One day, my brother called and said his colleague, who was chief editor of the radio program RFA (Radio Free Asia) in Washington, D.C., was going to invite a few Buddhist monks from France to his house for an interview, after the monks had attended a Human Rights Meeting at the United States Congress in Washington, D.C. He needed to prepare a vegetarian banquet for the guests and wanted to ask my wife to help cook some dishes for him.

Feeling that this was something she had to do, my wife prepared several dishes and delivered them to the man's house. The guests had a fine meal, and expressed high praise for the delicious vegetarian food. The man was very impressed with my wife's help, and later said to my brother, "I have met a number of Supreme Master Ching Hai's disciples, and all of them were very nice!"

I had always believed that other than daily meditation and keeping the precepts, whatever I did was my own business. But from this little experience, I came to realize that even though we disciples have the right to "do our own thing", others still look at us as representatives of Supreme Master Ching Hai, and evaluate Master through our actions. After initiation, we become one with Master, and whatever we do, good or bad, will affect and reflect on Her. Those people surrounding us will be influenced by Master's teachings - the concepts of Truth, Virtue and beauty - that we practice in our daily lives, and we ourselves will be elevated unknowingly at the same time.

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