Na mo sa dan tuo. Su qie duo ye. E la he di. San miao san pu tuo xie (3x)

Religious leaders, good and wise advisors, and greatly virtuous ones from all nations, I ask for your compassion today as we gather together to investigate the relationship between Buddhism and world peace. Buddhism is peace, and peace is just Buddhism. There is no conflict between them. People who study the Buddha's teachings are actually studying peace. Those who do not study the Buddha's teachings cannot be peaceful. Why do I say this? People who study Buddhism have to learn the samadhi of noncontention. Noncontention means the absence of all conflict and argument whatsoever. It means that whatever other people don't want, we'll take; whatever others want, we don't want. Just that is peace.

Why do people contend? Where does the contention come from? It begins in people's minds. As soon as you contend, you have no peace. If you don't contend, there is peace. Peace is the absence of all contention. The lack of peace means there is contention.

When the Buddha was in the world, the Proper Dharma prevailed. After the Buddha entered Nirvana, the Dharma Image Age prevailed. Now we are in the Dharma Ending Age, in which contention prevails. There's a verse which goes,

Contention involves victory and defeat;
It is contrary to the Way.
When the mind of the four marks arises,
How can you obtain samadhi?

As soon as you start contending, you are going against the Way. As soon as you contend, you have the mark of self. With the mark of self, there is the mark of others as well. Once you have the mark of others, the mark of living beings arises, and with that comes the mark of a life span. And when the mind of the four marks arises, how can you achieve proper concentration?

In studying Buddhism or other religions, in learning any kind of practice, as soon as we have thoughts of fighting and competing, peace is lost. That's why I said,

Contention involves victory and defeat;
It is contrary to the Way.
When the mind of the four marks arises,
How can you obtain samadhi?

If your mind is intent on contending, how can you derive any benefit from religion? Not only is there no benefit, there is actually harm, because your contending hurts people and endangers their lives. This is not peace. If we want peace in the world, we have to start by not contending.

The first of the four marks is the mark of self. How does the "self" come into being? There are a few lines describing the "self" which go:

Before I was born, who was I?
After being born, who was I?
When I grow up and become an adult, that is me.
But when I shut my eyes and everything grows dim,
who am I then?

These lines of verse investigate the question of self. Before I was born into this body, where was I? Who was I, ultimately? After I was born, as a child I still didn't know who I was. However, having grown up and become an adult, I do feel that there is an "I."

On our body with its four limbs and hundreds of bones, the head, feet, hands, arms, eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, tongue, and body each have their own names, but which of them is called the "self"? You can look over the entire body, but you won't find the "self" there. You know there is a "self," but you can't find it. Just exactly what is the self? When you close your eyes and die, who are you then? The "self" is a vague, indistinct thing. The name and the reality don't match. You don't know what is meant by self, others, living beings, or a life span. But even though people don't know, they still want to live and don't want to die. They want to eat and not go hungry. They want to wear clothes and not feel cold. They want to sleep and not feel tired. Why is this? They even want to do bad things and avoid doing good things. They want to be naughty and not be filial to their parents. Who taught them to be that way?

If there is an "I," then why can't "I" keep my eyes from growing dim, my ears from growing deaf, or my teeth from falling out? When I get sick and am about to die, why can't "I" do anything about it? If the "I" isn't a false name, what is it? Isn't this confusion and lack of understanding? Buddhahood is true understanding.

The reason the world is not at peace is that people are stupid and ignorant. If there is to be peace in the world, people have to have wisdom and be able to yield to others instead of contending. In the history of China, for example, Emperor Yao passed the throne to Shun, and Shun passed it to Yu. One emperor voluntarily yielded the throne to the next. Those emperors were willing to give their kingdom to others. Because there was yielding instead of contention, theirs was a time of peace and prosperity.

The ancients were able to yield the entire nation to others, because they regarded all external possessions such as land as being worth no more than a pair of tattered shoes. Yet they wanted to take care of that pair of old shoes, and they wanted to protect their country, so they wanted to search for someone worthy of the gift. Emperor Yao searched the entire land looking for a virtuous person, one who had no greed, to whom he could entrust the kingdom.

