Later, Milarepa’s mother asked him to learn black magic; so then he used the black magic and killed all the members of his uncle’s family, totaling more than 30 people. Because of this karma, Milarepa encountered numerous obstacles in the process of his spiritual practice. But he became regretful and afraid only after he committed the killing. His master who had taught him the black magic also told him, “You must find an enlightened Master quickly in order to save yourself. Once you find one, you have to come back and save me. Otherwise, both of us will go to hell because the karma created by killing with black magic is too great!”

Hearing these words, Milarepa was of course in a hurry to find an enlightened Master. But the Master he found refused to teach him anything, no matter how much he asked. Every day the Master only told him to do hard laboring work until he was very tired. Sometimes, his Master would ask him to move a huge rock uphill and later told him, “This is not right. Move it back.” But once he moved it back, the Master would ask him to move it uphill again. The Master also asked him to build a house and then pull it apart; then after pulling it apart, he would then ask him to rebuild it. However, after seven years of testing, the Master finally imparted to him the method of spiritual practice.

We have heard that one glimpse of an enlightened Master could be counted as initiation, as long as you have sincerity. Why didn’t Milarepa get any result after living with the Master for seven years and working very hard each day? Why didn’t the Master teach him the method of spiritual practice? It is because he had created very heavy karma.

Only True Repentance Can Eliminate Karma Completely

We have heard that as long as we repent, any karma will be eliminated. Then why did it take Milarepa seven years to erase his karma even after he repented? It might be because he did not repent sincerely. If our power of repentance is limited, the karma will still exist even after we repent. We may think we repent thoroughly, but we have not.

Milarepa even wanted to cheat his Master. When his Master asked him to work, he complained and even said to his Master, “You just told me to do that. Now you want me to move it back again. It’s all your idea!” He was not grateful towards his Master, but instead, he argued with Him. Milarepa had no idea how much headache his Master had to bear for him. His Master had to hold His sympathy and use the hardest way to help him cleanse the karma. Can you see that? Had Milarepa really repented, he would have understood his Master’s painstaking efforts no matter how painful. He would have said, “My karma is so heavy that even though I am in a great pain, it is not enough to pay it off. I am not in more pain than those killed by me.” He should have thought that way.

However, at that time he did not think like that, but complained each day, “Why didn’t Master teach me the method? I treat him so nicely. Why didn’t he treat me nicely?” Later he plotted to cheat his Master through the Master’s wife and a disciple in order to learn the method. He lied to the disciple, saying, “Master asks you to teach me the method.” That shows that his ego still existed, thinking that Master treated “me” badly.

Why is that? It is because those who can kill have a very cold heart. After killing, they forget the heavy karma they created. Only those who have a cold heart can destroy so many lives. It is very difficult for those people to make progress in spiritual practice because they are surrounded by a cold aura, which attracts other cold energy. If our heart is cold, we cannot attract a warm loving atmosphere. That’s why our progress is slow. Therefore, it is said, “The most difficult thing is to obey a Master completely and to accept a Master’s instructions completely.”

Very few people can do exactly what I tell them to do. Even if you don’t fight back outside, you struggle inside. You think, “Master says this and that every day. I don’t think those things are right, but She still asks me to do them.” Or, “Master is just a woman and so young. She is not a professional in this. How much does She know about this?” Most of you think like that, fighting inside, which makes it difficult for you to progress. It is because you cannot return to childhood and cannot be as innocent as a child. In the Bible, it is said that we have to become like a child in order to receive the Kingdom of God. Lao Tzu also said, “We should return to childhood to attain the Tao.” They used different verses, but the meanings conveyed are the same.

That’s why I have told you not to kill and strictly keep the Precepts. Even if we know we have a cold heart, we should still try to control ourselves, instead of letting our heart stay cold forever. We can control it. If we have a cold heart but have not done cold-blooded things, then our magnetic field will not be too cold and won’t attract too much of those slow, indifferent, difficult and blocking atmospheres. You have to know the law of “like attracts like,” which means things of the same quality attract each other.

