dear bodhisattvas,what i have in my hands is a copy of the heart sutra.

i was able to memorize the heart sutra at the age of four already.

and i have always been very fond of this sutra.

and we have been talking about the heart sutra for four days,and including this final day,five days.do you think any of the lines from the heart sutra represent delusive or illusive beliefs?

a proper start and ending is essential to a dharma talk.and in the previous four days,i have spent a lot of time going into the details of the beginning lines or sentences of the heart sutra. therefore as we come to the final day today,i think it is important for me to make sure that the dharma talk comes to a proper ending.therefore,i think today,i will use the opportunity to go through every single word with you.

and before i go to the theories behind the heart sutra, what i'm going to do now is to go through the whole sutra in what we say,modern or easy to understand language.

and if you have a copy of the heart sutra in your hands, and then you can follow my words as you read these words.

once there was a bodhisattva, by the name of avalokitesvara bodhisattva, which means contemplating and observing oneself.and as he was coursing in the profound prajna,or prajna wisdom,he saw that all five skandhas were empty.and this realization allowed the bodhisattva to overcome all ills and suffering.

and as this sutra is an extract or a concentrated version of the mahaprajna sutra,you would see that sariputra has been addressed in this sutra,and basically in the chinese version,you would see that he addressed differently with different characters as"zi,"and this character in chinese means a proper way to address a man in the past time,such as confucius,or mencius and so on. that is why you would see in the heart sutra the mentioning of sariputra's name,and the buddha followed by telling him that form is no different from emptiness,and emptiness is no different from form,and the same goes to the five skandhas.

then the buddha continued to tell sariputra that the character of emptiness,which is emptiness of all dharmas means that they neither arise nor cease,they neither defile nor pure, and they neither increase nor decrease.in other words,all dharmas never change,in terms of either quantity or quality.

for this reason,within the theory of emptiness,form does not exist, nor do sensations, perception, volition or consciousness,or not even eye,ear,body or mind exist.

what we're going to go through now is what we'll be discussing today,where the buddha says,"there is no eye,ear, nose,tongue,body or mind;no sight,sound,taste,scent, touch or thought;not seeing and so on and not even thinking, which represent the eighteen ways of perception as a whole.

the eye,ear,nose,tongue,body or mind in this case represent the six sensory organs,and when these six sensory organs interact with the world,they process the data,and give rise to the six dusts,which are sight,sound,scent,taste,touch or thought.

the six sensory organs represent what is physiological, which is a part of our physical body,and when these physiological elements interact with the physical world,they come to give rise to six ways of perception.

and therefore,the six organs,which are the physiological parts,interact with the six dusts,which are what come from the physical world,and then their interaction result in the six consciousnesses,which is something considered psychological.

and then in the next line,it tells us that there is no ignorance,nor end of ignorance,and not even aging and death, nor end of aging and death.with what you see in these two lines,they are different parts of the twelve-link of dependent origination.and these twelve links,gives you a basic idea of what has happened to you in the past,present and future life times.

usually we would hear people asking,"where does human being come from?"

and heart sutra gives you a very clear answer by telling you that human beings come from ignorance,since you never understood how you came about.

sometimes,you would hear people saying how others are ignorant because they do not understand anything or that they are unreasonable.but we have to also recognize the fact that there's not many of us who in fact had ever understood the proper ways of how we came about.

and what exactly is ignorance?to put it simply,it is the source of life.but then you would see that the heart sutra tells you otherwise,in a way it tells you that ignorance doesn't exist, let alone the end of ignorance,and therefore,as we go in through the procedure or the process of the twelve links of dependent origination,which explains to us the process of life or even birth and death.the heart sutra in this case tries to explain to you that the source or origin of life is indescribable.

and the very basic concept of buddhism is the four noble truths,and they make up the very basic foundation of the buddhist doctrine.

and our life is deeply related to suffering and the cause of suffering,and as we talk about the cause of suffering,these refer to our karma,which we have d from our previous life times,and this then result in what we suffer from in our present life.

