All of you good and wise advisors:

The activities we have at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas cannot be found in other countries and other Way-places. Before 1987, no country in the West had ever held a Water-Land-Air Dharma Assembly. Thus, it's not known how many souls of soldiers and citizens who died in wartime, and spirits bound by enmity, exist in the West. In 1987, we invited over seventy monks from mainland China to hold the first Water-Land-Air Dharma Assembly in the West.

We want to rescue all the lonely souls who have nowhere to go, whether they drowned in the sea, were killed in an accident on land, or died in mid-air, whether in a plane crash, on a sinking ship, or in a car collision. This event is a first in the West, but it will not be the last. In the future, there will be other Dharma Assemblies to follow this precedent. Now, in 1992, we are holding a Water-Land-Air Dharma Assembly for the second time, and we have invited monks from all ten directions to come to the City. All the noble, lofty Sanghans have gathered to conduct this Dharma Assembly.

When the Venerable Hsu Yun held a Water-Land Assembly and an Ordination Ceremony at Southern Cloud Monastery, there was an auspicious omen in which the plum trees bloomed with white lotus flowers. When he conducted another Water-Land Dharma Assembly at Six Hibiscus Monastery in Gwang Jou, the peach trees bloomed, even though they had not done so for the last seven or eight years before that. This was also an auspicious omen, a sign of the good energy sent by the Bodhisattvas.

This time, I originally invited the delegation from Taiwan to come hold this Water-Land-Air Dharma Assembly. Due to some misun derstandings, a delegation from mainland China was also invited. How did this happen? We made some mistakes in handling the matter, resulting in some contradictory conditions. Last spring, Heng Sure and Heng fang went to Taiwan to discuss the issue of the Water-Land-Air Dharma Assembly with the abbot of Wonderful Dharma Monastery. The abbot told them that it was difficult to find people to come; the Dharma Masters in Taiwan all knew that at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, people only ate one meal a day, and there were a lot of regulations restricting their freedom, so nobody wanted to come because they couldn't take it. Although he said this, he didn't decline to come. At that time he just said he could take care of getting people to conduct the Inner Platform, but that the Dharma Masters at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas had to do the outer platforms themselves. This was fine, but these two monks got the language confused, and called back to say, "The outer platforms are taken care of, but there's no one to do the Inner Platform." Thereupon, I tried to arrange some Dharma Masters to manage the Inner Platform. I called long-distance to Shanghai saying, "Please send some monks to come host the Inner Platform." The monks in mainland China very generously agreed to do so, and started getting the papers in order. At first they couldn't get passports, and without passports there was no way to come. We tried all kinds of methods, and finally got the passports. The very next day, they got visas to leave the country.

So altogether eighteen monks came from the mainland and nineteen monks came from Taiwan. Both groups came. Now, would you say this is dangerous? With the Nationalist party and the Communist party in the same place, there was sure to be a big explosion. That's why I've been so worried that I can't sleep at night or eat during the day. If a misunderstanding occurred between the two sides, and they started to fight it out, what would I do? I figured that it they really started to shoot at each other, I'll stand right between them and let them hit me instead.

But when they met face-to-face on the second day, it was a response from the Bodhisattvas, for nobody wanted to fight, and everyone said they would cooperate and work together. So this Dharma Assembly has been successfully completed. But suppose it hadn't turned out this way, and the two sides both went on strike. How could we have faced the devoted laypeople who have come from the ten directions? It would have been difficult to exit the situation gracefully. You shouldn't laugh, for this was really a dangerous affair.

But it has worked out and Buddhism has met here. There has been no bloodshed, no bruises, no fisticuffs exchanged. This is a very auspicious sign for the future unification of China. We should mutually help each other to work for a united China. China should not let other countries bully her, and China herself should not exclude others. This is a good sign for the unity of all nations, which deserves our commemoration. The fact that Communists and Nationalists have been able to join together under the cloak of Buddhism and not fight, is a very good sign for the whole world.

Now I want to tell all of you a little bit about my way of thinking and my behavior. I said the same thing to over two thousand left-home and lay people who had come from the four quarters to attend the opening ceremony of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I said, "I want to tell you a bit of true talk right now, which is to say, as a left-home person my biggest fault is that I always look down on rich people." At the time, there were over a hundred Malaysians in the group, and they all got together and decided they were going to make their thinking known. They said, "We came to congratulate you and we are certainly not going to take this abuse from you." So they decided to struggle with me. The first thing they did was to get their advisor and say to him, "We want to overthrow this monk. Is it okay?" Their advisor was Ven. Dhammananda from Sri Lanka.