The karma that we have created cannot be erased by simple repentance because any actions, thoughts and ideas we have will stick to our magnetic field. Once the thoughts are sent out, they cannot be taken back, and sooner or later they will grow. Therefore, we’d better not create any new karma. As for the old karma, I can help you cleanse it. You have to pay for the new karma by yourselves because if you break the Precepts knowingly, the karma is different than that created in the past when you were ignorant.

So please keep the Precepts strictly. If we kill any sentient beings or want to hurt someone, the bad thought will bounce back one day and hurt us. However, we can make up our mistakes by other means to improve the situation. For example, if we committed killing in the past, we can now try to save lives. If we did not love children in the past, we can now raise someone else’s children, to compensate for some of the wrongs we did before.

Because of our guilty conscience inside, we cannot repent to the degree of being completely guilt-free. No matter how hard we repent, there will be some guilty feelings left that stick to our magnetic field and won’t let us be free. That is the so-called karma, which won’t allow us to go with peace of mind at the time of death. Our magnetic field will pull us to a place with the same atmosphere. That’s why some people go to hell and others go to Heaven. It is all due to the law of “like attracts like.”

The Secret of Spiritual Progress

Why do kind and pure people make faster progress in spiritual practice? It is because the simple-minded ones do not argue too much, nor do they know how to argue. They progress quickly because they are like children, believing in Master completely and having no doubts at all. We have a lot of people like that here. That is why they progress quickly. They look like nothing special from the outside, but they love Master the most, trust Master the most and care about Master the most. Whatever Master says is fine with them. They have no doubts about Master inside, nor are they against Master outside. When you see them, you know they progress fast.

Some people look very obedient and seem to respect Master as well, but later after talking to them for a while, you know that their egos are big and they don’t have complete faith in Master. Sometimes they will say that themselves. If you know enough people, you are able to tell those who truly understand Master’s teachings and completely believe in Master. You cannot tell only from their appearance.

The speed of your spiritual progress doesn’t depend on Master alone; it also depends on your reaction to Master. How much you believe in Master and react to Master is how much you progress. Let me tell you a secret of spiritual progress: Don’t tell any others. (Audience laughs and applauds.) Whether or not we make progress all depends on the purity of our heart. Sometimes we would like very much to become pure, but we cannot. It is because we have done cold-blooded things in the past and now the karma stands as a wall in between and blocks us from believing in Master completely and surrendering our body, speech and mind completely.

Some people seem to practice very diligently, meditating four to five hours every day, but they are still attached to the world and crave fame and profit. So they will not progress either. They will very likely have to be reborn one more time because they still think about this world and want to stay. Master will arrange for them to come back again and learn with another Master in order to progress. Some of the initiates here learned the Quan Yin Method in their previous lives, but they only practiced halfway because they were attached to the world or were not sincere enough and had doubts in Master, so they must come back.

That is, in essence, the same as the story I told you before. There was a person who wrote a letter to me, saying that after initiation he prayed to Master sincerely every day and recited Master’s name every day and truly believed in Master. As a result, he made incredible progress in just two months and went to places with the brightest light during his meditation. However, he began to have doubts because he remembered what his previous master said: “If both of your Yang and Yin spirits go out, you could be possessed.” So he started to doubt my teachings and suspected that the method that he was practicing was not correct. His level dropped immediately. He couldn’t go up again. So you can see how much Maya can block us.

Those who know too much and have learned too many methods cannot make any progress, either. Knowledge is different from wisdom. The more knowledge we have, the less wisdom we have. So the pure and the dumb make faster progress. However, you should be careful once you progress; don’t regress and don’t be arrogant, and especially don’t reveal to others. If you tell others and let them think you are great, then you are finished. Your level will go down immediately. That’s why I don’t often allow you to tell your inner spiritual experiences, because it is difficult to avoid arrogance. When everyone starts to praise you, you will feel extraordinary that no ones else has such good spiritual experiences as you do. Then you will be in big trouble.