nevertheless,the suffering which you are confronted with in your present life can be resolved or eliminated.and the way you actually do this is by practicing the way or practicing the dharma,which will eventually guide you to the status of nirvana,where you will no longer be trapped in the cycle of birth and death.in other words,it is the status of prajna wisdom.

and nevertheless,as we go back to the heart sutra,it's telling you that no matter whether it is called a suffering,or the cause of suffering or the end of suffering,as well as the path that leads to the end of suffering,none of these are describable.

and the heart sutra then tells you that there is no wisdom, nor attainment.

in other words,the heart sutra is telling you that you must never talk about how much merit or how well you have practd, or what wisdom you have attained,because nothing can be attained,and just because of the fact that nothing can be attained,a bodhisattva become existent.

and although the heart sutra is very short,in fact,it embodies a lot of theories such as the six organs,the six dusts, the six consciousnesses,and even theories of emptiness,as well as the twelve links of dependent origination,and then even leading to the four noble truths.therefore,what it is trying to tell you is that while there are all kinds of theories inside,what we should try to aim for is our supreme goal,is to pract based on no practs,and to become enlighten based on the theory of no enlightenment.

if you look at the diamond sutra,you will realize that there are two very basic theories which try to tell us,which is when we pract generosity or the act of giving,we must not become attached to form,and at the same time we strive to liberate or deliver sentient beings,nor should we become attached to the self.and,therefore,you will see that form and self are extremely important,and the diamond sutra tells us not to become attached to them.as a result,as you go further into the sutra,you will see that the buddha tells his audience that no matter how you're born,be it by egg,by moisture,or by tranormation and so on,and whether you have form or you are without form.no matter what kind of beings you are,i will all be able to guide you to nirvana.

and in other words,this is a status when you transcend all the thoughts of discrimination or form,and therefore,let's go back to the heart sutra,it tells you that because there is nothing to attain,and there is the bodhisattva.therefore,this is the status which we should all try to pursue because it is like once you walk all the paths,you exhaust all the possible directions, you end up finding a new way which is a surprise to all of us.

and since there is nothing to be attained,and then the bodhisattva will maintain the prajna paramita,and therefore, their heart will be without hindrance or fear.and since their hearts do not have hindrance or fear,they will be free from deluded or distorted thoughts,or dream-like thoughts,and then as a result,they will be able to attain the supreme wisdom, which is nirvana.

the same goes to the buddhas of all times,they rely on the prajna-paramita to attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi,too.

and hence we know that prajna paramita is the all powerful mantra,the great enlightening mantra,the unsurpassed mantra, and the unequalled mantra.and here,mantra refers to a language which we cannot understand.it's neither english nor portuguese or spanish,rather it is the language,which the buddha used to communicate with each other.in other words,it is a secret language.

and then we know that,it tells us that this type of mantra is able to dispel all kinds of suffering,and which is indeed a true statement,it's not false in anyway.and therefore,in the end of the heart sutra,we go into the prajna paramita mantra.

and then the mantra is recited as thus,"gate,gate, paragate,parasamgate,bodhisvaha."and to translate it into very

language,it means go beyond,go beyond,all of you should go,and get on the ferry of prajna wisdom,which will take you to the far shore of supreme wisdom,and which is nirvana.

and so,that's it.we've got through the whole heart sutra.

now let me elaborate on some of the lines from the heart sutra.

once there was a nov monk who was chanting the heart sutra.and as he came on the part where it says.there's no eye, ear,nose,tongue,body or mind.nor sight,sound,scent, taste,touch or thought.he started to feel very confused. therefore he turned to his master and asked him"master,what's this?"he said,"it's an eye."and then he said,"what's this?""it's a nose."and then he pointed to his ears and said,"what is it?"and his master said,"this is an ear,don't you know anything?"and he said,"yes,i know they are there,but how come the sutra says there's no eye,ear,nose,tongue,body and mind?"

are the things we see or hear always right?it's not entirely so,there are a lot of cases where we may look at things that are unreal or hear things that are untrue.

