I have just mentioned about Master Hui Neng. He was illiterate. He couldn't read, couldn't write. But he was famous for many centuries and even more famous now, since the Zen Buddhism, or Ch'an or the China Buddhism is making its way to the West. Because the God nature or the kingdom of God is within us, or the Buddha nature is inborn within us. This is what we call "wisdom" in scientific terminology, or what we explain as the 95 percent of the capability that we have not used. Understand that? Because the scientists have proved that we use only 5 percent of our wisdom, of our brain capacity. The one who can use 100 percent of his wisdom or intelligence, that is the Buddha, that is the Christ, that is the Lao-Tze, that is the Krishna or Mohammed, or whoever you believe has the greatest brain power in our world. They are the ones who know the secret of access into the whole kingdom of our intelligence. That is what we call the kingdom of God.
Everything lies within ourselves. The Nirvana is the same thing. Buddhas, Christ are all born out of this kingdom of God. No one has been born without this kingdom of God or without this Buddha nature, just like the waves are born from the ocean. Now, is there any way to gain control over this 100 percent of our intelligence? Yes, there is the way. There are many ways. There are short ways, long ways, big ways, small ways, easy ways and difficult ways. Some people do them with prayers, fasting, austerities or all kinds of effort. These things we have read in the books of ancient wisdom. How people sacrificed everything in order to find God and to find the Buddha nature. But nowadays, if we follow these rigorous paths, it is too hard, too time-consuming. We can't just go into the jungle and leave the society behind.
In the ancient time, people had less desires and less comfort in life. Even though they wanted, they couldn't have it. Nowadays we have more temptation due to more comfort. Sometimes, we don't want this and that. But the neighbor has it, and the wife will not let us rest until she obtained the same, or the husband vice versa. In the olden days, people would be satisfied if they had just a few clothes or a little bit thing to eat. There were no newspapers, communication, no TV, or not such-like. Therefore people were not tempted to want more things. So their time was more in plenty. They could use it to practice on their hobby like to find God.
Now, to find God is also a hobby, anyhow. For me, it is a hobby. It is a very pleasurable hobby. Now people have different hobbies, but the greatest hobby, they forget. That is how to find God, how to find the Buddha nature within. It is not as difficult to find God as to earn money, I may tell you. We work very hard, 8-10 hours a day, and even then it be squandered away very fast if we are not careful. And even if we are careful, we can make the ends meet a little bit, and a little bit more for the old age, nothing more. But if we find the kingdom of God, it lasts forever. Whatever intelligence, wisdom, happiness, joy we find, it will always be ours. Never ever will be squandered away. Never ever anyone can steal it from us. And even then our material gain will also be on the way. Therefore in the Bible, it is said, "Seek you first the kingdom of God, and then all the things shall be added unto you."
That is why the ancient people they know where the everlasting happiness is, so they practice a way of life, the Tao, practice the Buddhist way or the Christian way. You see, I was born as a Catholic and a Buddhist, both, so I have to speak for both. I hope you don't mind. Also since Dr. Tavanty already mentioned that we, the Au Lac people have the tradition of open-mindedness, freedom of thought, and freedom of belief. So I have to carry on our tradition to be faithful to our Au Lac tradition. In Au Lac a Catholic husband and a Buddhist wife go hand in hand to the church in the morning and go to the temple in the afternoon. Most of our people do not discriminate or make a big fuss about who is the best one and what is the highest religion. If you are happy with your religion, fine! I'm happy with mine. We may learn from each other some good points.
Anyhow, who are we to judge the Buddha? Who are we to judge Jesus Christ? We weren't even there then. We didn't even know how great they were, what did they do. We can judge from the good laws they left behind for us, from the good preachings, from the outstanding examples of their sacrifices and love. Then we know Jesus was all right. Then we know Buddha was great. We cannot criticize them in any way at all. For what they have done for humanity, neither of them should be criticized. Whoever follows Christ they should be a good Christian. Whoever follow the Buddha they should be a best Buddhist. That's all our duty. Not to criticize or not to compare.
So, therefore in every speech, I wouldn't emphasize people to follow me, to cut their hair to become a nun or to become a Buddhist even. If you are Christian, you remain there. If you are any at all, you remain there. Even if you are an atheist, I also try not to convince you the existence of God. I will only want to show you the existence of God or of the Buddha nature, and then you will believe. Because if we do not see God, if we do not see the Buddha nature within us, it is very difficult to believe, no? So we cannot blame the atheists for not believing in God. It's not everyone that are blessed with not seeing, however believing. So for some who are not believing by not seeing, we offer the opportunity to see God or to see Buddha nature. That is what we call immediate enlightenment.
