Summary

People like to listen to praising words. But why does Supreme Master Ching Hai regard praise as poison? She pointed out that the biggest problem of ego is it likes praise. Some monks/nuns fell just because a lay disciple wrote him/her a praising letter. He/she does not know that he/she is nothing and does not want to understand and acknowledge his/her own quality, but likes only the good words about him/her and does not check himself/herself. There is no praise here in Master’s place. Therefore, an occasional praising sentence would impress him/her so deeply that he/she does not remember anything else but the praise, and loses all the ideals about Buddha nature, attaining Buddhahood and the faith for truth. You should be careful with each other and not praise each other. You should know that we are all just instruments. When doing something, make sure to check on ourselves whether we are doing it unconditionally. Or otherwise, we may also pray to Buddha for help in checking on us in order to keep our honesty and pure heart.

Supreme Master Ching Hai also told us that to liberate from the life and death cycle one need to have courage. Master said that fear makes us fall into reincarnation for a long time. If we do not overcome the habit of fear, we have to come back to learn the lesson. Sometimes Master wants to bring us up to the higher heavens, but because of our fear we have to stay. We want liberation, but when Master tries to bring us up to heaven we are afraid of no land to step on or nothing to grasp, then where can Master bring us to ? Fear is the most terrible thing for us. We should be afraid of our fear; we become fear because of our fear.