Faith Is the Foundation of All Methods

If you surrender to the Master power completely and have one hundred percent faith in Master, you will progress very fast. Are there such people here? If there are, it is very rare and they will make fast progress. Some people come to see me every time, attend my lectures and come to the center and set up their tents every weekend, but they may not necessarily have true faith in Master. They might just follow others to believe. For example, they might feel discourteous if they don’t go to see Master, or they will be bored at home anyway if their husband or wife go to see Master. So they just come along.

Even in that case, it is good for them. They may become enlightened after hearing a word or two here. They may later be influenced by the fellow initiates. So group meditation is very useful. If we are alone, it is not easy to practice and sometimes we may regress because of not keeping good company, good friends and fellow initiates. Sometimes we wonder why we don’t have any spiritual experiences and cannot progress, because we are not aware of our heavy karma.

In the ancient times, Masters didn’t teach so many people openly, because they were afraid that they didn’t have enough time to take good care of the disciples. Nowadays, we have Master’s audiotapes and videotapes, but we still have a hard time believing in the Master. People in the old times only saw their Master once or twice and listened to the Master’s lecture two or three times. They couldn’t record much of what the Master had said. Their notes could be too messy even for themselves to read. They might write down the wrong words and read them carelessly after they went back home. So they couldn’t deepen their faith. Once when Sakyamuni Buddha gave a lecture, 5,000 people left the site because they didn’t believe that the method He taught was the highest. They thought they knew everything already. How could there be a highest method! And these were monks and nuns in the ancient times, not just ordinary lay persons.

So we can see that it is all the same in any time. Truth is difficult to understand because we have been bound by traditional customs too tightly. We have gotten used to them after growing up with them for decades since being young. So by the time we meet Master, we cannot believe Her easily.

The modern time is not bad. We have a lot of tapes to listen to again and again. If I speak too fast today, or if you are too intoxicated by looking into my eyes to listen, you can listen to the tape again at home. Our heart should be like a child’s, very pure and receptive, in order to make fast progress in our spiritual practice. Otherwise, I cannot push you, but only stand by and wait.

Even if you don’t believe in Master or cannot sincerely repent, you should try your best, and then you will get results. Take Milarepa, for example. Although he was hard-headed and his heart was cold, he still achieved results in seven years. We may be slower than he was, but we can achieve results in ten years at the most. So give ourselves some time and take it easy. Even if it takes us 20 years, it’s still better than nothing.

Let Go of Outer Rituals to Progress Faster

You may be slow or fast, but you should do your best. Since you have already learned with me, you might as well continue. If you go to find another method, it is still same. In the case you don’t practice well, you will have to be born again and chant Amitabha every day, which is also boring. Morning chanting and evening chanting won’t do any good. If you really want to chant sutras in the morning and in the evening, you can still do that, but meditate afterwards. If you really need to bow to a wooden Buddha statue, you can, but you should still meditate afterwards.

Even so, we had better let go of those rituals. When we go to a university, we should not linger on in the elementary school. I am not saying that the outer things are not useful; they are, but only for kids. For example, a pacifier is very useful for kids and babies. We cannot say that it is useless, but it is useless for adults. If no one needs to recite sutras or bow to a Buddha statue, why are so many people doing it? If the pacifier is not necessary, why will the baby stop crying when we put one in his mouth? That means that pacifier is necessary for them. It is just that we have grown up and should not use it anymore. It would look odd if we continue to suck on the pacifier.

That’s why I advise you not to bow to wooden Buddhas. We should quickly leave behind the outer rituals in order to progress faster. If you really cannot put it down, you can bow to wooden Buddhas, but you need to practice meditation too. Don’t spend all your time on bowing to wooden Buddhas and spare none for meditation. Otherwise it will be too bad for us in climbing up. Everyone else has graduated from the university, but you are left behind in the elementary school. Now that you have already registered in a university, you might as well take university courses and don’t be attached to the elementary school.

If you have any questions, you should meditate more and then you will have the answer. That is the best answer you can get. Read the books of my lectures more often as well because you have not completely understood the meaning. The more you read, the more you will understand and the more new things you will discover.

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