Chapter 25 - To Go Away From All Possessions

I am often asked, why did I leave my own country to come to the United States? Why do I live like a hermit by Lake Sammamish?

My only answer is that I had to go away from all possessions.

When I became famous, there were suddenly people trying to teach me how to trade and do business, how to gain power, how to wear the most beautiful clothes, how to command servants, how to enjoy gourmet foods, how to live in the most luxurious villas, how to drive the world's most expensive sedans, and how to sleep on a spacious and soft mattress.

Fame and Profit follows when a reputation is made. Fame and Profit can make people feel that they love themselves more than they love other people. Fame and Profit can make people love money and reputation so much that they would rather die than to part from them. And then there are the "beautiful people" who will come and utter words such as,'you are the noblest and the worthiest to love in this world."

Someone had hoped and planned to buy a whole mountain and develop it into a cemetery with the best Feng Shui (geomancy). He would then make a great deal of money using the master's name.

Someone said, since the master was so famous, all he needed was to build a temple with tens of thousands of lamps. The master would not have to worry about money at all, as long as he asked people to come and light a lamp and charged them a fee.

Someone said, since the master was so famous, a corporation should be formed which charged fees for doing such business as selecting names at birth and selecting grave sites at death. The master would become one of the world's richest men.

Someone said, since the master was so famous, he should charge a fee for the service of spiritual healing and, with the money plus the interest, he would one day become a billionaire.

Someone said, since the master was so famous, all he needed to do was to perform a Buddhist ceremony (puja) once a month. Everyone would come and make offerings, and then how could the master not be rich and successful?

The anticipation of Fame and Profit was germinating in the hearts of many students, like the invasion, into a slice of fresh bread, of a single bacterium which suddenly reproduces and multiplies into many more bacteria and slowly eats up the bread. This slice of bread may be originally fresh but, after being attacked and eaten by the bacteria of Fame and Profit, it can become degenerate, arrogant, desirous of all worldly things, and finally crumble into the earth and turn into dust.

Love of Fame and Profit is insatiable, greedy, and foolish. It is an invisible illness that can drag someone infected with it into the middle of hell. In such a mundane world, interwoven with mirth and suffering, one becomes greedier and greedier, more and more like a vulgar man and less and less like a cultivator. Cultivation becomes just an excuse, a tool to make money. There is no end to this greed.

If the master had stayed in Taiwan, wealth may have caused him to comedown with the terminal illness of insatiability.

And what about the close disciples of the master? Inevitably some would have also become infected with vulgarity and foolishness due to love of Fame and Profit.

I know that I am a preacher to this world, both in body and in spirit; my trip through this world must not be in vain. If I had stayed in Taiwan, I might have followed the crowd. Hence, the Bodhisattvas wanted me to leave everything behind, to travel far, far away to Lake Sammamish, to completely awaken my spiritual Light and to not to get lost in the time and space of the mundane world.

I know that, though my physical body lives amid the crowds, my heart and spirit stay far away from them. I did not follow any schemes offered by others to make money. I was indifferent to the comforts and luxury in the environment. I did not become rich, I did not own any houses, I did not own anything, and I had to say good bye to my country.

It can be said that this was a lofty awakening. The Cosmic Consciousness specifically told me, the Holy-Red-Crown- Vajra-Master, to go away from all possessions, to listen carefully to the inner world's wants, and leave everything else behind. Only memories remain.

My determination to cultivate was like the gushing spring; consequently, all thoughts of possession were silenced.

I lived quietly and solitarily in Ling Xian Attic¹. I looked quietly and solitarily at Mount Rainier's snow caps. I spent day after day quietly and solitarily in cultivation. The Divine Self of the inner world and the Eternal Self became instantly manifested.

I finally came to Lake Sammamish. All the worries and immaturity characteristic of the mundane people disappeared from me. I do not feel tired or dull any longer, because the Universe is me and I am the Universe.

Days spent at Lake Sammamish, over a long period of time, have taught me much, from the surface to the depths of the lake. With all my meditation and visualization, the Consciousness of the Cosmos has merged with me at the depth of my inner world. I have learned much and experienced much.

Lake Sammamish has layers of thin veils.

Lake Sammamish has layers of translucent fog.

Yet, this is going away from all possessions. I am not rich and I do not grasp tightly to Fame and Profit. I have only taken root, the root of the Tantra Dharma, with Lake Sammamish.

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