Living This Moment in Purity By Living Buddha Sheng-yen Lu This was translated from Grandmaster Lu's 145th book, 當下的清涼心. CHAPTER 13 - The Woman from the Grave One night, my soul traveled out of my body and roamed throughout the universe of ten Dharma Realms.
I arrived at a city in the realm of the nether worlds. The streets were densely populated with shops selling numerous commodities and mobile carts selling hot foods. Peddlers hawking their wares lined the streets. The city bustled with activity. Strolling along the main street, I looked at my surroundings which, to my surprise, reminded me of a busy district in the eastern part of Taipei. I had been wandering around for a while, when I noticed a pretty, young woman walking towards me. She had been walking with her head lowered but, when she raised her head and spotted me, she gave a cry. Her surprised cry did not bother me at first. After all, my roaming around this city was a rather peculiar sight. This city was in the domain of ghosts, and the bodies of ghosts emitted only very faint light, if any at all. My body, on the other hand, was giving off a very strong, rainbow-like light, and many people in the city had turned their heads to look at me. I therefore did not pay any particular attention to the young woman’s cry until she suddenly stopped and called out to me, “Sheng-yen Lu!” “Oh!” I thought to myself. “Someone in this domain actually recognizes me.” “Do you know me?” I asked her. “Of course. I have been a faithful reader of your books for many years. I have collected and read most of your writings.” “What is your name?” “Xie Qi.” “That is a very pretty name. It befits you.” “Thank you!” Xie Qi was very happy and spoke without hesitation. “It is just too wonderful to run into you here. My opportunity to get out of this place has finally come!” “I can’t take you away from here,” I said to her, taken aback. “It is not possible for me to bring you to another realm for no reason at all.” “You will help me though, won’t you?” “I will help you, but I can’t keep a female ghost by my side.” “Of course not,” Xie Qi continued, “But when the time comes, please greatly empower and bless me!” “How do you know I will be able to help you?” “Ghosts also have five kinds of transcendental powers,” Xie Qi said breaking into a big smile like a rose in full bloom. We walked to a nearby cafe for a drink. Xie Qi ordered an espresso. I shook my head and said, “I don’t drink coffee. It makes it hard for me to sleep.” “They have decaffeinated coffee here.” “Oh! So cities in the nether world have caught up with the human world and have decaffeinated coffee too. In that case, I will have a decaffeinated cappuccino.” I had a nice chat with Xie Qi. When I asked her how she had died, her face suddenly turned grim and she said,
“Were you someone’s concubine?” “Yes.” “It is not all that bad to be a concubine, since husbands usually love and care for their concubines more than for their wives!” I said. Xie Qi said with a sigh, “But following one concubine is another, and it is not uncommon for these rich men to have four or five concubines.” “That is true.” “That is the way it is with rich men!” Xie Qi said. “What happened to you then?” “I jumped off a building.” “You committed suicide by jumping off a building?” “Yes,” Xie Qi said. “I did it in a moment of impulsive rage.” “Haven’t my books explained that one should not commit suicide?” “When I became swept up in the moment of rage, my mind blanked, and I did not recall your teachings.” “You seem to be doing quite well in this city.” “Sheng-yen Lu, are you pretending you don’t really know what goes on here? A person who has committed suicide re-experiences the death again day after day. At 1:45 a.m., or on the first and fifteenth of every month, I relive the same excruciating pain and suffering. This city is just a façade. All the ghosts here are suffering from terrible pain within.” “Oh!” I gasped with astonishment. “You must help me leave this place,” Xie Qi said. I nodded. One day, a nicely dressed gentleman by the name of Chen De paid me a visit. After coming into the room, he took off the jacket of his well-ironed suit and loosened his tie and collar. I took a look and saw a lemon-sized lump on his neck. “It is malignant,” said Chen De. “Are you going to have surgery?” “That had been the initial plan, but the lump is so big that part of it has wrapped around some nerves, which makes surgery difficult. Chemotherapy is an alternative, but it will cause loss of hair, the rupturing of capillaries, and weight loss. The doctors are now trying to determine the best way to go about treating the growth.” “Let me meditate on it and help you take a look at this malignant tumor.” “Please.” I closed my eyes and focused my mind. Entering into a deep meditation, I became aware of many things of which one normally has no knowledge. With true knowledge, one can seek stillness amid movement or movement amid stillness. In this “subconscious” state, I became aware of other worlds. Many have heard the question, “Which came first—the chicken or the egg?” There is no easy answer to this question. A chicken hatches from an egg, so it might seem that the egg should have come first. Yet, eggs are laid by chickens, so it seems that the chicken should have preceded the egg. With no chicken, from where did the egg come? With no egg, from where did the chicken come? People have argued this question back and forth without arriving at any final conclusions. But, people who practice meditation know—