Knowing your own nature, and knowing the kingdom of God within that we may believe. Because when we are enlightened, whether we are Christians, or Buddhists or Taoists, we find the same stuff, we find the same wisdom, the same kingdom, the same Nirvana. There is no difference. I have been there. I found no difference. It is one place, the same. Actually, to say "a place" is also a way of speaking only. But must not necessarily be a place if you are enlightened. It is a state of mind. It is a higher level of consciousness, of thinking, of knowing, of understanding. That is also called the kingdom of God or the Buddha nature. It is not necessary that you fly to a beautiful place every day.
Enlightenment manifests itself in many ways. You may see beautiful places, planes of consciousness, planes of existence. Or you may manifest wisdom, and virtues in everyday life in order to serve yourself, your immediate family, your nation, and the whole world. When the famous Indian Master, Sri Ramakrishna was still alive, I expect that you heard his name, no? (Audience: Yes.) W e couldn't say he was a Buddhist, so don't say I advocate Buddhism only. I'm very equal-minded to every great saint.
So when he was alive, of course, he had many visions about God and he had many kinds of Samadhi. His disciples were also very eager to have similar kinds of Samadhi. I expect you know what Samadhi is, no? If you do not know, then I explain. Samadhi means when you are in a kind of higher level of consciousness and you lose outer connection with the world. You are in communion with God. You only see Heavenly Kingdom. You do not see the misery and the pain, and do not experience the misery and the pain of the world or any discomfort of your body and mind. You are in bliss, in ecstasy. That is what we call Samadhi. There are different levels though, but I'm not going into it tonight. If you have any questions later, we can go deeper into the subject.
Now his disciples saw him many times everyday in Samadhi, in a deep, blissful state, in deep Nirvana. They also wanted the same. One of his outstanding disciples was Swami Vivekananda, who is very famous in your country. He asked the Master, "Could I have the same level of attainment like you?" And he ask many times like that, because he had got none. So the Master scolded him, "You fool, there are higher levels than Samadhi." Now what is the higher level than Samadhi? That is of loving, of devotion. Love all creatures as our own selves. Love the enemies as friends. Love the neighbor. Love God above all, and surrender everything to God. That is higher than Samadhi.
But there is a trap here. We the Buddhists can also say that, we love the Buddha, worship the Buddha, and we love our neighbor, we love our friends, our enemies, that is it. But there is a difference between saying and really doing. Most of the human beings are incapable of such a great love, because we are not trained in this way.
Only enlightened people are capable of such a great love, and compassion and tolerance. Therefore we see in many nations in many periods of time, people always fighting over ideas, over territories, over financial benefit. But they always say that it is in the name of love for their nation, love for their religions, love for their groups or their kinsmen. Maybe it is true that they love their country, so they go and fight and invade other countries in order to benefit their own. But that is too small the love, it's too limited.
The love of Buddha and Christ includes the whole universe, no races, no colors, no finances, no status. Therefore, we see the disciples of the Buddha have many social positions, different social position, different in races, different in colors, different in social status, and different nationalities. The disciples of Christ also the same. All kinds of disciples, all kinds of nationalities, all kinds of personalities, all kinds of different beliefs will unite themselves under the wing of an enlightened Master. Because the enlightened Master's love is so great. It encompasses everything, and no one feels excluded. And such enlightened souls would never fight or side with one person or one nation or any sect or any religion but preach universal love, universal truth, and equality to all. Therefore, Jesus said, "All are children of God. Whatever I can do today, you can do even greater tomorrow." He didn't say, "I'm the only son of God." He said, "We are all the children of God. In the house of my Father, there are many mansions and all are welcome." So Buddha also say the same thing, "All of us can become Buddha. I have become Buddha, you will become Buddha. All beings have Buddha nature." These sayings denote similar ideas, understand? That is the equality of mankind in the eyes of God or in the wisdom of the Buddha.
I have not started my mission seriously before two years. When was the first initiation? That was in India. Must be in 1983, when I started, forced to start. Now is 1989. Six years, only six years since I started my mission. But I have found that truly everyone inherits the kingdom of God. Everyone has the Buddha nature. And everyone can see the Buddha nature in no time, provided he or she is willing to, is convinced that he and she can see and is willing to let a teacher help to open the door for them. All can see, all can enter into the Kingdom of God. There is no one, rich, poor, small, big, weak, strong, intelligent, stupid, has been refused into the kingdom of God. No one ever, not as far as I know. Therefore, I believe what Christ said is true. We just have to become a child again and then we can enter the Kingdom of God and right now on the earth. Why? Because the Bible says, "Lo and behold, the Kingdom of God is within you!" The Bible didn't say the Kingdom of God is very far away, 20,000 light years distance. (Master & everyone laugh.) No! No! No! It says, "The Kingdom of God is within you." And the Buddha said, "The Buddha is within you." So now both of them saying the same thing. If we want to find the Buddha, if we want to find God, we have to go within.