護世息災水陸空大法會
The Water-Land-Air Ceremony for Protecting the Wotrld

Ven. Dhammananda looked at one of his group who was very old with a long white beard and he said, "You're so old and yet you completely misunderstand Buddhism. I have sat beside the Ven. Abbot, the Abbot of this monastery, and I feel that every word he says is the proper Dharma, every word he says is correct. And if you want to fight with him, then I'll tell you now that I'm leaving, and will no longer have anything to do with you. So you choose." At that, the anger of this group of Malaysians subsided, and Ven. Dhammananda resolved the crisis for me.

Layman Jwang: Ven. Master, and Dharma Masters, I am a disciple from Los Angeles, and I want to ask the Ven. Abbot if my point of view is right or not. In Los Angeles there are many people who study the Secret School, which means they get their crown anointed. There are those who study the Manifest school too, come to attend and protect the Dharma Assembly when the Ven. Master goes down to Los Angeles to teach. Some people were passing the rumor around that the Ven. Master is opposed to the Secret School, and I said, I don't think so. I think the Ven. Master is just opposed to our trying to run when we don't even know how to walk. He is opposed to the greed in our minds. I don't know if my explanation is right, but I feel that these secret Dharmas are not something which are so simple to learn, especially if we have just entered the door as Buddhist disciples.

Master: Layman Jwang says that people say I am opposed to the Secret School. Not only am I not opposed to the Secret School, in fact, I want people to study the Secret School. However, if it becomes too secret, then some unspeakable things might happen. Regardless of whether you cultivate the Secret School or the Manifest School, you absolutely have to cut off desire and put an end to love. In the Secret School, there are people who openly practice what is called the pair dharmas, with men and women indulging in sexual conduct, and as a result, breaking the Precepts. This I don't approve of because they are borrowing the name of Buddhism and of the Secret School to practice lustful conduct and break the rules. Their behavior doesn't even come up to that of lay people's. There are some religious leaders who are infected with VD, because they do not follow the rules. It is only to be feared that they will fall to their deaths in the future without even knowing why. Because of the greed in their minds, they become confused about right and wrong, and cause themselves to be burned to death, or to drown, or fall into the hells in the future. What a shame, they wanted to find a good road, a way to transcend the suffering in the triple world. Instead they found a way to fall into the hells. So, it is not the case that I oppose the Secret School at all. On the contrary, what I am doing is trying my best to wake up confused people. Not understanding this, they say I'm opposed to it. Not only do I not oppose the Secret School, I don't oppose Protestants, Catholics or Jews, or any other religion, as long as you follow the rules. All religions teach people to become good, and to do good deeds. They don't tell you to indulge in lust, which will send you to the hells. But stupid people are so deluded that if you give them good medicine, they refuse to take it, and if you speak truthfully to them, they refuse to believe you. This is because (1) they have no virtue, (2) they have no good roots, (3) their karmic obstacles obstruct them from believing in the proper Dharma.

There are other religions in which lustful conduct is openly indulged in, too, to the point that they go around naked. One such group was organized by Rajneesh in Oregon. He had a small kingdom of 6,500 acres there, and he would drive buses around and just pick up people and take them to his town, but once they got there they weren't allowed to leave. The rules in the town were that marriages were abolished, but men and women were encouraged to walk around naked and enjoy relationships as they pleased. There were many believers, including many famous celebrities who wound up there. He had a lot of money and the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States found a way to get rid of him, saying he was violating the laws of the land. They exiled him back to India. While in Oregon, he used to maintain silence. In his garages he had over ninety Rolls Royce cars. If anyone wanted to send him a gift, that is what he asked for. He had so many Rolls Royces that he couldn't use them all. He would take a new car everyday, ride out, and wave to the naked people kneeling on both sides of the street, causing them to feel really honored. What kind of drug do you suppose he fed them to make them behave in this way? While in the United States he claimed to be Jesus come again, and to be God himself incarnated on the planet. And a lot of people believed him. But then he was exiled to India, where he got sick and died not long after. After his death, his believers all scattered. There was absolutely nothing left of the town. After owning ninety-seven Rolls Royce cars, he decided he didn't want cars anymore, and instead he wanted wrist watches. But the wrist watches had to be over $100,000, maybe a Rolex or something. The cars had to be over $100,000, too. But, wouldn't you know, after he died, there was nothing left. The money--who knows where it went. The airplanes--who knows where they went. The buses--where did they drive off to? Nobody really knows. All his wealth just trickled away. We don't know where it came from, and we also don't know where it all went.