In this episode, the conversation deepens as messages of global spiritual family, service, and cooperation are shared, and Supreme Master Ching Hai responds with wisdom, generosity, and heartfelt humor.
(There’s also a message that Baaba told us to deliver.) Yeah? ([He] has told us that…) You please say it here so that all the people can hear you. OK. Because they sit very far. (OK.) (There is also another message Baaba has told us to deliver. He has told us that on a spiritual path, all the followers all over the world, the true followers, they make one single family.) Yeah, yeah, it’s true. (So He has told us that there is a lot we can exchange especially between [Supreme Master] Ching Hai Centers and Sserulanda Foundation. So, in our foundation, Bambi Baaba has tried His best to make the basis. In fact, He has said that He bought the land, and He’s going to extend it for the coming initiates, to make a means to clear the ground. And for that, of course, it requires a lot of infrastructures, socio-infrastructures, socio-activities, economic activities. So, we have started already some projects like this banana project. We have also in our foundation, we have a very large deposit of clay, which can make a very beautiful...) Pots and all that. (Yes.) Pottery. (Yes. Pottery, ceramics, tile, bricks. And we have also in our foundation a large herbal medicine. In fact, you have…) Herbs. (Yes, herbs, which can make medicine.) Yeah. (I think we are producing around four types or five types of medicine. So, we have, of course, the agriculture, we have also the medicine, the clay industry.
And He has told us that, since You are in what you call the civilized, or developed countries, for that You have skilled people.) That’s what He thinks. (Yes.) They’re skilled in eating. And following me like children. You see it yourself. If you go away, these bananas won’t last one second. We don’t need to steam it. Not enough time for steaming. You want me to show it to you? Immediately gone. So what now? You put all the hope in all these eaters. Alright. I think you have so many illusions about the Taiwanese (Formosan) people.
And then, so what? We’ll talk about that when we go over there, OK? (OK.) See what we can do. Alright? (He was suggesting if You can make an exchange.) No need to exchange. (Or have a…) We help whatever we can with you. We don’t need anything. So, no need to exchange anything (OK.) (In our foundation, we need medical doctors, we need skilled people in the clay industry, in construction, in agriculture. So, (Oh. Wow.) I was told that if it’s possible also to discuss such projects.) Sure, sure, sure. (Yes.) Whatever we can. (So we consolidate our spiritual family.) Whatever we can, we will help you, OK? (OK.) We’ll see whatever you need there, and how many people would like to go. If they want to go there, it’s fine. Because we don’t need anything, so no need to exchange – so it’s not business.
It’s not business that we have to exchange or anything. Not at all. If anyone needs help somewhere, then of course we help with whatever we can. There’s no need to talk of obligation, nothing. (But He was saying…) I already feel that I should help you. Don’t worry. (Thank You very much.) (But He was saying about the exchange. Let’s say when you, for example, you produce a lot of agriculture – because you have very fertile land – so, He was saying exchange in terms of, we can export (Oh, I see.) Yes, some of our…) You ask the wrong person.
We only know how to eat these [things]. Whatever you bring, they eat with the skin, alive. No need to steam. (Yes.) Yeah. You see, we are not very good at these things. But whatever we can do to help you to develop your own talents, we’ll try to do it. (Thank You very much.) Because we don’t need anything. So, wherever we can help [with], we can also help you. So no problem. (Thank You very much.)
Our Centers – we’re not so enthusiastic and active like your Center. You have so many dreams and beautiful plans and all that. We don’t have this kind of talk in our Centers. We don’t bother about developing agriculture or anything like that. Perhaps because we live in a different background, (Yes.) and where we have plenty, and life is more easy. (Yes.) So we take things for granted. We don’t plant. We plant trees and all that, just for the purpose that when people come, (Yes.) they have shade. And we also do some agriculture – I think more or less for show than for eating, because they eat more than they produce. The food they demand to take before they can produce one banana (Yes.) or one potato. Oh, it’s tremendous. It’s tremendous labor to go to the supermarket to buy food for them so that they can grow peanuts.
You don’t know our disciples. Their talent is absolutely in eating. First, they make an excuse. They say, “Oh, Master blessed the food already. We have to eat them otherwise... it’s blessed food.” And then when Master is not around, they bless the food themselves. So, in many Centers, it’s even more cute. I’ll tell you what they do – very organized, absolutely. (Yes.) For example, in America, (Yes.) the disciples, every week, they come for group meditation. They group themselves somewhere in a rented house or somewhere. They group themselves [and] they meditate. But they learned it from Taiwan (Formosa). You know what? Before they come in, (Yes.) a big basket of (vegan) candies and fruit, and (vegan) cake, are put in front of my photo. And then they say, “Master, bless it.” And then after meditation, they say, “OK, come here, Master, already blessed the food.” Everybody – two packets or three packets. So, that’s why I never have time to go to Africa. I’m too busy, blessing food around the world.
You don’t know my disciples. Please have less illusion; then your life will become more peaceful and [have] less disappointment. I have learned to live with this. If you don’t believe me, just get hold of any of them and ask them what’s their specialty? They’ll tell you. They’re supposed to come here to help me with the tour, but they help very wholeheartedly with all the baskets of fruit and (vegan) candies, and they run around to wherever the food is. You don’t know. Please have less illusion. Because all my disciples, they have become Buddha already. So they don’t know what work is. They already renounced work, and they leave it all for me. I am the only one that works, because they all became Buddhas. You don’t know our disciples. You should go to Taiwan (Formosa) and stay there for a while, and then you’ll be happy to go home and grow bananas yourself. Because it’s faster, it’s faster to rely on yourself than to go and talk to all these people who just wait for bananas but don’t know how to plant them.
