You know the fighting cock, yes? There was a King of China. He loved cock-fighting. You know the two chickens, cocks fight together. And they bet on that. They still do it now.

It happened to be that the king, the king got involved in... He loved cock-fighting. He had one of the best cock-fighter raisers, so he gave him one to take care of, the best race. Take care of so that he would become a fighting hero, next champion

So that person kept raising him. Then after a month or so passed by, the King asked, "Is he ready, is the cock ready?
He said, "No, not yet."
The king said, "Why?"
He said, "He is not even near."
The king said, "What happened to him?"
He said, "Well, when he sees any cock around, you know, even very far away, he starts to show off and get excited. His wings hang there and his craws strut out, and everything like that. He is terrible, lousy."

So the king said, "Alright, continue to raise and train him. Another month or so passed by and the king asked, "Is he ready now?"

He said, "No, no, no. He is better though. He still gets very excited when he sees all the cocks around. So, no good." He kept raising and again many months passed by. The king got fed up and forgot all about this useless chicken. Then one day the"

So the king said, "Why? Why? How do you know he is ready?"

He said, "Because now even if all the cocks just see him from afar, and he doesn't do anything, they are afraid. You know, from afar, the other cocks already start to be afraid of him; and he does nothing. He just walks around, and the other cocks run

So when all power is complete, it doesn't leak. No way to leak out. You don't know it. That's why in many of the sutras people say, "When you're completely enlightened you are very ordinary. Ordinary mind is the enlightened mind." They say like tha

Most people who know don't talk, and the people who talk don't know. Of course those masters like Buddha or Jesus, they went and preached, but that is different. They had to do it. Otherwise, they wouldn't want to. You know what I mean? Their missio

Now this Tiloba (Tiloba was the great-grand master of Milarepa's master ) was one of those who ran around all India showing off his knowledge of books. And everywhere he went, he won. No one could ever win because his knowledge of books was so extens

One day he stayed in his house, reading one of the most famous and valuable books at that time. Then there was one beggar, an old woman beggar, looking filthy and very thin, very undernourished, who went and passed by him, and said something like, "Yo

He was so angry because she dared to spit into this holy book. So he ran after her. But when he ran after her, she just murmured something in her throat and suddenly he cooled down, he didn't feel angry anymore. And then he stopped there. He went ba.

People even worshipped in front of the book, and offered money to the book. They still do that nowadays in some of the countries including India. I know, I've seen. They'd just bow to the book, offer money and flowers to the book, and believed that t

So this Tiloba thought very hard. He was also surprised at how an old woman, so weak and who just murmured one or two sentences, and his anger which was like fire...put out by water. So after sometime considering he left his job, and didn't argue anym

One day he found her in a jungle alone. He tried to argue with her and use his eloquence and knowledge to beat her in the argument in the jungle. But it didn't matter how hard he tried, she always won. The old, ugly, poor, undernourished beggar alway

Finally he bowed to her and accepted her as master and asked her to teach him. She did. What she told him finally was that whatever you want to know is not in the books and it's not in this world. You have to go and find heavenly beings to learn with

So the same thing she told him, here. I understood it because we are on the same path. If it were not that we have been studying this inner wisdom, we wouldn't have understood what she meant by going to the realm of heavenly beings and studying with t

This was Tiloba. Even the greatest, knowledgeable man had to go and bow to an old, ugly, hungry, beggar woman for wisdom. So there is nothing too humble for us to go and bow to anyone who has wisdom, who can really show us the way to liberation.

So most of the masters of the old time were very poor anyhow. You remember some of the stories I told you? Jesus was a carpenter, he never had so much wealth. Buddha had a lot of wealth but he forsook it. (Master laughs.) So he also had nothing. A

One of the Sikh masters, the tenth Sikh master, he was very illustrious. He kept his wealth. He looked very wealthy, and he wore a lot of jewelry like a prince. Yes, he never shied from that. And he looked just like a prince. He always dressed very

You see the Quan Yin Bodhisattva, she has a lot of ornaments; her hair is very long and beautiful, and she wears fine clothes. And in heaven people are beautiful. Their ornaments are natural, attached to them, according to their merit. So there is no