We Should Not Copy
A Master’s Outer Performance

News 59, Master Tells A Story
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Rainbow Garden, Hsihu Center, Formosa • February 22, 1996
(originally in English)

There was a master who trained his disciples in wisdom. Some of the people came to the master and wanted to be trained in wisdom. So he said, “Yeah, of course to be a future master, future Buddha, we must be endowed with at least two gifts. There are many important qualities for a future Buddha but there are two important gifts that one must have in order to advance quickly in spiritual practice.”

So the disciples asked him, “What are they? What are these two gifts?”

The master said, “The first is the power of endurance. Endurance means you endure anything that other people cannot. The second is the power of observation — look, look, look.”

To demonstrate, the master immediately told the attendant to bring in a bowl with a lot of filthy things inside, that once you even smelled it you’d want to vomit. But the master was very unmoved. He put his finger inside the bowl of very filthy, disgusting things; full of the things that you don’t even want to look at — maybe straight from the rest-room. He put his finger inside, then took his hand and put his finger in his mouth. His face didn’t move, just like the wall in front of you or me.

So the future Buddhas surrounding him were very eager to try to show the master that they were qualified to be his disciples. So all of them came, put their finger in the bowl and then put it in their mouths, and managed not to move their faces. No expression of disgust or anything.

The master laughed and said, “Congratulations, you have passed one test but not two. The one test that you have really passed is the test of endurance. But the second test you failed because you didn’t have the power of observation.”

The disciples said, “Why?”

The Master then said, “I put this finger in but I put the other finger in my mouth.”

He put the index finger in the filthy bowl but he put the middle finger in his mouth. (Laughter) The disciples didn’t see anything. They put the same finger in the bowl as they put in their mouths.

So you see what it is now. Those are the stupid disciples. That’s the way many of the disciples. They just copycat the master. Copy anything, anything, anything; then they make the fool of themselves. That’s the trouble, so we don’t copy anyone. Even the master wouldn’t copy anyone. If we want to be like the master, then we don’t copy anyone. Everything is original because each one is endowed with the power of creativity. Everyone can create everything, according to his and her ability and artistic tendency.

We don’t have to copy anyone, including the Buddha, the master or the Patriarch of the whole world. That is why you see many masters they don’t look like the others. The Patriarch Hue Nen didn’t look like the Buddha and didn’t act like the Buddha. Jesus didn’t act the same as Lao Tze. Lao Tze again didn’t do anything that resembled Krishna, et cetera. So if we copy the master or we expect the master to look like the one that we read about in the Bible, or the one we have imagined in our head, then we never can find a master. We shouldn’t find the copy, we must find the original. The master is always original. We don’t want a copy, do we?

So in our spiritual practice, we must always be vigilant. The master does things differently, sometimes very, very differently. We just look like that, and then we think we can do it — touch the head, touch all over, like I told you yesterday. Looking in the eyes, giving candy — candy we can buy even more. Things like that. It is not the outer performance from which you can judge whether that person is a master or not, it is something inside.

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