The precepts are very important, not only for nuns and monks, but for you as well, if you want to be liberated while you are taking care of your duties in the world according to your karma. Not everyone can be nuns and monks, of course. It's a very difficult undertaking. It's very difficult. It needs a lot of discipline, a lot of training yourself, a lot of self-introspecting, a lot of sacrifice of personal taste, personal freedom. Everything! Many things, many things.

So, watch all the time, your mind, because your mind is tricking you all the time, due to habit, due to the company you keep, due to the job that you are doing, due to your surroundings, due to your family tradition or kind of lineage or just habit. So, watch it all the time. This is the most difficult to watch, because we always make excuses when we want to do something, we say, “Oh, I do that because of that, because of this.” Whether or not it’s true, you don’t care, and that is also lying; should not. Always watch our mind. The Buddha said that “If monks’ minds are as straight as the lute strings, true and real in everything they do, then they can enter Samadhi and never be involved in the deeds of demons. I certify that such people will accomplish the Bodhisattvas’ Unsurpassed Knowledge and Enlightenment.”

Sometimes, the comfortable place doesn’t mean a good place. You might not have peace at the end; not peace within yourself only, but peace with other coordinating people. “Whatever is good for the world, and good for other people, then I would do it, no matter what.” And now, Buddha’s talking about Ananda’s private life, “Your past lives with Matangi’s daughter created accumulated kalpas of causes and conditions. Yet, as soon as I proclaimed it (the spiritual mantra), she was freed forever from the affection in her heart and accomplished Arhatship…

The teachings and the lineage of the spiritual power of any Master, it’s like a river. Sometimes, it’s hidden under the earth somewhere, and you think this is the end of the river. No, no, it will seep out somewhere and then appear again; so it is like that. Any of the religious people should look where the river reappears, and do not be attached to a location of the original river, because in all ages, all religious branches, there will always be a Master somewhere. It may not be in the same lineage, not be in the same religious order, but there will be a Master for the world, for our world.

After initiation, make sure you remember, so that every day you continue to practice, so that your mind will be ingrained into this spiritual power already. “In the countries within them, they should seek for the unsurpassed Thus Come Ones throughout the ten directions, to emit a light of great compassion and anoint the crowns of their heads.” Don’t let the mind trouble you and rob you of your enlightenment and faith. Faith is the mother of all virtues; that’s what I said. Buddha said that, the same. A country, rich or not, materially, it doesn’t matter too much, but spiritually rich, it matters.

All this is because you don’t find a living Master. You study with His disciples or some lay later-generation disciples, if they still have the instructions in their heart to tell you. Then, because the living Master, meaning the Buddha’s not there anymore, you have to do thus such and such and such and such. Then you can also become enlightened and the Buddha will appear to you and bless you to be enlightened; that is that. So the living Master is the easier way for you, if you can find one. There’s some more. So many Buddha images and Bodhisattvas and heavenly beings already; some more coming, in case you want to try.

The pyramid is, people built it for meditation. Nobody even knew up until now, what it was for; for meditation purposes. Number one, it’s very good concentration inside. Energy. Also, the cosmic energy can help you. It’s one pointed like that. And then number two is that in the desert, it’s so hot. The pyramid is very thick, the wall diameter, very thick, and it’s so cool inside. After the Master dies, 300 or 500 years maximum, (the lineage) no more. That’s why every Sutra emphasizes a living Master.

“Ananda, if any one of the monk’s precept transmitting masters or any one of the other monks practicing with him is not pure, then the Bodhimanda as described will not be successful.” Even if you don’t sleep for three months, even if you’re pure, who knows if the bhiksu giving you the precepts is pure or not pure? Therefore, even if you have all that from one of the monks, all the precepts, you can never be sure. This is the problem. You should always choose your birth whenever a living Master is born, so that when you grow up, your time, your age, you come of age, then you can go and grab that Master and quick. Not doing all this.