today,people take a bath by entering the bath and submerging themselves in the water.and so if you open your eyes,you will suddenly realize there's only this much of your feet left.

because the shape of your feet are in a way distorted when they are inside water.

but they in fact haven't changed in their original form,it's just that our eyes have taken the shape differently.

if you were to stick a chopstick into a bottle of water,you would see that originally the stick looks straight,but if you start stirring it,and suddenly the stick would tend to take a curved shape,but once again when you take out the stick,it is straight again.so in a way,the shape of the stick itself never changed, but your eyes have seen otherwise.

therefore what we percept of this world with our eyes can often be wrong.

when you see clouds flowed pass the moon,a lot of you would take it as if the moon is moving very fast,but this is wrong because the moon is not moving,it's actually the cloud that makes it look like it's moving.

therefore if you haven't understood or heard of the whole situation of what happened to somebody,you should never come to a conclusion based on what you have heard or seen.

you can't say that this is what i saw myself or this is what i heard in person,because this does not mean that what you have seen or heard are right.

during the sino japanese war,china was attacked by the japanese planes many times.

and every time the siren was sounded,someone would ask,"how many of the enemy's jet are there?"

and for the first time they would say,"oh it's only one."

and the chinese word of"it is",sometimes can be mistaken as eleven instead of just one.

so another person asked the same question again,"how many jets are there?"

"i told you,it's eleven."but in chinese it sounds otherwise.

and in the end,it became ninety-one from eleven.

so the same word,passing from one person to the third person,becomes very different.

therefore,what we perceived of this world through our eye, ear,nose,tongue and body can change all the time.

therefore for someone with prajna wisdom in his mind,he would not perceive this world through his six organs.instead, prajna wisdom,which is a non-discriminative wisdom would simply be like a mirror,that gives the most honest reflection of what it sees,just like how a mirror simply s what you look like,without discriminating or

any changes.

and if we were to perceive this delusive world with our delusive six organs,and then come to this delusive conclusion, and that means we still haven't yet discover our prajna wisdom.

and that is why once we have prajna wisdom with us,we will free ourselves from distorted or dream-like thoughts,and nor will there be hindrances in our minds.

with praina wisdom we will be able to find happiness in life.

once there was a zen master jin dai,and he liked to grow orchids.

and he nurtured all kinds of species of this type of flower.

and one day he had to go outside the temple to take care of something.therefore,he said to his disciple,a little nov monk,he said,"please look after these flowers for me while i'm gone,and make sure you give them enough water."

after that when the nov monk was trying to do what he was told,he accidentally bumped into the shelve,as a result he shattered all the flowers and the pots.

and the nov monk became very scared,he thought to himself now that i have destroyed my master's beloved flowers he's going to get really angry when he comes home.

as zen master jin dai came home,this nov monk fell on his knees and said to his master,"master,i'm so sorry,i'm so sorry for destroying your flowers,please don't get mad."

but the zen master said to him,"look,i never grew these flowers just for the purpose of getting angry."

and this remark was indeed very wise.

and if you were ever about to start a fight with your wife or husband,do remind yourself that you didn't get married just to get mad at each other.

and if your children were to ever make you angry,remind yourself,i didn't give birth to them just so i can get angry at them.

and i never make friends so that i can fight with them.

i never came into this world just to get angry.

therefore you may as well live a life with prajna wisdom instead of getting angry all the time.

once a man went to a temple to pay a visit to the abbot of that temple.

and he was received by an old buddhist monk who said to him,"please wait for a few more minutes and our head monk will be right with you."

and the head monk who is the abbot of the temple,basically is the most important person or the most powerful person within the temple.

and as soon as the abbot arrived,he started chatting with this man,while the old monk stood next to him and listened.

and then the abbot turned to the old monk and said,"go and bring our guest a cup of tea."

therefore the old monk did as he was told.

and then the abbot said,"oh!go and prepare some fruit for our guest."

and then once again the old monk did as he was told.

and after the abbot stopped chatting with the man,he said to the old monk,"oh i'm going to take care of something else now,but can you bring our guest to lunch."

as the abbot was rather young and this disturbed the man because he found it uncomfortable to see a young monk giving an old monk all kinds of orders.

after the abbot left,the man turned to the old monk and asked him,"what's your relation with your abbot?"

