Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai,
Seven-day Retreat in Ilan, Formosa
August 12-18, 1988 (Originally in Chinese) MP3-2


You should not mind whether I get angry or not. Anger is something produced by people's discrimination. My "anger" is not real anger. My "Love" is not regular love, either. It's just something you create with your discriminating mind. Your minds have attachments and that's why you say there are good and bad, soft and tender people. Actually, there's nothing serious at all in the universe. If I really get angry, how come you have such good experiences when I scold you?

When someone is really angry, he will frighten and upset others, and be nervous and unsettled the whole day. When you quarrel with your husband or wife, or when they are angry, don't you feel unsettled and troubled? (Audience: Yes.) It is not the same as when I am angry with you and you have such good experiences. This means that it's not real anger. After I get angry, many of you have good experiences. Therefore, the method of "anger" must be among the 84,000 paths. (Audience laughs.)

So you should not care about my anger. I get upset when I have to. It's the right method to use at the right time. Otherwise, you are dependent on my "loving heart" and get attached to it, and when you meditate, you sit with an unsettled mind; and practice sluggishly, what kind of spiritual practice is that? But as soon as I scold you, your minds settle down and you repent inside, asking me for help within. At that time, your minds are settled. Therefore, you should not be sad when I scold you. It's one of the methods that I have to use.

Sometimes I don't want to be angry, because I am afraid you cannot bear it. So every time I pray to God and the Saints, to the Master inside: "If they do not practice well, let all the karma fall upon me. Let them hear no reprimand, not even one word of scolding. Please don't let them suffer." But then it does not work that way. God still wants me to use the "anger method." I cannot do anything about it.

I do not want you to hear any reprimands, so that you can practice with a peaceful mind and enjoy inner experiences without being scolded or beaten. That's an expectation of mine that cannot be fulfilled. I pray for it every day. I pray only for this. Whenever I see you suffering, I pray, "Send all their karma to me and let them relax. Let them have good experiences. It doesn't matter how much I suffer." Nevertheless, this wish has never been realized, because we still live in this world and things don't work that way. One cannot bear all the karma of others in this world.

I do not want you to suffer. But you should understand that it is better for us to pursue spiritual practice in this physical world. Here, we have joy, anger, sorrow and happiness to keep us interested and dynamic. We have heard that we can't make progress fast in some of the Heavens, where there is only happiness. When I don't scold you or get angry with you, it's as though you're in Heaven, and your spiritual practice becomes a perfunctory practice. It becomes uninteresting, routine, and unexciting. That's why you do not practice well. But it will be different if you are thrown into the Astral or physical world and are scolded. Then you make progress faster.

In the Heavens, there is nothing like scolding and beating, while there is joy and wrath, sorrow and happiness in this world. But it doesn't mean that we can only experience the physical world since we live here. No! Sometimes you see other realms or Heaven, or you see the Pure Land at the lecture venue. That is our inner perception, inner experience. It's not that you go somewhere higher physically. The Heavenly realm is inside you when are happy, and nobody scolds, restrains, or opposes you. That is Heaven. Therefore, we can't practice well in Heaven. And I have to create a physical world for you. After my anger is gone, you all get good experiences. I am the only one who is exhausted. When I scold you I have to fall down into the same realm as you are -- the physical world, in order to elevate you.

Next pageBack to Contents

Master Says: The Real Meditation

Master Says