These Five Precepts are for you to be human. If you drop “below” the Five Precepts’ standards, then you will be born as another species. Just like we have primary school and high school. You must have certain standards to be able to attend primary school. There are required standards to attend high school, and standards to attend university. But those who are child prodigies, they can jump from high school to university. Primary school students can jump to university, but very few can. Similarly to the ones who become Buddhas. They are young, haven’t practiced that many years, but they become Buddha immediately, because they are child prodigies, “Buddha prodigies.” It’s a bronzed prodigy Buddha, not a wooden Buddha!
So, if you want to come back as a human; for example, you feel that following Madame Ching Hai, being vegan and meditating long hours are too hard, then you just keep the Five Precepts, it’s OK. Which means do not kill, do not lie, do not commit adultery – one husband and one wife only. Neither drinking alcohol nor gambling and all that. You do not drink alcohol, then when you come back (reincarnate), you will be a human.
Do you have earphones? Do you have earphones? (Yes.) Are you OK? Are the foreigners OK? Anyone who don’t hear? You have to go and inquire for it.
It is not that I threaten you or tell you to keep these precepts for my benefit. But they are the laws of the Universe. If you keep these Five Precepts, even though you don’t practice spiritually to become God or Buddha, you still can come back as a human. And you will live a happy, healthy life with less suffering. If you can’t keep the Five Precepts, that means your standards are lower than those of humankind, then you will become a different species. For example, [you will come back] as animal(-people), ghosts, or demons which are one level below the human world.
If you keep the Five Precepts but also practice spiritually, and keep other subtle precepts, then you can become an immortal saint, become a Buddha, understand? (Yes.) For example, sometimes we think that if we don’t sleep with somebody or someone else’s wife, then we do not violate the precept. It is not so. Just think about it, you are already violating the precept. Just by looking [with lust] at someone, we have already violated the precept, if it was intentional, understand? (Yes.) It is somewhat OK if we don’t know. It is OK, but it doesn’t mean that we didn’t violate the precept. We did with a lesser sin. But if you do know, you look, or use words or something to seduce someone, while you already are married, have children, but still intentionally seduce or glance at someone, with impure thoughts, then you’re already violating the precept. (Yes.)
Because violating the precepts can be in your thoughts, speech and action, not just action alone. From the thought, it will go out into your speech, and then action. Because if we don’t have that thought, how can we say it? If we don’t have that thought, then how can our bodies act on it, understand? (Yes.) That’s why violating the precept (committing adultery) has three, four ways. The subtle one is inside your mind. It is more coarse when your action and your speech follow, and then it is finished. Therefore, you should always be careful. If you want to come back as a human, you have to keep the Five Precepts clearly. It is not that you keep the Five Precepts for Master to be fat, or for Her to be happy. No, it’s not so. Understand, right? (Yes.) Yes, don’t say: “I didn’t hold hands or touch feet or I didn’t kiss that person, so I didn’t violate the precept.” Still did! If you have a thought or wherever you go, you always glance at this or that person, then you violate the precept.
It’s because you’ve learned those bad habits. Naturally, your mind keeps following that path, and then it is very hard for you to pull your mind back. So, whatever your mind is thinking, your whole body will follow that direction. Because whatever your mind wants, it will be recorded inside your cells. Your cells record what your mind pays attention to. So those things will stay in your genes, in your cells, in the structure of your body. As those things accumulate more and more each day, it is harder to erase them, so you continue to follow that path. That’s why people who drink alcohol cannot quit easily. The more alcohol they drink, the harder it is to quit. For those who get used to smoking cigarettes, their mind will keep demanding it. It records that information, then it says, “How come there is no [cigarette] today?” Each day your mind records how many milligrams of nicotine it gets [and asks], “How come today there is no milligram at all?” Your mind demands it because smoking became a habit.
Similarly, men or women who commit adultery will become used to doing it, used to being indecent, flirtatious, then their bodies will naturally demand as such. Sometimes, it is too much; the whole body, all the cells demand as such, the mind at that time is weak and can’t resist anymore. Therefore, they keep falling into that path. The more it pulls you down, the lower you become. And the lower you go, the heavier you are being pulled, and you can’t go up anymore. So, you have to come back to be a human again to satisfy your desires until you are being beaten up and down that you can’t bear it anymore. At that time, you open your eyes, so fed up, then you can stand up. But it will take a long time, a few hundred years.
