There is no such thing as, “I sit every day and get nothing,” or, “I keep the vegetarian diet and still have a problem.” No, there is no such thing. If we have a problem, we should check the diet. Sometimes even my attendants make mistakes. For example, they see pickles; pickles are vegetarian. So they just buy them to bring home. And I almost ate them! But when I read again, there’s some fish sauce in it. The Asian people, like the Aulacese and the Thai, put fish sauce in vegetable pickles to make them taste good, according to their tradition.

So you have to always be careful. Sometimes the cookie looks harmless, but there are a thousand things in it. By the time I get through the list, I don’t want to look at other cookies anymore. The ingredient list is so long! Sometimes they print such small words, and it’s still so long. I hope we don’t have to read such a long list about bean sprouts or tomatoes! (Master laughs) Now we have genetically modified food. Maybe we will have to read a long list after a while, if they continue that way. When they pack a fresh tomato, you’ll have to read carefully: “Ingredients - Eggs, chicken, beef, milk, soya, glutamate, Maggi.” Everything’s ready in one tomato! So, if you eat one tomato, you won’t have to eat anything else. That’s the economical idea about it. (Master jokes)

But my goodness, you have to read so long before you find out whether you can eat that harmless cookie or not! Sometimes the whole thing is all vegetarian: “Vegetables, soy beans,” but then: “Eggs”! (Master and everyone laugh) Sometimes, I read the whole thing and don’t see anything that says eggs. But when I read carefully again, there’s “egg whites.” It’s just that sometimes they break the word, because the column is small, so instead of “egg,” they put “e” and then “g-g whites,” and it’s at the bottom of everything. So if you are not careful, you might eat something that says “no eggs,” or you don’t see any egg in there, but it says “g-g whites.”

Mostly they put in egg whites. I have that experience already, so now I look for the “whites.” I read quickly, but I pay attention not only to the “egg” but to the “whites.” And I have better experience now, so I look for two words instead, or many words, like “dried beef” and so on. Mostly in cookies, we’re limited to the egg and the white. But then I’m surprised by “e-g-g yolk.” (Master and everyone laugh)

 

Read Before Eating

I’m sorry; I want to laugh, but I’m crying. What we all do in this world just to eat a cookie! We became vegetarian just to simplify our life: simple living, high thinking. We should think “high reading,” or a high column of ingredients! My goodness, where do they find all these ingredients to put in a small, poor little cookie? In my mother’s time, there was nothing as complicated as that. If we ate a cookie, we ate a cookie. Now before you even eat it, make sure you stay alive until you finish the end of your reading! Sometimes you are so hungry, but you have to keep reading and reading, you might faint in the supermarket. So, I don’t often go shopping, but if for some reason I have to go and I see cookies or cakes with no eggs - because the residents love cookies - I buy the whole “mountain.” I take the whole shelf. The sales woman or the cashier always says, “You’re gonna eat all that? Oh, man! You’re going to get fat!” (Master and everyone laugh)

I know we talk nonsense so much. But one good thing about being vegetarian: At least we save a lot of money if we’re too lazy in reading. (Laughter) It helps. One minute, more or less, makes a big difference. If the ingredients were not so complicated, you would buy much more and quicker. But you don’t have time, so you just buy maybe one or two items, and then it’s time to go. So at least you don’t buy too much, and at least we can laugh about it. How can any meat-eater laugh like this? They don’t have to read so much! So, only you can understand me. We have the same problem. (Laughter) And if I go to another state or go to another country, the problem begins all over again! Because I’m in a new place, I see new things, and we begin the hunt again, for the “e-g-g white.” (Master and everyone laugh)

Many cakes and cookies are already better. But some don’t list any ingredients. And sometimes my helper just presumes that it’s OK; because the last time he bought an apple pie there was no egg, and this is an apple pie, so it must be the same. But it’s a different brand name. I don’t know why they put egg in the apple pie; the recipe doesn’t need any egg. So you have to be very careful, and rather not eat than to eat something wrong. You will know right away. If you eat something wrong, you feel your stomach is upset or you have a headache, or your meditation that day is very lousy. You feel empty; you don’t feel relaxed. You feel the body is even a little different; it feels rigid and uncomfortable, not loose, easy and smooth. You feel that your feeling is not as sharp and not as deep. Something is wrong; it’s just that you don’t know what. That is “what.” That’s the “e-g” or maybe the “y-o-l-k.”

These are the things. Because it’s not only just the meat, the toxins, the egg or the poison in it, it’s the feeling of the animal that produces these things: the way they kill them, or the way the chicken has been raised in such a small confinement to force it to lay eggs. It just eats and lays eggs, eats and lays eggs. So, there’s nothing there for you. It’s all negative bad feeling, sadness, sorrow, emptiness and meaningless. So, when you eat these things, you suddenly also feel so meaningless. Your body suddenly is not a fruitful body; it feels so dry or so hard or rigid. That is definitely the food. The body is very easy to tell. There’s no need to sit in meditation to feel anything.

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