"he was my disciple."

"how can a disciple give his master all kinds of orders?"

and he answered,"well,that's not the way it looks,in fact my disciple has been extremely kind to me."

"what do you mean by kind?""is he kind to you by ordering you around,asking you to go and get a cup of tea?"

yes,well he only asked me to go and pour a cup of tea.he never told me to go and boil water to make tea,which will be much more troublesome for me.

but he ordered you to go and prepare some fruits for me.

well,he only told me to go and prepare them.he never told me to and go plant fruits which will be full of labour and tough for me.

and then,the guest started wondering which of the two is more important.is it the master or is it the disciple?

then the old monk said to him,"this doesn't matter to us as monastics,because while he's young i think he can do a lot of things as an abbot,whereas for me,since i'm old,the most i can do is to serve people tea and cut up some fruit.we can each play our roles well.

and you can see,this old monk has a lot of wisdom.

imagine if your children,especially your daughter-in-law.

if she was ever to order you around and tell you to pour a cup of tea for her guests.

and if she was ever to say,"mom or dad,go and make dinner!"

how would you feel?

therefore your suffering or happiness would determine on whether you have prajna wisdom or not.

and now,how exactly does prajna wisdom exist?

sometimes it's very difficult to explain and it's difficult to teach.

i remember hearing the following zen story or koan in taiwan about forty years ago.

once there was a man who was a thief,and as he became old,he needed to retire.but he decided to pass on his skills as a thief before he does so.

but how exactly do you pass on your skills as a thief?

and he decided to pass his skill to his nephew therefore he said to him,"let's give it a try today!"

and in the middle of the night,when they observed that the light of the house had all been turned off,he said to his nephew,"hey my student,it's time for us to move."

and therefore the young man jumped over the wall,opened the window and started looking for things to steal,as he was doing that,the old thief started yelling out,"hey,there's a thief!hey,there's a thief!"

the owners of the house woke up and started looking for this thief.

and as everything happened very fast,he pretty much had no time to think,but as he had to escape and think of a way,he decided to open up a closet and hide inside it.

the owner of the house walked around and discovered that nothing had been stolen.

and in order for him to get out without waking up the owners,he came up with a way.he started imitating the sounds of m.

and so the owners said to themselves,"oh!it has been a couple of m all this time,it was never a thief in our house."

and as soon as they started to relax,this thief found a chance and dashed out from the cupboard and escaped.

and then,this made the couple realized that it was a thief, so that started chasing after him.

and this made the young thief even more nervous,because they were right behind him.

and now he has to think of a way to get away.

and then he saw a well on the side of a road,so he picked up a rock and threw it into the water, a very loud splash. and this made the couple think that the thief has committed suicide by jumping into the well.

the young man got home,and he started yelling at his master,the old thief,he said,"how can you do that to me?you said you're going to pass me all of your skills as thief,and yet you ended yelling out thief when i was inside the house."

and the old man answered,"well,how did you manage to get back?"

therefore,he started describing the whole story very proudly.

and so,the old man said,"there you go!you've gotten all of my skills as a thief."

there are no certain ways for you to be a thief,you have to always depend on your wisdom and respond to the situation.

no matter what kind of job a person has,there has to be a reason to why he has made himself wealthy,and this will of course depend on his wisdom.

i think it's easier for young people to find a job nowadays, but things were much different thirty years ago in taiwan.

i remember a young man,once he came to me and asked me to help him find a job.

and when i tried very hard to pull all of my connections in finding him a job,he ended up telling me that he already found another job,so he was not going to take the one that i had helped him find.

and all of this time,my effort had been in vain,and he never saw my efforts seriously.