That’s why whenever your mind induces you to do those things, you must wake up immediately. Immediately recite the Buddha Names, recite the Five Holy Names to pull you back onto the righteous path, then it will stop. If you continue to allow your mind to think this and that, you follow it, then you will fall. Even though you practice spiritually, it’s a waste of effort. Each day, you meditate only for two [and a half] hours, but you may not even do enough. And all day, you are pulled down by such low (poor) ideas, then of course, you will fall. Do you understand? (Yes, we do.) It’s pulling you down for 20, 22 or 21 hours, while you are pulling yourself up only two or two and a half hours. Even in two and a half hours, you are nodding up and down (being sleepy), so it is not enough. Two and a half hours is for you to practice living a pure life. You haven’t practiced enough, yet you get pulled down so much, then how can you catch up?
Then when you go out, you might eat carelessly or indiscriminately, just eating whatever looks vegan without a second thought. But as long as you are not yet pure, you won’t even realize it when you eat it (non-vegan food). Once you have reached a certain level of purity, you’ll know the moment you taste even a little bit of non-vegan food. Otherwise, your stomach will react. A little while later, you will vomit or feel unwell, and you’ll know right away that what you ate wasn’t pure vegan food. Or, at night, when you meditate, you will experience dark or lowly realms, then you’ll know. Or your inner Master will come and scold you: “Today, you ate something wrong!” For example like that.
But if you are able to see your inner Master, you are at a very high level already. Otherwise, you can’t see. Even if She came and talked, you couldn’t hear anything. (Yes.) She is with you all the time, but you can’t hear Her. Indeed, I am with you 24/7, but you are blind and deaf, so you can’t hear anything. You only listen to all kinds of bad things from your mind. If everyone could hear the voice of the inner Master, no one would violate the precepts nor fall down.
It’s also because I give everyone an opportunity, so you can strive to improve yourselves. If I were choosy, there wouldn’t be many of you sitting here. If I select [disciples] then it would be very difficult for you, understand? (Yes.) And that is not talking about those people who practice well, go out and get influenced by others, by the surrounding energies.
A lot of things; it is not easy to practice spiritually. It’s not easy, and if you keep bringing more troubles to yourself, then God and Buddha would give up, understand? (Yes.) It is not that you violate the precepts, then someone will kill you. Because you lower your level, so you have to pull yourself back up. Just like a student who goes to school, doesn’t study diligently, causes troubles and all that, then he will fail, repeat the grade or get kicked out. That’s it. Until he’s so fed up, he will come back and study again. He has to start from the beginning again and prove to the teachers that he is OK now.
If it is too cold over there, then turn [the fan] off, love. If you leave it like that, does it cause you pain? Turn it off! Turn it off! You let it blow straight at them like that, giving them a headache, love. Turn it off. It is noisy too, I hate noise. Living in this world is frustrating. If we don’t turn on the fan, then it is hot. Turn it on, then it is noisy.
OK. So you take care. Try to be vegan and keep the Five Precepts. Sometimes, if you practice well, and accidentally eat something not vegan, you will know right away. Is there anyone who knows? (Yes, we know.) You know, right? (Yes.) Sometimes we eat by accident, we know right away, right? (Yes.) When we come home, we have acne everywhere, if not, when we sleep at night, the ghosts would come and pull our legs, or we see a pitch-black realm. We may be sick, have stomachache, headache, all kinds of things. Or we suddenly hate Master so much. It’s true! You go home and ask those people who dropped out. Let me tell you, 99.9% of them ate the wrong food or abandoned the Five Precepts, then gradually they’d leave me. Because we are going in opposite directions, getting further and further apart. Even if they don’t leave [Master], we are still far apart, understand? (Yes.)
