way round.

For instance, a person almost starves to death and is very weak. He and his wife and children are dying of hunger or his parents are dying of hunger. If he goes out and steals some bread or rice to feed his family, he doesn’t break the commandments. I’m speaking frankly, if this person stole from me, I wouldn’t accuse him; instead, I’d give him more. By doing that, he wouldn’t break the commandments. In that kind of situation, we can’t say that he stole.

On the other hand, if we have enough to live on or people have offered us enough to live on, yet we desire to be more comfortable, more beautiful and more glorious, in this case, even if we steal only a blade of grass, it’s stealing, because it’s unnecessary! Therefore, we should make a judgment only after we’ve clearly understood the commandments and considered the intention and situation.

In another instance, I’ve told you not to accept other people’s offerings and not to casually accept gifts from others. However, if you’re ill and have no money because other people have not repaid you, in that case, if I give you some money, but you still refuse to accept it, you’re being really stupid! (Laughter) At that time, it’s not that you’re coveting it, but that you truly need it. If you don’t need it, even if you accept only a dime, you’ll incur heavy sin! However, if you really need it, it’s no problem no matter how much you accept.

Therefore, we shouldn’t cling to the commandments. We should see whether it’s suitable to apply any of the commandments to a situation. Of course, we ought to strictly keep the commandments in the event that we may harm others by doing otherwise. Sometimes when others try to harm us, we should do our best to protect our lives. In case we’re killed, we shouldn’t harbor any hatred against them, nor should we kill them for our own lives. It might not be bad for them to kill us, because they might help us to get liberated from the life and death cycle sooner. (Master laughs) In that case, we ought to be grateful to them! Therefore, when Jesus Christ, Shakyamuni Buddha and all the other Masters of all the ages were harmed by others, They wouldn’t resist like the worldly people usually do. Although the worldly people may be good in some respects, when they aren’t treated well, they still have the notion of killing or taking revenge. As spiritual practitioners, we leave everything to God no matter whether it’s good or bad. So we have nothing to fear.

Then, Moses began to explain the commandments to the people. Hence, those people promised to keep and respect the Lord’s commandments. Then Moses went up to Mount Sinai, because? the Lord told him that Hes would write the Ten Commandments on a big stone tablet. He climbed up to get it.

However, Moses might have stayed in samadhi for too long this time. He didn’t go up there only to get the commandments. He might have studied the commandments while sleeping. He might have meditated, become tired, and after some rest, continued to meditate. He might have wanted to have a retreat. Before he received the commandments written by the Lord, he might have wanted to purify himself and strictly kept the commandments first in order to have more wisdom to understand them. So he might have meditated there for too long.

Knowing that he had been away for forty days, people who were waiting for him down the mountain became impatient. They began to get angry, sway, and their faith became weakened. They murmured to each other, “Well! I wonder what happened to Moses and why he hasn’t come back!” They told Aaron, “We want another God and a different master. Moses led us from Egypt to this place. So he’s our only master. However, now since he’s gone now, we need another one. Let’s have one quickly, okay?” (Master laughs and says, “They even placed a fast delivery order for a master!”)

Aaron was rather dumb. He agreed with the people and asked all of them to give their gold and gems to him. Then he molded the gold into a calf. He proclaimed, “This is your new master.” He then made an altar to put the calf on to let people bow down to it. Then the people were pleased. With the passage of time, they forgot what had happened before and said, “Oh! It was this golden calf, this master, who led us out of Egypt to here and liberated us from slavery.” They kept worshipping it. Then they reveled in dancing and singing, while worshipping the god of the golden calf.

Seeing that in such a short time period, people broke what they had just promised to Hirm and worshipped another god, the golden calf, the Lord became angry. It’s written here that the Lord was in wrath. I don’t know whether God would be angry or not. ?However, if Hes was angry then, I wouldn’t blame Hirm. When Moses came down from the mountain and saw the people dancing, singing, and worshipping the golden calf, he also became angry. At that time, Moses’ anger was very intense. He cast the tablet carved with the commandments of the Lord down the mountain and it was broken into pieces. He then burnt the golden calf and ground it into powder.

Moses scolded the people, “How could you do such a terrible thing? You’re senseless and stupid!” He kept scolding them, not simply like that. He might have scolded them a lot, but only a couple of sentences are written here. After the reprimand, since Moses always loved his people deeply inside, he prayed to the Lord to forgive those ignorant people, not be angry with them, and give them another chance to repent and become good again.

The Lord was also very patient. So Hes wrote down the commandments for them again. This time when Moses took the Ten Commandments back to the people, they behaved well, didn’t sing or dance, hadn’t mold another golden calf as their master, and didn’t worship other gods. They became very humble, and listened attentively and patiently to Moses when he expounded on the decree of the Lord, the Ten Commandments. From then on, a covenant was made between the Lord and the Israelites, and everyone was pleased.

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Besides Me

To comply with your request, I’ll explain more about the commandments. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me. When people follow Buddhism, they need to keep a similar precept. The master will demand the disciples to vow, “From now on, I follow the Buddha, the noble teachings and the practicing assembly. I won’t follow any immortals, celestial beings, gods, ghosts or any other beings.” That means the same thing! Following the Buddha is the highest level, that is, the level of supreme enlightenment or the level of God. The noble teachings come from the Buddha, as only the noble teachings spoken by a Buddha are the true teachings. So they are also the supreme teachings. The practicing assembly is also developed by the master. People in the practicing assembly are the children of the Buddha or the children of God. Therefore, they’re the supreme sentient beings.