but of course,my own prajna wisdom grew and developed.

and if another man was to come to me and asked me to help him find a job,i would tell him,it's never a reliable thing for me to just introduce you to someone else.

and then i told him,what you can do is,look within the newspaper,and first of all,circle out the jobs that you find interesting or suitable to you.then what you do is,you call the company yourself,and offer to work for them for a three months trial period without pay,and you can even tell them that if they are not happy with you,then you can just walk away.and this idea or method ended up working rather well.

and if you think you're capable enough to withstand the tests given to you by the company,then of course,you should be able to get hired.but if in the beginning,you go without any confidence or prajna wisdom,and of course,you can expect nothing but getting fired or rejected.

and when we come to the line,where it says the bodhisattva relying on prajna has no hindrances in his mind,i believe most of you would think that it's probably not possible as most of you do have obstacles or hindrances in your mind.

as a child,you probably have worried that your parents weren't home yet.

and as a student,you probably have worried that your scores were not good enough.

or you may have been worried that you couldn't find yourself a girlfriend.

and then as a man,you probably worry about how you could feed your family.

and with everything that happens in society,when you start working,you will be confronted with all kinds of stress.

and with such obstacles or worries in your mind,of course you will be unhappy.

that is why i encourage people to treat life as if it is a suitcase.you pick it up only when you need it,and when you don't need to use it for the meantime,you simply put it down.

and if you don't pick it up when you need it,then you will not have the necessary things for you to get something done.and if you don't put it down when you are suppose to do,and still carry it with you,and then your path will be a very tiresome one.

and that is why we say that when there are obstacles in your mind,you will be unhappy.but once there are no obstacles,you will be without fear.and just as the reason why we say a clear conscious walks with his head up high.

and without fears,he's able to pass beyond all illusions, and thereby reach nirvana.

and as we speak of distorted thoughts,sometimes the troubles which reveal are not only the ones that are given to us by other people.in little cases,we are the ones who have made these delusions or troubles arise.

if you see two of your friends talking very quietly in the other side of the room,you probably started to get paranoid and think that they are talking about you,and they are bad mouthing you.

and why has that man left my house in such a haze,did he just steal something from my house?

for all of this paranoia and all of these thoughts and delusions are the reasons to why our mind have been turned upside down or distorted.

therefore if you are able to look at this world through the eyes of prajna wisdom,we will be able to guide ourselves towards nirvana,or the supreme status of nirvana,and what exactly is this status like?we can use an example of what master meng chuang has once said.he said that the greatest benefit in life is to remain healthy without illness.and the greatest wealth in life is for your heart to be content.and while the closest family to you are friends who can only do good or help you.and the greatest happiness in life is nirvana.

sakyamuni buddha attained enlightenment underneath the bodhi tree,and then he entered nirvana under another two trees. and now,let's talk about the term nirvana.

in the past,when you hear that somebody has passed away, or that you will hear people said that he has gone to heaven.

and in taiwan,people have started to use the buddhist term to describe death,and they would say,this person has become reborn.

in other words,we are not saying that somebody has died, instead we are saying that he will be borned in a different place. for example,he has migrated to the western pure land.

and the true moment of nirvana for sakymuni buddha was in fact the moment when he had attained enlightenment underneath the bodhi trees.

and for buddhist,if they were to celebrate the birth or enlightenment,as well as the day of nirvana of sakyamuni buddha,and then it will be rather troublesome for all of them. that's why they decided to gather the three of them together and celebrate it on the one day,which is on the 16th of may,and they called it the vesak day,and vesak day is the day where people celebrate the birth,enlightenment and nirvana of the buddha as a whole.

and a mind that remains in the status of enlightenment all the time,or a mind that remains free from worries or defilements all the time,can also be considered a mind that is already in the status of nirvana.

it's for people especially of the age of sixty or seventy,when you have reached this age,the most important thing for you,is to learn the way to reach such a status.

in other words,it's about time that you start learning to attain prajna wisdom,and how exactly do you attain or pract prajna wisdom.there are many ways to do that,basically there's a procedure for the whole pract,such as through language or through contemplation and so on.

