In the old times, they don’t have these kinds of industrialized animal farms. They don’t confine them into little cages until they could move no more and all that. And still the Buddha said, “No.” Not to talk about nowadays, they just abuse them and force them until they could not walk, they could not stand anymore. This is really cruelty at the utmost. So, no butter even. Then this person who avoids all this will really transcend this world. “When they have paid back their past debts, they will not have to re-enter the Triple Realm.” For avoiding this, you will not enter the Three Realms, meaning hell, hungry ghost and born as animals.

So, keep the Five Precepts. Always think good, do good, and help others if you can. Then you will be surely reborn again as a good human, have a decent life or maybe a rich life, it depend on how much you gave and how much heart you had while you were giving it, how pure you were when you gave it. You set your mind truly, firmly on the path of renunciation, and to help yourself and sacrifice for others. This is the symbol of sacrifice and disregard for your comfort, for other beings in the future. Because to be a monk, your ideal is to liberate others, to help others to understand the holy teachings, not for yourself only.

And stealing is also harming others in a different way, because if you steal somebody’s money or something that he or she needs, then you discomfort that person. So, these are unalterable rules of the universe that you must keep in order to be liberated. If cultivators of Chan Samadhi, do not cease stealing, they are like someone who pour water into a leaking cup and hopes to fill it. So, if you don’t keep these basic precepts, then no matter how long you meditate, it just keeps leaking out, gone, gone to the Maya power. The Maya will take it and use it to harm you and harm others as well.

So, being a monk or nun also has a very good advantage; you train yourself in some discipline.It’s a very noble kind of lifestyle, very frugal, very humble,but high living, high thinking, high enlightenment. And now, even if these monks and nuns may not study with me or something, when I see monks and nuns outside, when I pass by in the airport or outside, I always make offering and always make obeisance to them, because I respect their ideal. Not their body, but their ideal, their goal, the noble aspiration, I respect that.

That’s the most heinous lie of all, that you say you attained Buddhahood, but you have not. Meaning deceiving other beings, and then the other beings, they follow you, they also fall into the same pit. That is why it is so bad. This is the worst lie you can commit, because you lead other beings into the false views with you too, believing in your power, when you don’t have it. So, if you go to hell, they will have to go with you, because you deceived them. Also, deprived them from a chance to meet a real living Buddha, and that’s why it’s the worst sin you can commit, the worst lie ever. In Buddhism, they say it’s the greatest lie that you can commit, unredeemable.

Be spontaneous, be a child. "Except you become a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God." What is Kingdom of God? It is this blissfulness that you feel inside, the happiness, the childlike innocence, fearless. Only love and happiness, that is a child, the Kingdom of childhood. Kids, they don't fear anything, they're always happy. I'll tell you one story. When sometimes, When your mind is pure, you perceive things around you and other times you don't.

The Buddha warns you, warns us that, if you don’t keep the precepts, even just one of them like the lying precept, saying the truth; if don’t keep it, if you don’t avoid lying, then you’re attempting the impossible. Like making a piece of poo become a sandalwood statue like that. ”If the bhiksus’ minds are as straight as the lute strings, true and real in everything they do, then they can enter samadni and never be involved in the deeds of demons. I certify that such people will accomplish the Bodhisattvas’ Unsurpassed Knowledge and Enlightenment.”