Today I will talk about changing luck. What exactly is luck. First, what is luck? For everything in motion, that’s moving, in movement, that force, that energy, that Chinese call the chi, that’s moving through… Luck means that moving energy, there’s the positive force, and the negative force, interchange and cause your good luck and bad luck. Why is that we feel that sometimes we don’t have such good luck? I have mentioned before, a few thousand years ago, people have already discovered this problem. In order to find a way to solve this problem, overcoming bad luck, all the so called masters though time have worked on, experienced and developed, and found this way. Once those practitioners, they have attained to a certain stage of awareness, they attained to that truth of the universe, and they realized, past life, future life, and this life is linked together in a cause and effect. For when a baby was born, that first sound the baby makes, ahhhh, that sound determines that person’s life. Some people may say a person’s luck depends on his upbringing, his family, where he was born, whether he was born into a good family or another different family. Is there this relation? Yes. But it’s not a lot. Just a little bit. The main causes of whether you have good luck or not depends on your past lives causes. What kind of causes you have laid down? Karmas, basically. In other words, this life, your luck, your destiny, is pre-determined. It cannot be changed. Then you ask, how can you change it? If you say you can change it and you did change it, it’s also predetermined, you get a chance to change it. If you want to change your luck, change your destiny, one is you run into someone who is aware, who knows, run into a knower, that points it out for you. Two, it depends on your own effort. It depends on yourself. I often say this, who really gives you blessings? No one, except for yourself. For if you have done what is necessary, you really did a lot of things for others, what belongs to you will be yours, you don’t need to ask for it. This is the accumulation of merit. Without this kind of merit as your foundation, you can go ask for it and beg for it, you will not get it. So in a dharma service to change the luck, what’s the concept here? Why do we chant that mantra called extinguishing disaster, also called auspicious mantra? What that mantra means is first, they will extinguish all your past life’s problems, bad causes. So you will bring auspiciousness to this life. Let’s just assume, lets take the assumption you are under this difficulty, this difficult situation, a lot of hardships you couldn’t get through, and no matter what you try, you cannot change your luck. Then in order to change it, it will depend on a Buddha’s blessing, a Buddha’s merit, and Buddha’s understanding, to guide you. So the dharma rite to change the luck is a good thing, everyone will want to get it, but how many people can really have that chance to run into the one that can really do it?

So it’s also pre-determined. If it can be changed, your luck can be changed, you have laid down a cause in the past. Let’s say, if it can save your life, change your luck, its also because you have done something, that one cause, that gives you an opening to go through, where everything else is a dead end, just that one opening. Because if we did not meet in a past life, then in this life we will not meet. Then there is no one that can help you. That’s what these two banners say. On that side it says, heavenly dew is boundless, but it cannot nurture a rootless grass. On this side it says, Buddha dharma is boundless, but it cannot save someone without affinity, or someone that’s not in the destiny. According to the nature, for that is natural, that destiny is part of nature. Still, your luck, whether its good luck or bad luck, its like a wave of the ocean, going up and down and if you do something good in this life, sometimes the wave will be smoother. If it doesn’t go down that much. If you do something bad, still that wave will be deeper when it goes down. You still can cause some change during this life. If you have bad luck, then in your past life, you owe something. You owe somebody. If you truly want to change your luck this time, then you must be willing to change yourself and to give. For to give is to receive. When you can truthfully give that’s when you will truly receive. If you do not give, even though you are able to, or you do not give, you want to keep something for yourself, just give a little, and do it as a formality, like a trade, then you are taking advantage of a Buddha. Then you owe a favor this life again, and next life will be worse. Because if you don’t realize this, this dharma rite to change the luck, is rarely performed. For your prosperity, your luck, depends on your own past karmas. For your disasters, your accidents, is also your past lives karma. For those who have bad luck, they are suffering because they deserve it. If you do get a chance to be under the care of someone who is aware as a Buddha, then, change yourself. Be willing to give to others. Don’t be your old selfish self again. That’s how you can change your destiny, and attain liberation from that darkness. Then people will say, “How can I see the Luck? It’s an invisible thing. Intangible.” For if you can really see it for yourself, then there is no such thing as bad luck anymore. Why is it that you don’t see it? Your heart, your mind, is still in this maze. Why are you in this maze, this wandering? Because your soul was contaminated since past lives, contaminated so heavy. This life, you limited yourself, and are limited by the conditions of the environment. Especially when you give so much, you have over-exhauseted your energy, your physical strength, your brain power. The more you over-exhausted those resources, the more tiresome you feel in your soul. The more tiresome you feel, then the more tense you will feel. The more tense you feel, you cannot relax, then your heart can never be in the light, you do not see. For when you do not see, then you do not know, and even if a good thing comes your way, you still will screw up. Then again you will feel, you have this good intention, it’s a good thing you are doing, but then it doesn’t come through, everything falls apart, then you will complain that somebody else caused it, and you never take a look at it yourself, why you can never succeed, even in a good thing you try.

What’s even more important that you need to know is, you not only complain others’ caused your problem, but you begin to complain everything. Complain your own fate. Complain your own life. Complain to everything in general, just everyone. Why is that you do not take a good look at yourself? What have you done wrong yourself? What did you do, that you didn’t do it right? Then again, still we do not see another point. Think about it, all your planning, everything that you have planned, you never change your plan, lets say you are set on doing something, but yet your planning never comes through. Because when you plan something, something you are working on, lets say you are going to plan and do it this way, but if you have your own personal selfish motive, your personal desire, then it doesn’t come through, and it will change. That change is a constant change in this whole universe. Everything is always in this change. You may plan it so well, and pay great detail to it as you are planning it, but for the whole universe doesn’t pay attention to all your details. For when you pay attention to that detail, your mind is limited to what you think. When the universe doesn’t pay attention to what you are planning, your tiny details, then its going just by the flow of nature. How do you really understand what I just said? To really realize that, go with that natural flow, then you will attain realization this instant. Once you really attain that realization, then you will no longer have bad luck. This may be a little bit hard for some people to understand. But I think most people, when they listen, they will say, “Oh, I understand it.” But you don’t really realize what I have just said. So what do I mean when I say you plan on something and pay your attention to it with great detail, for your mind is set on that. What do I mean when I say this whole universe has no mind, it doesn’t pay attention to whatever you do? Heres something philosophical for you to think about. For the human sciences, once they discover this truth, then this world will have no more wars, and that’s the time when the science will really take a leap forward, and we will see other planets, other star sytems. Just like in our own gardens we go to have a play. What I have just said this past one minute, two events to discuss in detail. How does one change his own luck? Do you always depend on a Buddha, someone who can change it for you? No. Eventually, you have to depend on your own effort. Think about it. To have a blood transfusion, its better if you can generate the blood yourself. If you understand this analogy, then try to know yourself again. How to know that condition, that constraint, limitation of the environment? When you can really know yourself, and overcome yourself, your own ego, it will be very easy. When you can know the constraints, the conditioning of the environment, then you can overcome that constraint easily. Once you can accomplish these two points, then you will become that, what we call that Avalokitesvara, to be that self-aware, and watch the whole universe.