our mind is like a room that has been dark for thousand years,but it can become illuminated just with the presence of prajna.

i believe it is easy for us to all experience prajna wisdom or our original or true nature within everyday affairs of our life.

when you meet a friend whom you haven't seen for more than a decade,but you can call out his name immediately,and i think this represents an illumination of your mind by prajna wisdom.

let me give you an example.say the middle of the night, and if your pillow fall off your bed,and you don't need to open your eyes or turn on the lights,you simply reach out and grab your pillow without looking,and then replace it underneath your head and go back to sleep.so,how do you manage to do this? it's because you have prajna wisdom.

when you say the proper things at the proper time,it also means you have prajna wisdom.

and when you do what you are suppose to do,you are also demonstrating prajna wisdom.

or when you smile or laugh at the right time,it also means you have prajna wisdom.

imagine if it's time to laugh and you end up crying,and people would find you very strange and improper.

or when you don't say the right thing,or do the right thing,i don't think anybody will like you.

prajna wisdom is not attained only when you have become totally enlightened.in fact,prajna wisdom can be n in your everyday interaction with other people and thing.therefore once you see that there's no difference between yourself and the rest of the world's phenomena and then you are also displaying prajna wisdom.

that's why in the heart sutra it tells us that not only human beings,but also buddhas of all times have to rely and pract on the prajna paramita in order to attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.in other words,it's the only way for you to make yourself complete.

and that is why it says that prajna paramita is the all powerful mantra,it is the great enlightening mantra,it is the unsurpassed mantra,and it is the unequalled mantra.

a lot of people tend to try to find the shortcut,therefore in stead of taking one step at a time to develop their prajna wisdom, they tend to search for what we call superstition or mystical powers.

say for example a certain group of buddhist prefer to pract just to develop their supernatural power.

but supernatural power is very different from prajna.

with prajna wisdom,you will be a happy person,but with supernatural power,you will start to suffer.

what do we mean by supernatural powers?

for example an eye that sees through everything,so without that eye when i sit here i won't be able to see what's outside, however if i do have such an eye,i will be able to see things very far away just from here.

and if i have ears that can hear everything,no matter where you are,l can still hear you talk.

and if i can read minds,then whatever you think of,i will be able to know.

or even what we know as a pair of feet that can take you anywhere,or an ability to tell what a person's past life may be or even the ability to see into the past and the future,all of these are considered supernatural powers.

so you know there have been people who claim to be masters,who can just stand here and then give you his blessings, and then just by that you get supernatural powers.

imagine you can see what other people are doing,especially when you see something bad is happening to your family,or you see that your family is doing something bad,then i don't think you'd be able to sit here and listen to my talk without worrying or fidgeting.

and if somebody sitting in the next room is criticizing you,and i don't think you would want to sit here,instead you would probably want to go into the next door and punch that person.

and when somebody expresses their grudges against you,i don't think you will feel easy.

that's what i mean by that when you have supernatural powers,you will start to suffer.

so that's why i tell myself,lucky for me,i don't have any supernatural powers.

so for example i won't be able to tell with facts such as if i'm dying tomorrow,without knowing i can still sit here and talk to you with a happy mind.

because i'll only need to pass away at the moment of death, but i can still live the rest of my life with happy mind.

that's why we don't need to chant any special mantras just to become powerful,because things just happen,things can happen very easily,for example when i'm thirsty,all i need to do is pick up a cup of water and that would crunch my thirst,or i'll eat when i'm hungry,all of these

actions can take away my discomfort.

and if you can't ride a bike,no matter how people help you, you would still fall off even if they are holding on to the end of the bike.

and if i know how to ride a bike,i don't even need to grab the handles,and i would still be able to ride it around.

isn't this amazing?isn't this supernatural enough?

if you don't know how to swim,and you go into a swimming pool,you would just sink to the bottom of the pool.

and no matter how much you struggle,you still end up sinking.