What can we do? Two people, if one is going South, and one is going North, then how can those two meet? Don’t talk about leaving me, you will just separate yourself [from me]. Two energy fields are different, so they can’t like each other. We call it “like attracts like.” (Yes.) Like attracts like. If they are going on different paths, then sooner or later, they will leave us. That’s why those who left me, didn’t leave me, but left themselves. They left their ideals, left their vows, left their honorable and beautiful paths that they had chosen before, then they walk on the dark and obscured paths with no future. Of course, each person has his own choice, no one can force anyone. Therefore, when I give initiation, I never say that I force you to walk on this path all your life. I never force anyone, but I have to advise that you should stay on the beautiful path which you’ve chosen. If you walk on a different path, then after a while we are far apart.
So, you understand why someone would leave me. Number one, they eat non-vegan food carelessly. Number two, they violate the Five Precepts, and then naturally their energy field will become different. Because whatever you eat, your body will become like that. For example, when we eat animal(-people) flesh. When the animal(-people) are being killed, they discharge poison, so you will be poisoned, get sick. That is talking about the body only, the spiritual aspect is another thing. Animal(-people)’s spirituality is different from human spirituality. Fruits or vegetables are neutral; they don’t have that intense quality found in animal(-people) flesh. Because the animal(-people) love life and fear death; they have a much stronger energy field. They know how to walk, to stand, to make love, to love and to fight for a female, or for a male animal(-person). They know how to fight for their territory, their living spaces.
But the vegetables, they don’t compete with each other like that, they just stand still. They belong to still life more, they stand still. They move by the wind only. Due to the wind, the flowers are pollinated and they have fruits. But the animal(-people) have to move, have to go by themselves and find the opposite sex to produce children. Then, they have their jealousy and possessive character. And their cruel character, too. The animal(-people) who eat other animal(-people) are even more cruel, you see? (Yes.) For example, elephant(-people) or rabbit(-people), if we are messing with them too much, they turn back and bite us or attack us. But tiger(-people), we don’t need to. We don’t need to tease them, but they tease us. They find us, bite us, eat us, right? (Yes.) Or they eat other animal(-people). Some examples like that.
Therefore, you eat plants, your body is lighter. You eat vegetables, because they are neutral, there’s no cruel substance like in the animal(-people) flesh. Now, the animal(-people), because their energy field, their body structure are those of animal(-people) so they become animal-(people), do you understand? (Yes.) Their intelligence is different from that of humans. Their emotions, their reactions are different from those of humans, because they are animal(-people). So, the animal(-people) have their own structures, their own energy field, their own levels. If you eat the animal(-people), that means you mix with them. If you eat too much animal(-people) flesh, then later, the animal(-people) substance [inside us] will be more than the human substance, so you will have to become an animal(-person). It is easy to explain, no need of superstition. No need to have Buddhism to prove the law of cause and effect. This time you become an animal(-person), another time you would...
For example, now we have a glass of water like this. The plain water has nothing in it, but then you add something into the water. For example, adding ink, the ink which we use to write with. If we add one drop [of ink], we don’t see anything yet, the water is still clear. Two or three drops, the water may be still clear. Now we add four, five, six, seven, eight drops, then after a while, the water will become pitch black, right? (Yes.) The water now becomes ink. (Yes.) We add more ink, then it becomes all ink. (Yes.) And we can dip in it to write, see that? (Yes.) Because ink substance is different from water substance. So now, human substance is different from animal(-people) substance. If you add too much animal(- people) quality into your body, then you become more like an animal(-person), or at least 80%. When you are about 70%, you can become an animal(-person) already, because you have more of it than the human substance. For example, if you have 60%, 70% of human quality, you are still a human, but a little bit like an animal(-person).
Therefore, you can see that many people are a little bit like animal(-people), right? (Yes.) They don’t have a human personality. (Yes.) They can still be called Mr. this, Mrs. That, and all that. But, they kill, steal, cheat and lie easily just like they are singing. They get used to it. Those are people who have too many animalistic qualities. But you see, there are some animal(-people), even though they have animal(-people) bodies, they have intelligence, wisdom, and emotions like humans. (Yes.) Ah, that’s because their human characteristics are more than other animal(-people). Some animal(-people) have more animalistic qualities, for example 80%, then they are more like animal(-people) than humans. Some animal(-people) have 40% or 45% human qualities, then they become half-human and half-animal(-person). We can see some animal(-people) are so smart and so emotional. That’s what it is.
Photo Caption: “Brightening Your Own Life Would Also Lighten Up Others’ Lives”
