March 7, 1991

The spiritual WAY is the unique way that we can only step forward but never step back. When we are determined to choose the spiritual WAY, we should have a definite attitude, without regret of pleasant things that we might enjoy.

Stepping on the spiritual Way is stepping into the itinerary of  I LOOK FOR MYSELF. Each time I meet the greedy and selfish ME, I should find its origin and forgive it, but set to leave it behind. Each time I find myself jealous, passionate, infatuated, or foolishly arrogant, I understand myself more thoroughly, then forgive myself again, and reject those characters to continue the path. My discoveries about me are mostly very banal and very human. Therefore, I would not become a liberated person, if I do not know about my human nature.

Why do I need to be lonely to know the Way?

Because I am a human being with human characters, but I am not lured and led by those characters. I know about human nature to live with and understand human beings, not to let them lead me and others into the wrong direction of serving my interests or benefiting to myself.

The absolute loneliness helps me SEE, and I become a WITNESS for life during the period of my presence. A witness for the evolution of humankind and nature. A witness for history. A witness for human life in the spiritual and material.

Being a witness for myself and the surrounding world will help me see the CLUES of the evolution or the retro gradation of humankind. Being a witness will help me see why in the midst of a civilized society, people become so superstitious. How could many immoral or uneducated and foolishly arrogant to claim themselves as Buddhas, Gods, Divinities, etc?

The success of those FALSE sects and cults comes from the fact that they know how to manipulate people's psychology, particularly their desires and ambitions. They know what to give to those who are greedy or desirous. They know how to manipulate the psychology of those who are unworthy but still infatuated with fame; those who do not change their behavior, improve their nature but want to enter Nirvana, to become Buddha. In brief, those who follow the False Path in order to satisfy their DESIRE.

We should learn about themselves and others to be able to enter loneliness, quietness, clearness, so that they can recognize the RIGHTEOUS WAY from the FALSE WAY.

Why do I sometimes want to die?

These are moments that I particularly want to leave everything behind and get back to myself. I have to live; I have to breathe. Although I keep my mind serene and complacent, I also have to struggle with all waves and winds caused by the material life, toward human beings, toward my duties.

I come from this present moment to another present moment, and I have to advance my step, following the course of time. The life drama always lifts up the curtain, then lowers it down, following dawns and dusks. I have to live; I have to breathe, in accordance with the rhythm of time, to catch it, so that mankind and life will not decline within me, so that I will not become an obsolete character, rejected by the mechanism of nature, or crushed by this mechanism, both body and soul.

How striking are the waves and the winds of the waters, of the storms or the rains. How magnificent are the sunrise at the horizon and the sunset over multihued oceans with gleaming waves. The gentle wind caresses the gardens filled with multicolored spring flowers. I am still living, sometimes suffering terribly, sometimes loving passionately, sometimes feeling blithe, and peace. The mindfulness is always present in each breathe, each action, and each attitude. I am already liberated, but still living, and living as a common human being with all greed, hate, delusion, joy, anger, love, and detest; with all good and bad habits so that I can have compassion for people around me, and recognize “how, I am like them.”

If I see myself different from others and belittle them, I will eventually self-isolate, self-destroy, and self-detach from the human society. If I love people, I should understand them. If I want to help people, I should combine force with them to rebuild together all devastations. To build the community, I should cooperate with the community. To build the country, I should work together with other people who love the country. To work together, we should eliminate personal ambitions to have righteous cause. With righteous cause, the rebuilding of the community, and the nation will be more likely to succeed.

Please do not run away.

If given the privilege to choose, let's choose confrontation to resolve difficulties in life. Because the more we try to avoid them, the more they pursue us, and a heavier load we must carry. As we try to keep away from the difficulties and what we need to do, our mind will be more intense. Those works will obsess us, thrust us, pressure us, and turn our mind increasingly unquiet.

Do not avoid difficult moments, and prefer temporarily easy moments, because our mind will not be in peace if life- related difficulties are not solved.

When confronted by what we fear and avoid, we would be amazed to learn that it is not that difficult as we thought or imagined. Difficulties in life are sometimes the sole product of imagination or creation of the mind for what we want to avoid.

Our mind will be blissful when we acknowledge all states with equanimity. Such acknowledgement of the brain is a miracle to neutralize all difficulties and adversities in life. Grief or joy, fame or failure, being loved or rejected, happiest moment is of the same nature as the most unfortunate moment.