but if i know how to swim,i don't need to do anything,i can just lie there and i will naturally float.

isn't this supernatural enough for you?

therefore when you master certain skills,you become amazing.

therefore you don't need to rely on any sort of supernatural power,all you need to do is give it your best shot,bring out your potentials and anything can happen.

and therefore the prajna paramita mantra is proclaimed as thus,"gate,gate,paragate,parasamgate,bodhisvaha,"and we know that sakyamuni buddha adjusted the way he taught dharma according to the potential of his audiences,therefore sometimes he tried to make it r for his audience to understand what he was saying,by coming up with short sutras or even short mantras like this.

therefore when you chant the sutra,don't be afraid that you may not be chanting the sutra in the right manner or with the right pronunciations and so on,in my mind i think the most important thing is for you to chant the sutra with respect and sincerity and that's all that matters.

take the chinese word for prajna as an example,of course it would sound very different from the original sanskrit pronunciation.

and once again if you were to say this word in the taiwanese dialect,it would sound different.

so normally in sanskrit we would say prajna paramita.

and therefore the pronunciation itself is not that important.

and in buddhism,there are four things which we must rely on as we learn the dharma.

first of all we need to rely on the dharma,not on any particular individual.

because there are all kinds of people in this world and therefore the safest is for you to rely on the dharma.

secondly we need to rely on the meaning instead of the language,so no matter what language it is,the most important thing is that you understand its meaning and depend on that.

and thirdly we need to depend on the ultimate truth instead on the truth that is,or the teachings that do not guide you to the ultimate truth.

if someone was to ask,"master hsing yun,can you eat meat?"

how do you think i should respond?

actually the question is"can i eat meat?"and he asked master this question.and if i was to say"no,you cannot eat meat."what will he do when he goes home and see a table full of meat?

and then of course his family would be unhappy with him if he doesn't eat the food.

so can i eat meat?

yes,you can.

he would say,"cool,master hsing yun told me to eat meat."

so this answer would probably also get me into trouble.

therefore these answers are not ultimate,we need to rely on something that is more ultimate.

once there was an illiterate old woman,and when she tried to chant the six syllable mantra,because she could not recognize the final character,which appear to her only like,which look like a cow to her,so instead of chanting"om mani padme hum,"she ended up chanting"om mani padme cow."

and because she had no chanting beads with her so she used a whole basket of pea to keep count,so every time she chanted"om mani padme cow,"she would pick up a pea and put it into another basket and keep doing that.

and then she continued to pract this ditly for twenty years,she ended up not having to pick up the pea by her hand, every time she chants"om mani padme cow,"a pea would just jump into the new basket by itself,and therefore from this we can see that what mattered was the mind and the heart that she had put into the chanting itself instead of the pronunciation.

once there was a buddhist monk who was traveling around to propagate buddhism,and one day he wasn't able to find any accommodation except for a house that was owned by an old woman and he thought that since she was also a buddhist,she would probably offer him accommodation.

and this happened to be that old woman,and every night he would hear her chanting"om mani padme cow."

and this surprised the buddhist monk,he thought"what are you chanting?"

there's no such thing as"om mani padme cow"in buddhism.

so he said to her"madam,you got it wrong,it's suppose to be"‘om mani padme hum.'"

and of course the old woman believed him as he was a buddhist monk and she thought"oh,did i get it wrong?"

fine,i'll correct it.

and when she started chanting"om mani padme hum,"nothing happened to the peas in the basket.

because she was doubtful of what she was chanting,and therefore the effect is no longer there,that's why it is important for us to eliminate our doubts in order to get rise in faith or confidence.

i became a buddhist monk because i had been under the influence of my maternity grandmother.

and i believe she did have supernatural power.

i remember seeing her meditating at night time,and every time she did that and she would make a funny noise with her stomach,it was as if an ocean was inside her stomach and it was really loud.

therefore i asked her,"grandma,why is your stomach

such a noise?"

and she said,"this has been my work,my effort."