Oh my God, you don’t know. Last year – no, the year before, maybe three, four years ago – I was also very enthusiastic about all this talk about agriculture. And, “let’s do something for the land,” and “let’s offer some of our labor, the sweat of our brows” and all kinds of these things, and “let’s plant something.” So we started with some watermelon, and yam, like potatoes, sweet potatoes. And we did alright. We plowed the land and we planted the things, and we watered them. And sometimes, if I’m there, they water them to death. If I’m not there, they never give one drop. And at the end of my lecture tour, I come back. We have some watermelons, alright, but that size. You ask them. And you dig the sweet potatoes up, and you see only wires and roots, and only that big. That’s what they do. They plant a lot, but they never bother. So later on, I thought, OK, because I was not there, it must be more organized. And let them be free to plant what they want, and not that I dictate to them what to plant. OK. So I said, “OK, plant what you want. But each one – one or two meters, square meters, like that – and plant that.” Yeah. OK, right? They took their job seriously. And everyone took a hoe, and plowed and whatnot. And they even demanded from me a few thousand dollars for a buffalo machine. they call it. They call it “buffalo machine.” (“Buffalo machine.”) It means “buffalo machine.” Yeah, alright, I give it to them. And I even make an example. I plow the first few lines just for the photograph, let them know what to do. And fine, everything is done.
And then you know what? They all plant peanuts, because it’s the easiest. Everybody talked to each other, that it doesn’t need water, it doesn’t need taking care of, nothing. And they make use of their freedom just to plant peanuts on all pieces of land, different soil, different quality. They don’t care. Peanuts are for everything. Oh my God. And then we do have a couple of peanuts, alright, but that’s all there was. And then the buffalo machine, he had the “flu.”. He had the “flu.” After the cold winter, they just let him lie outside with the wind, the sun, the frost, and the typhoon. (Oh!) And, of course, he had the “flu” – serious malaria and whatnot. And then he lay there. He didn’t move anymore. You can’t even push him because he’s dead. And then they tried to take him to the doctor, but they never made it. They tried only. They wanted to take him to the doctor, but they never made it. So the machine got sicker and sicker every day. And when I came home, only a skeleton [was] left, nothing more. That’s our agriculture history. So don’t you ever rely too much on them. You’re too pure. The African people – you don’t know the Taiwanese (Formosan). Oh, my God.
But some of them, sometimes they plant very good. Only one or two of them are truly farmers before they came, and they plant very well. They plant beans and all that – very long and big. But the rest, they just do it for photographs, just because Master says we have to do it, so they do it. So they all plant peanuts together. And when I say, “Why all peanuts?” And then they all plant sugarcane. Whatever is easy, they just... They seem to learn from each other very fast, but [they] don’t learn from me. So peanuts – all peanuts; or sugarcane – all sugarcane. And you know what? They opened all the gates and all the goat(-people) from the neighbor came and ate all the sugarcane up before they grew. They grew about that size, very sweet and tender, and the goat(-people) loved them. They visited every day. They made themselves at home in our sugarcane plantation. And after a few days, no more. That is the history of our Center, of the monks who tried to be farmers. And they talk a lot about, “Wow, we will eat our own vegetables. We will have our own peanuts – more nourishing, and no sprays, no poison. And if we have more harvest, we can sell them and make money and buy this and that, and all that.” Oh my God! That’s how they cheated me into business.
(That’s the same story for all spiritual Centers.) Yeah? In your place is also? Oh, yeah. (More or less the same.) When they come into the spiritual Center, they think that’s it – they stay there for good and God has to look after them. But they are right also. God looks after them anyhow – somehow. (Somehow, yes.)
[Do] you dig wells in your place? Wells? (No.) Water wells? (It’s “wells.”) (Yes, there, but not so much in that part of the country. There are other parts of the country…) Not in your… (…in our area, it’s not...) In your spiritual Ashram, do you have them, enough? (There is a well, but not…) (Boreholes. We have a borehole.) (We just use boreholes.) What is that? (Water pumps.) (It’s a special hole that they use...) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. (They drill a hole in the ground...) Oh, yeah. Just like… (...and use a pump.) Yeah. That’s the new way of doing it. And they have enough water?
Funny, huh? How come just a pipe and then they have enough water? And you pump it into a water reservoir or not? (In some places, it can be done.) (We all have these large tanks.) You have tanks for water? OK. Oh, you’re very well organized. (But the boreholes, they are just a few, it needs some more.) Oh, yeah, yeah. (Needs some more…) Oh, this is very easy to do, no? (Yes.) But technically, it’s not always possible. (Not always available. In the whole country in Uganda, they use only one. It’s normally a vehicle which does the drilling.) Oh, so you have to wait. (So you have to wait until it goes from one district to another…) Oh my God! (…to make the tank.) Oh, yeah. yeah. So even if you have money and personnel... (If you have money (It’s quicker?) to give to them, and they know that you have the materials, different things, they can always come quickly.) (Yes, but it could be good business to have this lorry that drills, and we could) (Exactly.) (make a business of it in many places around in the country.) How much does it take to buy one like that? (I think the Italians have invented something very good for that.
(In Italy, there are some. You have a special lorry, with all the things. I don’t know the facts; we have to find out…) Can you find out and let me know? (Yes. Yes, sure.) I’m not very specialized in all these kinds of things. But only when people request it and it’s necessary, then I take interest to see what is best, and in case we need to use it for anything.
Most people, they come for spiritual practice. They already had enough of the world. Therefore, you can’t blame them for not doing things.
Photo Caption: “All the Nutrients Are Made by Heaven Just for U!” (All what shows here are no pain)
