..續本文上一頁se your life in a very useful and intelligent way. You can very well transform that negative energy into a positive energy that empowers you and makes life meaningful.

　　Relationships

　　Q: When I go home, I return to my husband who is a hunter. He goes into our beautiful woods to shoot birds. He brings them home to show our seven-year-old twins, who want to be like daddy. What can I do to stop him from this habit of killing

　　A: If you do not know how to be patient, how to care, how to use loving speech, you cannot help other people to change. But if we have the energy of compassion and loving kindness in us, the people around us will be influenced by our way of being and living. Reproaching them, shouting at them, blaming them, can never help them. Only our love, our patience and our loving speech can help. And if we are in a situation where our own skillfulness, our own compassion, is not strong enough, we could need the support of our dharma brothers and sisters in order to do the job.

　　Abortion

　　Q: What are your views on abortion

　　A: I am inclined to devote more of my time and energy to preventing the situation from happening than to what happens when you have to decide whether you have to do it or not to do it. If we prepare ourselves in such a way, then the problem will not present itself to us, and we don”t have to make a decision between abortion or not abortion. In the last 2500 years we monks and nuns have helped a lot in limiting the population of the planet (laughter). And if you”d like to join us (laughter), it”s never too late.

　　Media Saturation

　　Q: In regard to television news and newspapers, how can we balance not taking in toxins with not closing our eyes to suffering

　　A: Myself, I want to be informed about what is going on in the world. I want to be informed, but that does not mean that I have to listen to the news three times a day. I think there is some kind of vacuum in us we want to fill up; that is why we buy so many newspapers and magazines and why we view so much television. We do not need that much information. I think maybe five minutes daily is enough. Sometime we can survive several months without any news bulletins. And you have friends who can tell you what is important that has happened.

　　Space and Freedom

　　Q: Can you please elaborate on what is space inside of us

　　 Why is this good

　　 I feel lonely sometimes. This feels like emptiness or space inside, but it does not feel good.

　　A: Space here does not mean loneliness. Space here means freedom because you are not busy inside--you don”t have a lot of worries, fears, projects, things to think about. That is space. Space here is the basic condition for you to enjoy life. If you are preoccupied with so many things, you don”t have that condition.

　　One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.

　　The farmer said, "Monks, I”m so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don”t know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself.

　　The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."

　　So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don”t have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.

　　"That is why, in order to be happy, you have t…

《Questions and Answers》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…