and this caused me to have,to feel wonders in religion because it just makes me realize if you pract hard,your stomach can start

noises.

however after i became a monastic,none of the monks or the buddhist masters i have met were have stomachs that make such noises.

does this mean that they are not practicing well?

and then slowly i started to realize the reason.

in the year that japan was defeated by china,i remember i had a chance to meet my maternity grandmother again.

and she was sitting there sewing something.

and as we had been very close,and besides that both of us were buddhists,we had a very good talk.

and then suddenly an airplane flew over our house.

then i asked her,"grandmother,does your stomach still make those noises?"

she said,"of course,how can i ever stop practicing and let it go?"

and i asked her,are you made any happier by your stomach that makes any noises?

does your noise

stomach add to your happiness or take away your delusions or worries?

does it help you transcend the cycle of birth and death?

and she was lost with words,because she could not answer my question.

i was very proud back then because i thought,look at all these things you have done for over twenty years,and they are not as good as my few years as a monastic.

but this became one of my greatest regrets or worries after i came to taiwan.

because her effort or her work with that noise

stomach was her own.and it never did any harm to anyone or even me.why did i have to break her bubble?

and therefore i decided that to destroy other people's possession or happiness is the least of prajna wisdom.

some compare prajna wisdom to a very giant torch,and someone said that that's because the flame from the torch can burn down any kind of devilment or impurity or any improper thought,but in my mind i think what's more important with this torch is the light or the brightness that it illuminates,because it brings brightness and light to the rest of the world.

that is why i have always been very fond of the heart sutra,for one thing it is very short,therefore that's why i urge all of you to chant the heart sutra at least once everyday no matter how busy you are,because it only takes about one or two minutes,and i believe you keep chanting the heart sutra everyday for twenty years,you could end up just like that old woman who can make peas jump around.

i never went to school,not even kindergarten,and i have never been conferred a graduation certificate throughout my whole life.

but i had been able to establish sixteen buddhist colleges, and four universities.

i mean it's difficult for a person to establish just even one throughout his whole life.

and take university of the west as an example,although it is still quite small,but it is the first university in america ever established by chinese organization to be recognized as a member of wasc.in other words,this is the university that has been recognized by the american government.

when i was in taiwan,i saw universities such as qin hua university or normal university and so on which had all been established by non-chinese people,therefore i had always thought to myself,why don't i also go to their country and establish a university as chinese?

or as this can also be a form of cultural exchange,because we know that a favour unreturned is never proper manner,that is why i decided that i could come and establish university of the west as a way to return their kindness to taiwan.

nevertheless i cannot speak english,and i don't know anything about finance,and i don't know anything about the laws of this country,so i pretty much was equipped with nothing to do such a thing.

and that's why i can only follow the example of wu xun,a beggar in china who although had nothing still managed to establish a school,therefore i decided to depend and rely on the help of other people to achieve this mission.

and i'm very grateful to meet mr.j.p.wang,who established a scholarship foundation for the university.

and today he has invited members of this foundation's board of directors,to come and receive a certificate of appointment for me personally.

and i believe and i'm confident that with the support of all of these kind people,one day university of the west will also become a member of the ivy league.

when i had dinner with these members of the board,i told them about master hui neng,who lived about thirteen hundreds years ago in china,and at a point he was also very poor and he had no money to travel,but because of a man who sponsored him and gave him ten units of money,that he was able to travel to hu bei and meet his master,master hong ren.

as givers,i think it's a tremendous merit and fortune for all of us,because those who receive are only ones who has been given things by other people.

fo guang shan has established all kinds of undertakings around the world,but none of them actually belong to me, because they came from your dedication and efforts.

and therefore,if prajna was the origin of our life,and i think at the end of this life,we should also return to that origin.

after this five day talk,i would like to end by checking whether you have understood what i have said.

gate,gate,paragate,parasamgate,bodhisvaha.

go forth,may you go forth to the far shore of nirvana under the guidance of prajna.

may ultimate peace and happiness be with you.best wishes to all of you.