The Quan Yin Method
Is All Encompassing
Spoken by Suma Ching Hai, at a group meditation Hsihu Center, Formosa May 12, 1992 (Originally in English)
Recognizing Your Ability
As you go on developing your mastership, you will master slowly, slowly, one by one the arts, and you know many things by the way. One by one, you'll master them. Not one by one, one hundred, one thousand by one thousand. It's just because you have no opportunity to use these, so you do not know what you have yet. When you suddenly encounter trouble, danger or problems that you have to solve, then you know what you have.
Faith
What is faith? Not the blind belief, but the higher, the nobler idea of who you are, of what you can do, and of how great you truly have been and will be. That is the faith, the true faith. Not the faith in my power, not the faith that I could heal you, I could help you, but the faith that the almighty power is within me, within you, and that can do everything. You do not follow a master, you follow the great principle of the universe of which the master reminds you.
Do not follow anyone if that person talks nonsense and counters your evolutionary process. Follow anyone whose teaching is grand, is noble, is high, and inspires you to become greater, to have more confidence and more wisdom in yourselves. That's the highest master. The master might have different personalities, might not suit your taste; how the master dresses, how the master speaks, how he eats his meals, he might eat bread and you eat rice, or he eats rice and you eat bread, but that doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all. If the master knows the highest principle of life, the noblest ideal of mankind, and teaches you that, that is the right master. Don't look for the miracles, don't look for personalities, don't look for the outer appearance, don't look for his way of life. Look for the principle that the master teaches, which is very logical and evolves upward. Anyone who teaches downward is the devil; anyone who teaches upward is the master of high order.
Everyone can say that we are God, that we have Buddha nature inside. But, saying and having the power behind it is different. The real teaching is not verbal; therefore, I don't mean anyone who talks good, who tells you good principles, that's a great master. No, I mean the real teaching, the teaching that comes from the whole being of the master, from the whole vital principle, from the whole energy of the master. You don't listen with ears alone. You listen with all your soul and you understand it by your own wisdom. That is the real teaching. Not by words because many teachers teach by words. I don't mean that. The real teaching is the invisible power that goes with the words, with every promise that the Master makes to you. That will be fulilled. So we must know. There is a difference between a copy and an original.