But how to become a child? It is not easy, we think. Truly it's not easy, if we do it all by ourselves, but if we have the grace of God and the blessings of the living Buddha. The living Buddha is not the body. It is the power of love that flows into one body and to bless the whole world, understand that? So when the Buddha was alive, he said he was Buddha. It doesn't mean he was proud of his own personality, his ego as Buddha. No! No! It means he already destroyed his own ego. He had no longer an ordinary "I," but he was one with the Father, one with the universe, with the creative force. So when Jesus said "I'm the son of God, I and my Father are one," it didn't mean that he was very arrogant and proud of himself as an individual ego-self. But he knows that he had lost himself, and merged into the ocean of consciousness of the great wisdom.
So, how to become a child? It's very easy. We need a so-called cleansing process. First we must vow to follow the Commandments of the Bible or the Buddhist scriptures again. They both say similar things. The first in the Bible is "You shall not kill." In Buddhism, also, you do not kill. And in Hinduism also the same--- ahimsa, no harm to other living beings--- that means ahimsa. From that ahimsa stems the Commandments of the Bible, of the Buddhist Sutras. Christ also had been in India for nineteen years. Buddha also had to learn first from the Vedic scriptures. Then he became Buddha by his own right. So, if we follow the Commandments of the Bible or the Buddhist scriptures and we start to change our way of life, then from that day on, also by the grace of God, we will be cleansed, be purified like a child. And then when we are purified at that moment, we see the light of God, we see the Kingdom of God or so-called Buddha nature.
So when Jesus was alive, he give people baptism, to baptize people. But even he himself had to go through the process of baptism. He said, "Let the law be done." Why did he have to do that? Even though he was already great, and John the Baptist knew he was great. But because he knew that he had to set an example of humility, of believing in grace of God to the rest of humanity. All his whole life is an example of humility. The Buddha Shakyamuni also the same. Shakyamuni was a prince, very rich in all means, very talented. He could have the whole nation, and luxury. But he went around forty nine years, even after his enlightenment, to beg. His begging doesn't mean that he couldn't work or he is unable to work. Just to show many thing, many examples to humanity. The first is to show us the desirelessness for the world's possessions. The second is to show us that we all have to depend on each other in order to live. No one is higher, no one is lower. He was the first one to preach equality, to break down the caste system of the untouchable idea in India. He taught by his own example and humility. He didn't only preach by mouth, by words, but he taught by his life example.
Every great Master does that. Jesus also did the same. He walked barefoot. He had nowhere to lay his head. Now in our days, in these modern days of our time, we couldn't follow exactly like Buddha or like Jesus. But we could follow it in our hearts their ways of living. We have to feel a detachment for this world, and that is also renunciation. We live in the world, but we live without the world. We shouldn't crave so much for the material comforts. We have them just to sustain our life, but knowing in our heart truly that the greatest ones like Buddha and Jesus never care for them. We follow Buddha in this way, by detachment, by desirelessness. We follow Christ in this way by detachment, by desirelessness, and also by love for our people.
Now, the American people have shown some of their Christianity love, of the Christ love in some of the world's interactions with other countries. For example, the American country has accepted many refugees from different nations. That is a part of Christ love. That is how we follow Christ. And as for the Au Lac people, I also have to thank the American sisters and brothers who have open their arms and received some of our truly in need refugees from Au Lac. That is also a part of Buddha's compassion. Therefore, I believe that if you are a good Christian, you are also a good Buddhist. There is no difference between a Christian and a Buddhist, as long as we do good to others.
Therefore, I never discriminate between the Buddhist believers and Christian believers. Christian people did good to mankind in many ways, and Buddhist people did good to mankind also in many ways, just maybe different ways of doing and working. Take care that I do not go too far into this political situation. But I cannot help not to express my opinion. Actually because if we cannot make use practically what we learned from Christianity or what we learn from Buddhism, then what is the point? Is that right? So, we show our religious mind through our own actions. Therefore if we say something about the world's situation, and the amnesty, and the compassion of the American people or other countries, that's also very fit! This fits in a religious lecture.
But, what I want to express is something more concrete than just like that, because some people want to know God, not only to serve God in human frame, but also want to know the God, the transcendental God, the transcendental Buddha nature. We see that Buddha became Buddha by what way. We see Christ how he had become so great. There is a reason, there is a way to achieve this greatness. Just like any science. Just like you want to study in university, you have to have such and such condition; you must have some money, some qualifications from high school; you have to pass some exams. Now if we want to become a Buddha or Christ, apart from this great love that we show to other human beings, like in human work, in amnesty work, in social service, we have to know our real nature; we have to know where we come from; we have to know how great we are.
