Did you make any progress from the seven-day retreat, or did you just come here to listen to all these silly stories, laugh a bit so you’re less bored, and then go home? Huh? (So happy.) Did you make any progress? (Yes.) Were you able to enter samadhi? (Yes.) You did? (Yes, a lot.) A long time, staying in samadhi for a long time. This person is “leaning” onto the other person. How much samadhi is considered a lot? How many kilos? (For a few days.) Really? (Really, on certain days.) Really? (Yes. Certain days.) (Yes.) You can meditate? Better than at home? (Yes.) No wonder, whenever there’s a retreat, you come here and eat up all my food. Don’t tell me that the food tastes better here than at home. That’s strange – rice is rice, grain is grain; what could possibly be better than what you have at home? (It’s more delicious. It has Master’s Blessing.) Tastes better, huh? (Yes.)
It’s not because I blessed it or anything. Easy, when you’re here, you have to get up early and stay up late every day. Then you have to run back and forth, walk everywhere. Being chased by the Dharma guards like they’re chasing chicken(-people). Anyone who runs slowly, the Dharma guards show their bare teeth, and you’d be scared out of your wits, faint on the spot, and go to Nirvana instantly. So you get nervous when you’re here, right? Anxious, unsettled, right? Scared, your heart pounding and all that. So then, the blood vessels – your circulation – it speeds up a lot, so you get hungry quicker, that’s all. When you’re hungry everything tastes delicious, right? After you eat, you feel better; when you feel better, you run faster, and snore even louder.
There’s nothing to do here, our mind feels light and carefree. You know that no one will call you – these past few days, no one would be able to reach you at all. Anyone who tries to call carelessly is done for. They’ll write down your number and say that next time you’re not allowed to go inside to meditate. If any fellow practitioner tries to call here, that person will probably lose their initiation card during retreat. There is some, but probably very little – pretty light, right? But it’s pretty easy to hang up the phone here; if we don’t want to talk, we just pretend the phone is broken and say, “What? What, what?” Then you hang up “clack.” The person on the other line says, “My God, Cambodia is such a backward place! Didn’t even say a word and the line died?” So they call again. They call again, and you still say, “What? What?” “Are you OK? Are you OK?” And then we go, “Huh?” then hang up “clack.” Over here you can use any trick; it’s very easy to slip away. Nobody can come all the way here to look for us, but at home, they know everything, right? We can’t even hide. If the phone doesn’t go through, they’ll hop on a motorbike and come right over. But it’s easy here.
And then, you don’t sleep much. Then you meditate a lot, then you run back and forth; running from the meditation hall to the dining area is one kilometer. And it takes another hour to arrive because you can’t even run. There’s a thousand in front of us and a thousand behind, which way do we run now? Never mind, it’s better to go like a turtle(-person). But a turtle(-person) moves so slow. Then from there, running to the toilets is also another kilometer. It’s not that the building is far away, but the line to get in is many kilometers long. The line twists and turns in all directions and is still so long, and you keep waiting and inching forward slowly. And then where else? (Take a shower.) Ah, going to the shower is also another kilometer. One, two kilometers, not a short distance. And if by chance you forget something and have to run back to the tent, then that’s it, it’s a five-kilometer distance. In one day, running back and forth like that easily adds up to more than ten kilometers; no wonder you’re hungry. And when you’re hungry, everything tastes good. Easy as can be – no need for any blessings, why bother. Even eating – you still have to do blessings over it, what a hassle.
It’s fun, fun to come here, right? (Yes.) Your mind is relaxed, light and carefree, and then you meditate, it nourishes your spirit, (Yes.) there’s nothing to worry about. At least for four, five, six, seven days, there’s nothing to worry about. (Yes.) It’s just like when I stayed in the hospital last time. Oh, those days, I was so sick and had pain everywhere, so much suffering. Pain here, pain there, but still very happy. No one comes to bother you at all. If anyone comes in to cause trouble, you call the doctor to chase them out; otherwise, they give them an injection. Giving them a vitamin injection would be fine too, but once they see the needle, they are so scared that they run away, without even caring what kind of medicine it is. Feeling comfortable staying in the hospital those days; I just wanted to stay there forever and didn’t want to go home. Once I go home, someone calls me, or someone else drags me out; it’s so troublesome. Staying in the hospital, there are no worries at all, because we’re sick.