Of course, it wouldn’t be good for us if we go in the direction of an inferior level. For instance, if we want to make a friend, we should find the best person; or if we’re going to elect a king or a president, we should go for the best, the most virtuous and the wisest person. If a bad president is elected — we wanted the best president but we voted for an inferior person — it’s of course no good for us! Similarly, if we want to worship, we ought to worship the supreme and the highest God. It’s not right if we worship demons and deities such as local gods, water deities, mountain deities, a sun god or any other gods, because their powers are all limited.

Only the Supreme God has the supreme and boundless power. No matter whether you venerate Hirm as the Supreme God, the True Lord or the Buddha power, Hes is the highest. You should understand inside that Hes is the supreme power of the universe. So you shouldn’t bow down to local deities or local gods, or it would be no good for you. Therefore, the Lord said, Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me. Hes wasn’t being autocratic, but only speaking the truth.

For instance, since we have a president in our country, we may just as well respect him. Why should we pay respect to a false president or a presidential candidate as our president? Even if such a person claims, “I’m the president. I would like to be the president,” but he hasn’t been elected. If we pay respect to him as our president just because he says that he would like to be one, is that appropriate? If we entrust our feelings and our political opinions to him and ask him to manage the national affairs, for sure it’s not appropriate! We already have a president who was elected by the people. We know that he’s the best and superior. So we may just as well support him. Therefore, when our president tells us, “I’m the president, the chief official of the country. Don’t listen to any other president. Listen to me only.” Is it appropriate for him to say so? (A: Yes) Similarly, God also told us to worship Hirm only.

In fact, God is the inner Master, the highest power. Hes had been taking care of those Israelites’ ancestors for many lifetimes until the time of Moses. This was because their ancestors practiced the Quan Yin Method, which had incredible power! Even after many generations, God still continued to take care of their offspring. Since Hes had been taking care of them so meticulously, Hes had the right to say, Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me. When the Israelites as well as us happen to meet God, the inner Master, who takes good care of us, of course we should worship Hirm only and not seek elsewhere. When the Lord told Hiers people, Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me, it was not for Hiers own benefit! Hes knew that it was good for the people who worshipped Hirm. The more the people worshipped Hirm, the better they would be. It was not due to Hiers arrogance, but Hes told the truth for the benefit of the people.

Similarly, those who have children take care of their children in every possible way every day. The children get whatever they want, including an allowance for school. Their parents also take care of their physical health, cook nutritious food for them, and prepare sufficient clothing for them. If the children then take the people next door as their parents, there must be something wrong! Those people have nothing to do with the children and they didn’t even give the children a dime or a set of clothes. They don’t love and care for the children. So the children can’t just take whomever they like as their parents simply because of a similar outward appearance. Only their real parents are their parents!

Therefore, if our parents tell us, “You should only take us as your parents, not anyone else,” they aren’t being arrogant. They are saying this for the good of their children. If we always go to our neighbors, today this neighbor and tomorrow that neighbor, to take them as our parents, what will happen to our physical health? What will happen to our identity? Then even our real parents can’t take care of us, because we aren’t around. So this won’t be good for us.

God loves Hiers people just like parents love their children. So, Hes tells them to recognize Hirm, and believe in Hirm, and only then will everything be fine. This is Hiers intention.

Sometimes, a master tells us to believe in him, and pray to him in any situation, but not pray to any other gods. This is for our own good and he knows that he can give us everything. If we go to someone else, we won’t get anything but will waste our time and miss the opportunity for the master to take care of us. That’s why he tells us, “It’s enough for you to believe in me only. Don’t believe in anyone else.” He isn’t being jealous. Why should he be? The whole universe belongs to him. He can get anything that he wants. So why does he have to compete with other people and be jealous? Whether we believe in him or not, he won’t lose anything, because we’re his in the first place, just like we’re our parents’ children. Our parents don’t need to compete with others for this, because it is the fact! However, if some children don’t recognize their parents, they may have hard lives, which is no good for them. They may not get the legacy, and their parents may not be able to look after them. If they’re never around, how can their parents take care of them? They don’t know the children’s whereabouts. So it’s bad for the children, but not for the parents. (Applause)

When we follow a master, we know that he’ll take care of all our major and minor things within and without. Therefore, when he tells us to believe in him, it’s easily understandable. The more we believe in him, the more opportunities he’ll have to take care of us. He tells us so only for our own benefit. If we’re ignorant, we’ll think that we belong to ourselves and have nothing to do with him. However, he knows clearly that he has affinity with us. We’re just like insensible children.

Sometimes when parents are strict with their children, their children will get upset and run away, thinking that their parents don’t care about them and don’t love them. This isn’t true! Parents are strict only for the good of their children. They know that their children are related to them. They know that they want to take care of their children out of love. They wish their children to be brought up well. However, children may not understand this. So they may run around, blame their parents, and do strange things that make their parents worry and make it hard for the parents to look after them.

The same thing applies to God (or a master) and Hiers disciples. God clearly knows that we’re Hiers children and Hes ought to look after us. Hes will do anything that we want Hirm to do. But it’s us who don’t understand this. We think that we have sovereignty and we take care of ourselves. So we make a mess. The more we do, the more trouble we make. We’re just like a child who tries to take care of himself when he hasn’t grown up yet and has no wisdom, intelligence and ability. The more he messes around, the more upset he’ll feel and the further away he is from his family. This will only make his life more dangerous and difficult, and make his parents worry more about him. Therefore, we should recognize God and believe in Hirm, because Hes is our supreme wisdom! Hes is no stranger; Hes is our most beloved kin. If we reject Hirm, go out to worship wooden Buddhas, mountains, deities or ghosts, we’ll only become more upset. This is all because we have forsaken Hirm, rejected Hirm, and won’t let Hirm take care of us.

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