So, you know how, or what kind of economic situation we were in when I was beginning. Because I didn’t care for money. I was used to being alone and I don’t use much. But since they just ran to me, and then that’s how they caused me trouble. Then I had to begin to think of tents and all that, otherwise before I didn’t. Anyhow, before we went into the tent business, I told my disciples, “Looks like we are going to have to go for a tent because we have nowhere to stay now.” We couldn’t buy land so fast, and it costs a lot of money. And I don’t want to take money from the lay disciples.
So, one of the would-be nuns at that time – would-be – she said, “What? You mean we’re going to live like gypsies? How am I to tell my friends that my Master is a gypsy?” Wow. She was so hurt. And I said, “Alright, if you don’t want to be a gypsy, then you go home. Be one of the people on the street, just the same.” Anyhow, she considered somehow, and she didn’t go home. Alright. She said to me, “Oh, we have to build a temple, have to have a big land, and then we have to have a name on it because everybody asked me, ‘What is your temple?’ And I don’t know how to tell them. We don’t even have a name.” I said, “We don’t even have a temple, what are you talking about.” The name of the temple; they like to belong to something. Prestige, a name.
And I tell you the truth, even now, most of the (meditation) Centers that I have bought have no name on them because all the disciples know where I live, before I even tell them. And all the non-disciples don’t need to know where I live. So, what’s the use of the name. The name here is a small one. I just discovered they wrote it very small like this, like a stripe on the house over there. You couldn’t even see it. That’s the only one that we have named. In Taiwan (Formosa), the headquarter, you don’t have any name. You just drive into the gate. We have one gate, and you drive in, and you know. I don’t need to write a name because all of you know where I live, before I even know. Is that not so? I cannot escape from you. Never mind I have to write names. Therefore, we don’t need a name. Even now, we don’t have names on our gates. It’s just for bureaucracy, now that we have to deal a lot with governments and that. So, we have to have letterheads and name and all that. Otherwise, we don’t need it even.
I want to tell you all this just because to offer to you a new outlook on life, how to live simple but happy, and how to live on small amount of finance but have everything. So slowly, I see the need of the disciples and I have to kind of make more handicrafts work and teach them to work more. And so we earn a little bit more money now. And so, we start to build all these things. They just come by chance. And we cook and all that, and everything. All the monks work together.
And I was very good at business, I thought, at one time. I bought a lot of wholesale stuff, this wholesale cloth ‒ winter and summer – which they left in the storehouse a long time [ago] and they couldn’t sell them from last season or something like that. And they sold them to us very cheap. And we make them into many things and sell them. Even cheaper than the market price outside, but still it earns a lot of money for us. And in that case, we earned some money very fast at one time because we needed at that time. And that’s it. And then I sold all my clothes and my shoes and my everything. And auction, auction, not antique, but auction. And see who got the most and then get them. They love to have my clothes for souvenir. So, I sold everything. And then we had some money to buy the first land. And that’s it. And that’s how we started. And everything comes like this.
Now, even then, even if I earn the money so fast, but if I spend it the way ordinary people do outside, I would never have enough. But we spend wherever we must. I’m not a stingy person. It’s not the same. I’m very generous concerning food and clothing and comfort for disciples. I would choose the best for them. But when it comes to not necessary things, I don’t even spend one penny. Whatever we can do ourselves, we do it. And that’s where we save money. Because we are young and able, and we have a lot of creative talent. Why should we hire outside people who are very intelligent but not very intelligent, and who ask for a lot of money for a lousy job? And concrete floors and square houses and things like that, it’s not very beautiful things they offer, for a very high price. And they make a lot of noise, and they come in, in inconvenient hours, and they make a long, long, long, long, long project out of a short thing.
Therefore, we do most of the things ourselves. We even build toilets ourselves, bathroom ourselves, the way we want, and in the period of time that we want. So, we accomplish everything in two, three days, two, three weeks. For example, the big hall that housed at that time about 3,000 people, we accomplished it in about three weeks. And all the gazebos in Taiwan (Formosa) that are made of stones, and the stone lamps and everything like that, we accomplished it in a few days. And the river in three days, half a kilometer long river, winding river, and different tiers. For three days, with all the rocks and sand and cement and everything, and trees planting as well. It’s about at least one hectare, the region, the area of that river and trees and everything, one hectare at least. And we brought everything in three days, just because we work the way we want, and as long as we want, and at our convenience, and we put effort together and do things very fast. Therefore, I have a lot of time for you, not because I don’t have work, but I work very fast. And I work the way I work, not the way outside people work.
And it’s easy for me to just wave my fingers and tell the workers to come here and do the parking for you, and do the toilet for you, and build my new house for me. But no, I just pitch a tent, and the bathroom the monks built for me. I tell them how to do it, and they do it very fast, few hours. No problem. What can you do with a bathroom? You can only bath in it. And you don’t take more than one hour at a time, provided you’re standing there and make all the make-up. One hour, that’s all. In one day, two hours maybe. And what do you do with a bigger toilet or luxurious toilet? So, I told them to put four wooden poles in the four sides, and the roof on it, and then cover it with canvas, finished. And I could do everything inside that’s necessary for the human comfort right now.