But staying in there too long, the doctors and nurses come in asking for blessings. The day that they started asking for blessings, that day I ran away. Oh my God, I thought staying in there would be a bit better; but it’s just like at our meditation center. This person wants some blessings, the other wants to see me, touching me here and there. Every day, they come in, hold my hands and feet, not thinking about anything else. But as soon as they hear “Supreme Master Ching Hai,” they rush in and touch again. “Wow, yesterday when I held Her hand to check Her pulse, I forgot to ask Her to bless me. Can I run inside and hold it again today?” They just checked the pulse in the morning and they rushed in to hold my hand again. So strange! So it’s better to run away. I thought staying in the hospital would be more comfortable, but it turned out to be the same. “You can’t escape the Sun by running from the sky,” might as well go home. But if those nurses hadn’t insisted on all that blessing stuff, I’d probably still be lying there and not come back yet.
Why bother coming back? Yesterday I was still working past 1 o’clock (AM), meeting this and that person. Early this morning, already someone wanted to see me and all that, so coming home is the same. It’s a waste of time. If don’t get sick here, then get sick there. At the hospital you can’t eat well; when you go home you can’t sleep well. But it’s different when you stay here; it’s not like staying in a hospital at all. Is it the same? (No, it’s not.) Much more comfortable, right? (Yes.) There aren’t any injections. There are only Dharma guards who sometimes show their bare teeth to scare little kids. We also show our bare teeth back, and they got startled. Most of you used to be Dharma guards yourselves before, right? (Yes.) We learned the secret techniques from the same Master, so what’s there to be afraid of? Whatever move they make, we can make the same one, who’s afraid of who?
You probably don’t have questions to ask, right? Laugh your heart out then go to sleep. Oh my, even being a king isn’t as enjoyable as this. No wonder the food tastes so delicious! And why even ask for blessings – what a hassle. If there were any blessings, then there wouldn’t be enough food for you. Otherwise, every day, we would have to open up a market right here. No time to cook, no time to buy, everyone would rush to the market to grab food. Therefore, I wouldn’t dare to bless anything. Even without blessings, you eat like this; imagine if there are blessings, that’d be unbearable. Oh my, you’ve come here to meditate and yet we’re just talking about food. Alright then, that’s enough. (Not yet.) What do you mean “not yet”? Do you want to sit until morning? (Yes.) It’s already morning. After midnight; it’s already morning. Who was the one sitting in the tent earlier praying for nonsensical things? Raise your hand. What do you want to ask?
But I forgot already, probably because I’m too tired. Tired and hungry too – it’s already past 11 (PM) and I haven’t eaten anything at all. In the morning, I ate a few slices of toast – they’re so thin… what do you call it… you can press them flat with your hand like a piece of paper. Wonder bread, do you know? (Yes.) The bread, sliced bread, (Yes.) so thin and flimsy. Around 11 something, the “stomach sister” said, “Hey, that’s enough, Master. Your ‘car’ has run out of resources, not even one last drop left. Why do You still sit there yawning nonstop?” So, She said, “Oh, yeah, right. OK then, let me go back to ‘refuel.’” And then suddenly, after just “fueling up” with only two or three spoonfuls – just a couple tablespoons of “fuel” – the guy up there says, “Huh, have You fueled up yet? There’s still work to do, do You hear me?”
I’d just sat down and taken a couple spoonfuls when the phone inside rang: “Master, why didn’t You let me see You earlier?” Then (Supreme) Master Ching Hai asked, “Who is this? Who’s on the other line? What do you want?” They were so scared and their voice trembled on the other end, “Yes… yes… yes… it’s m-m-me-e-e.” Then (Supreme) Master Ching Hai said, “Who is ‘me’?” She had already refueled two or three spoonfuls of “fuel soup,” so She had gathered some strength. She raised Her voice a bit, and the other person got so scared they hung up immediately. He hung up and didn’t say anything anymore, but he used the invisible fax to fax over the messages instead; he wouldn’t leave me in peace. She had just eaten a couple more spoonfuls of soup when a piece of paper faxed through here, “whoosh.”
The attendants standing nearby didn’t see anything and said, “Master, why did You suddenly jump up? And earlier, who were You talking to?” I said, “Didn’t you see that fax?” Fax means telegram in Aulacese (Vietnamese), right? (Yes.) Yes, a telegram. A modern telegram, we just call it a fax. They said, “No, I didn’t see anything at all, Master. Where is the fax? Where is the fax?” I said, “Alright, alright. You are worldly people with physical eyes, forget it. Even if I explain it, you wouldn’t understand. Forget it!” So I just ignored it, pretended I didn’t see their fax.
Photo Caption: “Your True Home in Heaven Awaiting Your Deserving One”