Thus someone who practices meditation will give the following answer to the classic question, “First came the egg, then the chicken.” With an understanding of these cosmic processes, one becomes aware of the universe’s many secrets. I, Living Buddha Lian-sheng Sheng-yen Lu, understand these processes, and I was therefore able to look into the malignant tumor to find some answers. In my vision, the malignant tumor began rupturing layer by layer. Hidden under its innermost layer, I saw a spirit’s light. A ghost was resting in there. The ghost looked quite familiar and, when I took a closer look, I saw Xie Qi. “Why are you resting here?” I asked. “If the surgeon removes the malignant tumor, where will you go?” “I will spread out to other parts of his body.” “What if he undergoes chemotherapy?” “I will turn into the Empty Space.” “Xie Qi, do not argue with me. You know you do not have the ability to merge in with the Empty Space. You will only go back to the city in the nether world,” I said to her. “That is true. So I am now asking you to help liberate me.” “You must have become crazy with all this talk of liberation. How could you have entered the body of Chen De for no reason at all? You have caused a malignant tumor on his neck!” Xie Qi replied, “I did not do this for no reason at all. He brought it on himself. There is a karmic cause behind this.” “What was the situation?” “Ask Chen De himself!” So I emerged from my meditation and opened my eyes. I told Chen De that a grieving ghost by the name of Xie Qi resided inside the malignant tumor on his neck. I also relayed to him Xie Qi’s claim that karmic causes had led her to stay inside the tumor. When Chen De heard this, he was greatly shocked. He then told me of the following incident. During the year’s Pure Brightness Festival, Chen De had gone with his family to visit the grave of one of his ancestors. After pulling the weeds and pruning the wildly grown vines around the grave, they set up an offering table with vegetarian foods, fruits, as well as some favorite snacks enjoyed by the ancestor when he was alive. They lit incense, and everyone bowed to pay their respects and offer prayers. After this, they offered the burning of spirit money. There are great differences between the Chinese and Western ways of cemetery rituals. The Chinese offer food, incense, and spirit money while westerners offer flowers to their ancestors. In the past, westerners have derided the Chinese for their food offerings and asked if buried people climbed out of their graves to eat the food. Similarly, Chinese have responded by asking if people in the graves climbed out to admire the flowers. Whether his ancestor climbed out of the grave to eat the food or not, Chen De had no idea. When his family had been making the offerings, he had become bored and started wandering around to other gravesites. He had spotted a new grave about thirty meters to his right and walked over to take a look. On the tombstone were the newly engraved words, “Here lies our beloved daughter Xie Qi.” Chen De thought to himself that it was probably a young lady whose funeral had been taken care of by her parents. He then noticed a photograph on the tombstone. Moving forward to get a closer look, he saw the image of a beautiful young woman with large eyes and delicate features. There was a natural grace and charm about her, and, in an instant, Chen De was mesmerized. He exclaimed aloud, “What a pity!” Unintentionally Chen De brought his palms together and murmured to himself, “When I get married, I hope to find someone as beautiful as the woman in this grave.” Chen De then retrieved his camera and took a picture of Xie Qi’s photograph on the tombstone. After the picture was developed, he carried it in his wallet. “How wonderful it would be to marry someone as beautiful as Xie Qi,” he thought to himself. I found Chen De’s story quite incredible. “Did you really do that?” I asked. “Yes.” Chen De took a picture out from his wallet. It was indeed Xie Qi. “I find it incredible that you became so bedazzled by her beauty that you would do such a thing! No wonder you are being entwined by a grieving ghost.” “What can I do now?” Chen De asked alarmed and perplexed. I told him I would have to employ two methods. The first method would be to set up a shrine and chant sutras and mantras to deliver the spirit of Xie Qi. The power of sutras and mantras would carry her soul to be reborn into a beautiful place. The second method would be the Golden Well Practice. I would take a special brush, dip it in cinnabar, draw a dot on the tumor and chant, “With one line, a river is created. With a second line, another river is created. With the third and fourth lines, a golden well is created. This is no ordinary brush but one from the scholar of Lu. Pointed to the sky, the sky becomes clear. Pointed to the earth, the earth quiets down. Pointed to a human, one’s life is extended. Pointed at a ghost, the ghost will be reborn to a better realm. Ji-ji-ru-lu-ling.” I changed the lines from the original incantation of the Golden Well Practice “pointed at a ghost, the ghost will be extinguished” to “pointed at a ghost, the ghost will be reborn to a better realm.” I asked Chen De to come back and see me several more times. The Golden Well Practice has tremendous power. After putting the first dot of cinnabar on the tumor, the tumor shrank considerably in size. After the second time, it became even smaller. After seven times, the tumor shrank to the size of a pearl. After employing this Golden Well Practice a total of ten times, the tumor was completely gone.
