Tonight we will tell our stories about our experiences studying under the Venerable Master Hua. We all like to sit around and tell these stories because they reveal a little bit of the Master. But it's difficult to speak about the Master without saying little bit about yourself, because the Master was like a mirror. He had great perfect mirror wisdom. In teaching and transforming living beings he would always show them something about themselves. It could be something that we already know about ourselves, but when we know that he knows it too, it causes us to feel not lonely and also to bring forth our Bodhi mind. Sometimes he reveals things about our-selves that we don't even know, and in this way he helps us to gradually raise our awareness. Cultivating is learning about your own faults and then gradually changing them. Because of this, it's very difficult to get people to come up and tell their stories because nobody likes to talk about themselves.

One of the most amazing things about the Master is that he was from Manchuria, China, and he came to America all alone and was able to touch the hearts of many Americans and teach and transform them; that was an incredible feat. The Master didn't care anything about himself. He was able to do almost anything that was wholesome in order to cross over living beings, and that included (when he first came to America) even cooking and cleaning up for them. Now when we think back on it, we feel very ashamed. This is also another way that the Master taught and transformed people: he helped us to have a higher sense of what's right and to feel shame when we don't measure up. He was able to totally transform people's lives by very simple, ordinary things. And he was able to take what seemed right-even if they were impossible things-and make them possible.

I came to study with the Master in 1978, around the time when the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas was just beginning. When this place was first offered for sale, many people advised the Master not to buy it. They said we didn't have enough manpower even to mow the lawn, and it would be impossible for the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas (CTTB) to flourish. They predicted that within a year it would have to close down. But the Master was not afraid. When people told him that a fengshui (geomancy) expert had said the fengshui here was not very good, the Master said that it is people who determine the fengshui of a place. If originally the fengshui was not good but people do good deeds in the place, then they can change the fengshui to become good. If originally the fengshui was good and they do evil things, they can change it to become bad. So the Master inspired a small group of people to start the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Although that required a lot of hard work, the person who worked the hardest of all was the Master. From the very beginning to the end, the Master himself would never climb on conditions and he also taught his disciples never to climb on conditions.

In the early days of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, there were not so many conveniences. Maybe some people feel that the City is not convenient now, but at that time it was even less convenient than it is now. The Master built up the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in the same way that he did everything. He built it up on his own virtue very reliably, and he never tried to find an easy way to do it. The small group of people that was here would work during the week around the grounds. At the same time we would always take classes, because the Master said that everywhere is a classroom. If you are in a car on the road, it's a classroom. If you are in a kitchen, it's a classroom. No matter what you're doing or where you are, it's a classroom. Furthermore, the roles of teacher and student are interchangeable. The change of roles can happen when conditions permit it. Therefore, in Buddhism every place is a place that the Dharma wheel can be turned.

The Master would come up to CTTB on weekends, and by the time he arrived, most of his disciples would have been several days without the Master's influence. All of our afflictions would be surfacing and we would start to feel that the test was too great. The Master would come every Saturday morning or Friday evening and immediately he would bring up our spirits. He would use the Dharma to nourish us, to nourish our Dharma body. He did this every week for ten or fifteen years. He would come to CTTB for a few days and teach classes, go back to San Francisco, and then come back the next week. And at least once a month he would go to Gold Wheel Monastery in L.A., once a month to Gold Buddha Monastery in Vancouver, and once a month to Gold Summit Monastery in Seattle. The Master was constantly travelling around and visiting the various Way-places to encourage all of his disciples to continue cultivating and spreading the Dharma in the West. Maybe once every year or two he would go on a Dharma-propagating tour to Taiwan or Malaysia or Hong Kong. Probably many of you have seen the Master on one of these tours. This also took a great deal of energy and effort. Yet the Master always seemed very at ease. He always used different methods: Sometimes he would scold us to raise up our spirits; sometimes he would just try to cheer us up and encourage us. Depending on the different situations, he would always apply the right method. And in this way, for many years he would encourage many people in many different places to cultivate. He was doing this even when he was in his sixties and seventies. Many of you here tonight have travelled very far and probably feel very tired. So you can imagine what it must have been like to continue this kind of effort for so many years at that age. But the Master never complained to anyone about being tired or being sick, and in fact most of us didn't know until very recently that he had been sick for many years. In 1993, the last time he went to Taiwan, he was extremely sick and yet he forced himself to go. The reason he forced himself to go there was because he was asked to go. The thing about the Master is that he would always fulfill anyone's wish as long as it was a wholesome wish and as long as it would help people to bring forth the Bodhi mind. So even though it meant that his life would be shortened, he forced himself to go.

During recent years people have been especially fond of taking photos of the Master, and there are many different photos of him now. But one of the photos that people seem to like the most is one taken on that trip to Taiwan, when he was giving an interview to the family of a TV talk show hostess. That hostess had just left the home life and she brought all her family and friends to bow to the Master. And he put on the most charming smile; he looked kind of glamorous like a movie star and at the same time he looked very innocent, like a little child. Now I know that at the time he was in a great deal of pain--a kind of pain that probably most people couldn't bear--and yet he was able to smile in such a totally delightful way, and nobody knew how sick he was or in how much pain he was. On the surface of things he seem to be doing something very ordinary, but actually what he was doing was inconceivable. We always hear stories of how the Buddha, when he was a patient immortal had all his limbs cut off and yet he did not bring forth the heart of hatred; and we hear how the Buddha was able to give his flesh to a hungry eagle, and how he was able to throw his body off a cliff to feed a hungry tiger. I feel from witnessing the Master over the years that he was doing this kind of thing, but we never knew it and he was never dramatic about it. He never praised himself or even let us know what he was doing.