At that time in China there lived two sages, Chaofu and Xuyou, who had no greed. Chaofu didn't have a house to live in. He lived in a tree, just like a bird living in a nest. He built a nest in a tree. That's why he was called Chaofu, "Man of the Nest." Xuyou was a cowherd. He raised his own cow and drank a little bit of milk every day to sustain himself.

Chaofu didn't even have a bowl. Someone gave him a gourd shell that could be used for drinking, but when the wind blew the gourd which he had hung from his tree, it scraped against the tree and made such a racket that he didn't want it anymore. He preferred to use his hands to scoop up water. That's how frugally he lived. He had no greed. Xuyou would eat some wild vegetables and drink a bit of milk every day, and that was enough. He wasn't greedy either.

When Emperor Yao heard about these two people who were not greedy and did not contend with others, he wished to give the kingdom to them. And so he went to look for Chaofu and told him that he wanted to hand the kingdom over to him and let him be the emperor. Hearing that, Chaofu turned around and ran to the river to wash his ears. Why? He felt that the Emperor's proposition to give the country to him had defiled his ears, and he wanted to wash those filthy words away.

When Xuyou saw Chaofu washing his ears in the river, he asked, "Why are you doing that? What happened to your ears?"

"Emperor Yao had nothing better to do, so he came and asked if he could give me his kingdom and let me rule as emperor," Chaofu said. "I feel my ears were defiled by his words, so I'm trying to wash them clean." Xuyou had been watering his cow, but when he heard that, he immediately led his cow upstream to drink.

"Why are you taking your cow upstream?" Chaofu asked.

"If you wash your dirty ears in the river, it'll make the water dirty," said Xuyou, "and I can't let my cow drink dirty water. Even though she's a cow, she doesn't want to drink dirty water, either."

Think it over. See how incorruptible the ancients were! They were so free of greed and contention that when someone tried to give them the whole kingdom, they didn't even want it. Modern people are getting farther and farther away from the right track, all because of their "self." What is the self? We ourselves don't understand it, and yet all day long we're so attached to the self that we forget everything else. It's just that attachment to self that causes us to have no wisdom. If you can see through the self and let it go, then you'll be free and at ease and there will be no more problems. Because you can't see through it and let it go, you aren't free and at ease. Instead, the self is muddled and confused, living as if drunk and dying in a dream. When you get up from bed, you putter around for a while--I don't know what you do. Then when you're done, you go to sleep again. Eating is like that too. You eat your fill today, but then you have to eat again tomorrow. This goes on every day for several decades, and then it's all over. Who knows where your "self" goes then? You don't even know where your "self" goes, and yet this false "self" drives you find it good food to eat and nice clothes to wear. You slave away for the false "self," fussing over it when it gets hungry, or cold, or thirsty. You try to keep it in the best of health, but when the time comes, it still has to die. Take a look! You scramble around frantically your entire life, wearing yourself out until your ears grow deaf, your eyes grow dim, your teeth fall out, your hair turns gray, your legs can no longer walk, and you don't know quite what to do with yourself. Because you have not recognized your real "self," you've been cheated. When the time comes to die, you aren't free and in control of what happens.

We should all think it over. For thousands of years, people have been born, have died, and have been reborn, over and over. People live one hectic life after another. In all these thousands of years, we have merely undergone birth and death, death and birth. We have cried and laughed, laughed and cried. A verse says,

Fish leap in the water;
People clamor in the world.
They don't know enough to do virtuous deeds,
But create bad karma callously.

You may pile up gold and silver high as a mountain,
But when you close your eyes, it's all gone.
Empty-handed you go to see King Yama,
And regretfully you let your tears fall.

Only then, like a criminal who is thrown in jail, do you regret what you've done, but it's already too late. I don't know much English, but I do know the words "too late."