If Chen De had not found me, perhaps he would have undergone surgery and chemotherapy. An initially healthy person would have been tormented until he was half-dead. If he could survive all the treatments and become well later, that would still be fine. But if the treatments could not cure him, then what a dreadful life he would have been left with! Chen De wanted to give me his picture of Xie Qi. “Will it still hurt me now?” he asked apprehensively. “You can keep it as a memento,” I said with a laugh. “It is fine now.” Chen De’s case is not that unique. I have actually encountered quite a few examples of cases like his. In one incident, when a man’s neighbor, a young woman whom he had known fairly well, passed away, he could not help feeling attached to her on the day of her funeral. That same night, he came down with fever and chills and saw in a trance the young woman coming to him. Ever since, every afternoon at 4:00 p.m., he would feel a draft of cold air and a chill running through his body, and he would feel the presence of the visiting woman. Gradually, this man felt himself becoming physically and mentally weaker. He would often awake in fright in the middle the night, his body covered in a cold sweat. Doctors treated him as if he had the flu. When he came to my place, I took one look and knew it was a case of “noxious chi assault.” There are only two solutions for such assaults. One can either dismiss the source of noxious chi (the spirit) or set up a protective boundary around one’s house, around one’s bedroom, or around the person involved in the spirit disturbance. I have dedicated much time to studying the problem of “noxious chi assaults.” This is a phenomenon some people are more susceptible to than others. In general, susceptibility is influenced by one’s ba-zi (the year, month, day, and hour of one’s birth). From the ba-zi, one can determine whether one has an abundance or a deficit of yang chi. People with low yang chi are more vulnerable to noxious chi assaults than those with greater yang chi. To my knowledge, people who are born in the second or eleventh lunar months experience higher rates of “noxious chi assault.” If an afflicted person does not seek treatment immediately, over time, he or she will suffer a mental breakdown, start to speak incoherently, and “hallucinate” and see ghosts or gods. Such auditory and visual hallucinations are often referred to medically as symptoms of grandiose delusion or schizophrenia. From a spiritual perspective, the person is actually suffering a noxious chi assault or spiritual possession. In another case, a woman had been afflicted for many years with a soreness in her arm. She had sought help from many doctors trained in western as well as traditional Chinese medicine, and she had tried all kinds of medicines—pills, ointments, patches, injections, acupuncture—all to no avail. Finally, she came to see me. I went into meditation to observe and found entwined around her arm the spirit of a man. That the soreness in her arm had been caused by noxious chi assault had even taken me by surprise. I then learned that the man was a boyfriend of hers who had drowned in the ocean many years ago. At the time of the tragedy, this lady had been extremely sad and distraught. After doing some computation, she traced the onset of the pain to the time he fell into the ocean. I was able to help her and cure her arm soreness and noxious chi assault. Many who knew of the case found it inconceivable that a chronic illness, untreatable by medical doctors for so many years, was finally resolved through spiritual means. In a third case, I came across a woman very vulnerable to noxious chi assualts. The mere encounter of a funeral procession on the street would bring her bad luck. Immediately after arriving home, she would feel dizzy and nauseated, lose her appetite, find it difficult to sleep, and come down with sudden fever and chills. She would often lose her mental concentration. For example, when she picked up a knife to cut some vegetables, she would accidentally cut herself. When she went out, she would often lose her balance and trip or injure herself. In a nutshell, she constantly encountered bad luck wherever she went. Some might argue that her problems were psychological. At first I, too, had entertained this idea. But one day she came to see me with a high fever and deeply sunken eyes surrounded by two dark circles. Directly behind, I could see a group of spirits following her. It was at that point that I realized hers was, indeed, a case of noxious chi attack. In this particular case, the problem of noxious chi attack was not easily resolved. Though I resolved the problem for her the first time, she was affected repeatedly. I finally taught her to chant the Vajra Mantra of Achala and asked her to enshrine the statue of Achala at home. She devoted herself sincerely to doing the Achala Practice and forming the Achala Mudra. Whenever she had to attend a funeral or encounter a funeral procession, she would form the mudra and chant the mantra three times to invoke Achala’s protection. Ever since, she has been able to resume a normal life. Therefore, I often recommend that people who are vulnerable to noxious chi attack, those predisposed by their ba-zi to have high yin chi in their bodies, practice Vajra mantra recitation, enshrine Vajra deities, and do the Vajra Deity