And a room, you can only stay inside and live inside, so whatever room is OK. As long as it’s not windy, it doesn’t hurt you, and you have enough privacy, that’s enough. So, I just live in a tent. It’s easy for me as a Master to make demands on you. Even if I don’t have money, I can demand you to build a house for me. Or even a wooden house or some house or a bathroom for me. You would do it for me. But I don’t want to trouble you. Why? I am intelligent, independent, creative. I can look after myself. If I cannot look after myself, how would I look after you and the world? Even if one person’s personal comfort, I cannot look after, how would I boast about looking after you or anyone else? Right?
That’s why we should not go and bow to these local ghosts and the spirits of the trees and that, because these are dependent on a higher hierarchy. Or here-archy? (Hierarchy.) Hierarchy. English is crazy. Sometimes it’s “here,” sometimes it’s “there.” Sometimes it’s “higher,” sometimes it’s “here.” “Meeting” and (animal-people) “meat” is all the same. To “meet” you and to eat (animal-people) “meat” is the same. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s crazy. It’s easy, but it’s not. They put a lot of traps to know you are a foreigner or not. That was the diplomacy of the English. So now, and then all the monks, I get them the tents, the same height, same width as mine, to have them a little bit comfortable because they will live there long.
If you just come here for a few days, it’s OK to have a small tent because you don’t stay there all day. But the monks, they live here longer, they should be more comfortable. And now I leave them inside there and they live with me, they loved it, they don’t want to come back here again, and before they fought to live here. Here it should be an office only, because it’s too noisy. And if they live inside there and everybody walks around all the time, walks on top of the pillow and on top where they lay their head and all that, it’s not nice. And walk around and toilet next to their noses is not really a diplomatic thing to do. Therefore, I said to them, “OK, don’t fight with them over the toilet. We go inside there and I give you each one, one private toilet, OK?” And that’s what we do. Each one has one toilet/bathroom free of charge and plentiful of room. Why bother about a little hole here? Very easy and simple.
But it’s just you have to know how to organize your life and live a very happy and simple life. They were happy since they were there, so happy. Everyone has his own room, nobody walks on top of their pillows, and they can dig their own toilet, no problem. I tell them how to keep hygiene, and disinfect and all that. Beautiful. You cannot live a better life than that. I just took two of the city girls into my tent. You liked it or not? (Yes.) And it wasn’t really yet completely done the way I wanted because we didn’t have time. Just had time to nail the tent on the floor and that’s it, nothing more. We didn’t even have time to make a big tent for them. Only the kitchen half done. And the bathroom and the toilet, that was very essential and important.
But otherwise, we could make it better because there’s so much wood that has fallen inside, which is very solid. And we can cut it and make fences around the house, around the kitchen, and the roof on top. That’s all, and you are safe. The animal(-people) will not come in. When they see the fence around the house, they don’t come in. And you have the roof for the rain and the snow. The roof is made of canvas, but that’s not safe enough for snow. In the winter, I teach them to put wooden bars underneath of the canvas, so to support, and make the roof very deep. And so, it’s hard and deep. All the snow will fall down. And they can stay there, no problem. We heat with a stove, stone stove, self-made, with a lot of stone inside. You can make a beautiful life.
You don’t even want to come out. They say they don’t want to come out. If it’s not for a duty there, they don’t want to come out here. They said, “What for? Heavy karma outside.” They call you “heavy karma.” They said, “Oh, Master, I smelled different karma when I was down there.” I said, “Nonsense, [it’s] your illusion.” I said, “Karma doesn’t smell.” But they were very cute. Some of them tried to avoid the karma by avoiding people. I said, “It’s OK. You have to go into the water in order to swim, to learn how to swim.” But they said, “OK, we go here to work, take turns to work here, and then we live inside there.” It’s OK, no problem.
Why should we worry about property and houses and all that? Everywhere is different, of course, but still we can survive. Can survive. The tents can last three to five years. Many tents that we use for the monks in Taiwan (Formosa), including mine, are still lasting now, after three years. No problem. My tent is a little bit harder because they bought me some kind of army tent. But their tent is just an ordinary tent, and it still lasts three years. So, what they do is they can go and pick up those wooden blocks that people throw away after they use it for goods. Yeah, sometimes they throw away, and you nail it off the ground, so to avoid the water and animal-people, insects and things like that. And I put the tent on top, and then you are in Heaven, just zip in and zip out. No cleaning, no worry, no nothing. And here we are already in Heaven. We have electricity, and we have water. Water is already up, and electricity – you just draw the line in. It’s already very lucky.
Photo Caption: From the Decomposed, New Radiant Life Can Still Spring Up