Great Britain is a highly civilized nation, a cultural leader in the world. I hope that it will infuse its cultured civilization with wisdom and use the culture of wisdom to guide the people in the world who lack wisdom. If people have wisdom, the world will be at peace. If people are stupid and ignorant, there will be no peace in the world.

The first requisite for having wisdom is not to kill. Killing is unwise, because if you take the lives of other creatures, they will seek revenge. Due to our stupidity, we become deluded, create karma, and undergo the retribution. If you kill others, they will kill you in turn. If you eat others, they will eat you.

A professor residing at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas heard about the benefits of vegetarianism. He heard that if one is vegetarian, one won't create ties of enmity with living beings and won't have to undergo the resulting retribution. His family was vegetarian, and so he raised his child as a vegetarian, too. He instilled this principle in his child's mind: "If you eat a lot of pork, you will become a pig in your next life. If you eat too much beef, you'll turn into a cow. If you eat a lot of mutton, you'll become a sheep. If you don't eat meat, you won't turn into any of those animals. You become whatever you eat." But the child didn't think much of her father's explanation. She was only three years old, and she asked, "You said that if I eat pork I'll become a pig, if I eat mutton I'll become a sheep, and if I eat beef I'll become a cow. Well, if I eat vegetables, won't I become a vegetable?" Her father didn't know how to answer this question, so he brought his daughter and her question to me.

I said, "Pigs, cows, and sheep all have legs, and when you go to kill them, they try to run away. When you kill them, their hearts are filled with hatred and in the future they will drag you off to become one of them. The sheep drag you off to become a sheep, the pigs drag you off to become a pig, and the cows drag you off to become a cow. But what about vegetables? When you eat them, they don't call out, cry, jump, or grow legs and run away. And so if you eat vegetables, you probably won't become a vegetable."

The Chinese character for "meat" 肉 is composed of two "people" 人 in a "mouth" 口. The "mouth" character is missing the bottom stroke, which means that the mouth is open wide for eating people.

In the character for "meat" 肉 there are two people 人
The one inside is holding onto the one outside.
Living beings eating the flesh of living beings:
If you really think about it, it's just people eating people.

The two people in the "meat" character represent one who is eating and one who is being eaten. I remember someone once asking, "What are the advantages of being vegetarian? Isn't it kind of like cheating yourself into taking a loss?"

I replied, "You might feel like you're taking a loss while you're alive, but you won't be taking a loss after you die. If you aren't a vegetarian, then you won't take a loss while you're alive, but you will after you die. When the accounts are settled, you have to pay back what you owe." In light of this principle, if we want there to be peace in the world, we all have to stop killing and stop eating meat. Not killing is true peace. If you don't kill others, others will not kill you. If you don't eat others, they will not eat you. No matter what our religion is, if we can all be vegetarian, there will be peace in the world."

When I went to Taiwan several decades ago, the people there were very worried about a Communist invasion. Their lives seemed to be hanging by a thread, and everyone was in a panic. They wanted to know when the Communists would attack, so they asked me, "What will happen to Taiwan?" At that time there was one person who was very nervous about this question being asked, because if I answered inappropriately, I might have been thrown in prison. It was a very sensitive issue, and if anyone said something wrong, they would be arrested, accused of being communist, and sent to the prison on Green Island. This person feared that I would say something wrong. I said to the person who asked the question, "If the people of Taiwan become vegetarian, recite the Buddha's name, and refrain from killing, everything will be fine. But if the Taiwanese people do a lot of killing and commit all kinds of bad karma, things will go badly. If everyone refrains from evil and does good, Taiwan will be fine. But if you do lots of evil and don't do any good, Taiwan will be in danger."

What I have said tonight may have some principle to it, or it may not. I hope everyone will use his or her own wisdom to determine where the principle lies. As it is said,

If it's the Way, advance upon it.
If it's not the Way, retreat from it.

I hope all of you will choose what is good and follow it, and take what is bad and change it. Finally I want to wish everyone health, happiness, and luck in all you do. Good night!