One of the first years we were at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, I remember that there were many, many weeds in the streets and the cement was starting to crack from the weeds that were growing up. So the Master came and told people in the office that we should pull up the weeds. His disciples said to him, "We're too busy and we don't have time." The Master said, "Okay, then I'll do it myself.” And he really did it. He went out to the streets and started pulling up the weeds. But he didn't use his hands; he used his cane, and it was kind of incredible because he'd go and he'd stick his cane in the crack of the pavement and then he just flicked it and the weed would pop out. It wasn't something that most people could do. On the one hand he entertained us and made us cheerful, and on the other hand he showed us what we should be doing to protect the property of the Triple Jewel.

Another time I heard that he was cleaning toilets at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I remembered one night he came to the City and everyone was a little bit more tired then usual. We were all feeling pretty low and probably there were a few of us who were losing our Bodhi mind and wanted to retreat. So the Master at evening lecture said, "Tonight we are going to have a special night. Everybody get up and talk about what's unusual about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. What's special about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas? Among all the Way-places in the world, what does the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas have that other Way-places don't have?" One by one we each got up and talked about what we thought was special about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Finally, at the very end the Master himself talked. He said, "Well, I know something special about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas that nobody has brought up." He said that in the whole world, there is not another Way-place that has so many toilets.

The only way the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas has been able to survive is because he had taught us all to be thrifty and he himself was extremely thrifty. He taught us never to waste a penny, that to waste even a penny of the Triple Jewel's money was not okay. And he would always exhort us that if we waste these things, we would definitely fall into the hells. This was a kind of bitter thing to have to listen to, especially when it's cold and you're hungry and tired. But he had the most delightful way to teach us so that we happily accepted his teachings.

I remember one time when he was sitting on his Dharma seat and someone was translating his lecture into English, someone brought him a letter and he had the letter read to him. While the letter was being read to him and the translation was going on at the same time, he picked up the envelope and very, very carefully turned it inside out. Then he held it up for everybody to see. By that time the translation was over. And he said, "I just turned this envelope inside out, because I'm going to use it again. I'm going to use this envelope to send a letter to my friend." And he said, "You see how careful I am with things" You should all be this careful with things. If you do not waste the property of the Triple Jewel, you will cause the Dharma to remain longer in the world."

There were many examples I could tell you about how he taught us how to save things, and how he was the most thrifty of all towards himself. He ate very little, and he would never take things for himself. But when it came time to give in order to bring forth someone's Bodhi mind, there was no limit to how much he would give. He would spend a lot of money to go give a Dharma talk, for instance, and then after the Dharma talk maybe one person would come to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas to leave the home life. And I'd think, "Oh! He went all the way to that country and spent all of that money just to save one person, just to enable one person to leave the home-life." And he would often do this. When it was time to give in order to teach and transform people, he was the most generous, like a great giving king.

Now if there are any teachers here, then you probably know that teaching is the most demanding kind of work there is, because the teacher has to do ten times as much as the student. This is just a way of speaking. In other words, what the teacher is teaching to the students, he himself has to be able to do many times more. If he is teaching the students to be thrifty, for example, he himself has to be that much more thrifty. In order to encourage a student, the teacher has to use an incredible amount of energy. And teaching is the least selfish of all professions, because the teacher gives to the students the things that he himself prizes the most--his own wisdom, everything he knows. The Master always wished that other people would be better than him. Of course that's impossible, but that's really in his heart what he wanted. He wanted all of his disciples to be outstanding, and that's another way in which he was extremely unselfish. He would display his own talents only in order to encourage other people to develop their own.

Now all of these things speak about the Master's virtue. The Master used to say that to become a Buddha, you first have to perfect yourselves as a person. That means that you have to develop all the virtues that people can have. He would always put on a ordinary style towards people, and as a result some of his disciples would not recognize him, and people who met him would simply think that he was a very compassionate person without recognizing who he really was. But those disciples who stayed around him for many years couldn't help but know that behind all that simplicity was a wonder that's hard to describe.

Here's one example which is an experience that one of my Dharma sisters related to me. This happened at Gold Mountain Monastery. When they were renovating Gold Mountain Monastery, the disciples were doing all the work themselves. And they were working right inside the Monastery. They were cutting wood and plastering and so forth, and there a layer of very fine white dust covering the ground and the tables and everything. And people would leave footprints everywhere they went. And so this Dharma sister said that she was in the dining hall cleaning. She was in there all alone, when the Master came into the dining hall. He walked up to the Dharma seat where he ate his lunch, looked around, and then walked down the other side and went back out. My Dharma sister continued cleaning, and then she noticed that there wasn't a single footprint where the Master had walked. She realized that that was impossible, but it was obvious that the Master hadn't touch the ground.

When the Master came and spoke the Dharma, he would speak one sentence and everyone in the room would feel that he was speaking directly to them, answering their own problems and questions. This happened all the time. On the one hand it became ordinary, but on the other hand it never lost its wonder. At the same time the Master would teach and transform people individually whenever there was an opportunity. He would often call the managers of the various Way-places and encourage them and teach and transform them. He was always expending his energy for living beings without a single thought of saving any of his energy for himself. After watching the Master this way for so many years, I can say that he was totally selfless.