practices. These are very important Tantric practices one may employ to protect oneself. Although noxious chi attacks are brought about by external assaults from spirits, my view is that this problem is still basically a “problem of the mind.” This problem of the mind is rooted in one’s intents and desires. Although one’s intents and desires may be invisible to other humans, they are readily detected by ghosts and spirits. This leads to the occurrence of noxious chi assaults! I once traveled through the realm of hells to the Hell of Feng-du. From that visit, I came to a profound realization: the majority of people who ascend to the twenty-eight heavens to enjoy their rewards are those who are pure in mind and have scant desires. On the other hand, the majority of those who descend to the Hell of Feng-du are those with strong desires and lusts. In the Hell of Feng-du, I saw the horrendous amounts of karmic transgressions committed by humans—they were as tall as a mountain and as deep as the sea. The evils committed by men—murders, kidnappings, robbery, arson, theft, etc.--are numerous, but the one evil that tops these in prevalence is sexual misconduct. Human beings commit sexual misconducts casually and frequently. According to the teachings of karma and transmigrations: People who rape others’ wives or daughters will suffer five hundred kalpas in the Hell of Feng-du before attaining rebirth. They will then be reborn as animals, such as donkeys, horses, or cows, for another five hundred kalpas before attaining rebirth as humans. When they recapture their human bodies, they often become prostitutes. People who rape widows, nuns, or spiritual practitioners will suffer eight hundred kalpas in the Hell of Feng-du before attaining rebirth. They will then be reborn as sheep and pigs to be slaughtered by humans. After eight hundred kalpas in the animal realm, they can then re-attain human birth. However, they will not be born in high or noble form, but as a blind, a mute, or with other deformities. People who commit incest - such as father with daughter, mother with son, or one sibling with another, and people who break the ethics - such as an old person with a young person, man with man, or woman with woman - will suffer fifteen hundred kalpas in the realms of hell before attaining rebirth. They will then be reborn as snakes or rats. Only after another fifteen hundred kalpas can they recover human births. The recovered human lives are not very long, and they will die either in gestation or infancy and not be able to enjoy old age. Also, those who fabricate pornographic materials that debauch and corrupt others’ minds will suffer even more severely. After dying, they will descend to the Interminable Hell from where it is quite difficult to be released. Only when all the pornographic materials produced by one have disappeared, can one depart. As stated earlier, the harms produced by pornographic materials are incalculable. A woman from a good family can, through a chance meeting with such materials, become seduced and be unable to suppress the fire of lust thus aroused. A virtuous woman may become loose and wanton. These materials may fan the fires and lusts of a young man or woman who may then become addicted to the habit of masturbation. When young people over-indulge in masturbation, their physical health also suffers. The harm done is relatively minor when purveyors of such material hurt only themselves. But, when they start involving and ruining others’ ethics and lives, the negative results will be magnified. My opinion is that pornographic materials create and result in endless karmic hindrances. I am aware that, within the ocean of karma, sexual desires are the most difficult to extinguish. Desires for “money, fame, food, and sleep” are hard to control, but the desire for sex is the most difficult to handle. In this world of samsara, where there are frequent interactions between men and women, temptations for sexual misconduct abound. I have seen heroes with great accomplishments succumb to sexual temptations and stoop to bestiality. Some very fine and talented people, aroused by lust, have fallen and ruined their reputations. From ancient times until now, such transgressions have befallen men from all walks of life, the holy and foolish alike. The modern world of today is even more challenging than the past. Consumed by the winds of lust and influenced by numerous sex industries, young, middle-aged, and even old people harbor frivolous and unrestrained thoughts. The moral principles once honored in the past are no longer held in the same regard. Hedonism and sexual innuendos have become socially acceptable, and today’s society constantly bombards one with a barrage of sexual images. When mind and reason become subordinate to body and passion, it is easy for one to fall, becoming a denizen of the bitter hells of suffering. One should know that the retribution for licentiousness and sexual misconduct is severe! Karmic effects include the following:
As practitioners, we must look past the illusions of physical beauty and realize that “form is emptiness.” Under the rosy and powdered skin are bones, blood, flesh, and foul-smelling excrement. Be very careful and beware of making a slip! One must break through the delusions to return to the path of realization. |
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