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Now, we have been great in the past. We have come from the kingdom of God. If we haven't come from God, then where have we come from? God created all things. If we haven't come from this Buddha nature or the Tao, then where have we come from? We must start from there, from that greatest source in the universe. So, therefore we have been great always. It's just that we forgot, that is the Truth that we forgot. Now, there is a way to remember these things again by walking backward to the higher source, where we have come from. Just like you follow the river down to the sea. Now if you want to go back to the source of the river, walk backward. So, the kingdom of God is within us, so walk inward. There is a way to see the kingdom of God within, to see the Buddha within. That is what we call the enlightenment method. Go back to the original. The Buddha had followed this method to become Buddha. Jesus Christ had followed this method to become the son of God.
Now if we say we are all sons of God, we are already Buddha, so why we need to practice? Yes, we are. But we forgot. That is no use for us now. We have to remember again through diligent effort to go back into the past, to our own deep memory. That is what the scientists call 95 percent dormant intelligence. In that 95 percent lays many things. Now, with only 5 percent, we can already go to Mars; we can already go to the moon. We can already make airplanes and rockets and all kinds of comfort to life. What much more if we could use the 95 percent? The kingdom of God is ours, if we know how to use it.
We know we are Buddha. Everybody tells us we are Buddhas, or we are the sons of God, but we don't know where that greatness is. We only know that we are miserable everyday, or not everyday but I mean most of many days. I'm sorry if you are happy, but I see the majority of people. Though they have money, have good family, status, everything is ephemeral. Look at our country, the Au Lac country, it had been glorious, peaceful. We had many things; we were very rich in minerals, in agriculture, in culture. But then suddenly, we have nothing. Suddenly, all is turned upside down, everything destroyed. People had to leave the country, so dangerous on the sea, and they had to fight for survival. Many people who came to your country have been heroes in our country, have been generals, top leaders, millionaires, billionaires in our country. They are not just all poor. They are not just all illiterate. They are not just all useless, helpless people. They have been in the glorious past, they've been the men of wisdom, of social standing, of rich, of culture. It is just the ephemeral life turns sometimes and makes people become nothing that humiliate our people.
Maybe it is good for them, I do not know, that we have to learn sometimes to come down, to be humble, and to know there is a greater force than our own hand and human brain can control. Then we have to turn back to God, to turn back to practice to become Buddha, to rely on this great force of the Buddha nature or Kingdom of God. That is maybe the reason why we have to learn sometimes through disasters to know God. Otherwise we keep having success in our life and being so successful, we are carried away with it, and we forgot where we come from. We forgot that we are greater than just a lawyer. We are greater than just a president, we are greater than just a millionaire. We are God's children; we are Buddhas. So this birthright we have to claim. It doesn't matter through what. Through happiness, through longing, or through disaster.
We have to be awakened through many means. Therefore, I said earlier, there are many ways to find the wisdom within. If we don't long to find it ourselves, sometimes the Creator will send disasters to wake us. So we see that many times, in time of stress and disaster, we pray more honestly, more sincerely to God than when we are well-off, than when we are in happiness, or in stable condition. Is it not so? So, when we have pain, or our family have people died, or some disasters, then we pray. At that time we remember God very clearly. "Please, please, please ...." So many prayers.
Now, we do not need to wait until a disaster befalls us in order to remember to practice to become Buddha again or to be like Christ. We should do it when we have time, at leisure, and good conditions. So that we do not have to have experience disaster. What we call in Au Lac: To prevent is better than to cure. We all know this. Every nation will say the same thing. But we just don't do it. We just don't prevent things. We just do things, and then reap the result and then we cry. Now we have been through life, 30, 40, 50 years now. We should have known a little bit more about this ephemeral nature of life. We should turn back to God now, so that the day we leave this world, God open the kingdom for us, Buddha welcome us. Not the darkness, not the evil plane of existence what we call Satan power, or the Negative power, or the power of Maya.
So I'm here like everywhere else, just to offer you a way to find your own Greatness. With God, well and good. With Buddha, it's also well and good. Without God, without Buddha you still can find your Greatness. Because you are that, you are born from God. You are bound to go back to God, whether you believe or not believe. You are that, you cannot escape anyhow. So I just want to offer you what I have found as a treasure, hidden treasure within myself. And I know that the hidden treasure is within you as well. I would like only to help you to know your greatness, your self-worth. And then you live in the world as king, as saint, as Christ did, as Buddha did. And not having inferiority complex, and not doing your work well, and not sleeping well, having guilty conscience, having sickness, disease body and mind. That is my purpose. Now I will end my lecture. Thank you! (Applause)
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