Chapter 34 - A Strange Case Of Karma

It was New Year's Eve and piercingly cold outside. I was in the middle of my hot-pot dinner with my family when a good friend of mine, Hsie Chun Hsiong, announced himself anxiously at the door.

"Lao Lu, you must help me. My niece is dying." He had in his arms a statue of the Weit'o Bodhisattva. Hsie Chun Hsiong, a warm and sincere person, is a devout Buddhist who attends services at the Taichung Buddhist Lotus Society. He also has a Buddhist shrine in his home.

"Where is she now?"

"She is now at the Buddhist Auditorium at Wufung. The devotees there are gathering together to do chanting to help her."

Without asking him for the details, I put on a jacket, and after paying homage to the Buddhas at my shrine, we immediately entered the taxicab which was waiting at the door.

On the way Hsie Chun Hsiong related to me the following course of events:

His niece is called Liu Min Yu, and she was a junior student at the National Taiwan Normal University [Teachers' University]. She was a pretty girl and had been doing very well in school until two years ago when she suddenly became ill and started talking nonsensically. She would sleep for four or five days and refuse to take any food or drink. Finally the school notified her father, Mr. Liu Ta, to take her home for treatment. At the mental hospital, the doctors examined her brain waves and declared that there was nothing wrong. The doctors could not come up with any diagnosis and eventually consulted a foreign doctor who also offered no specific diagnosis to her problem. Mr. Liu Ta is a wealthy businessman from central Taiwan, and after spending close to a million Taiwanese dollars on medical treatments which were to no avail, he turned to the gods for help.

The chi tung at the Wang Yeh Kung, a temple in Puli, gave this advice,

"Liu Min Yu's life is in grave danger. To change her fate, offerings and rituals have to be performed, and she must, at the same time, reside in the temple for forty nine days."

However, during her stay in the temple, she remained in a lethargic sleep most of the time. And, whenever she woke up, her ravings became more severe. In the end, the treatment from the temple god Wang Yeh Kung was ineffective and even the chi tung shook his head in despair. Next, the family went to beseech the temple god at Tainan's Wu Wang Temple. There they paid homage to the Jade Emperor and burnt a whole cart load of spirit money, but Liu Min Yii's condition did not improve. On good days, she would be in a daze and would not speak. On bad days, she would behave wildly, bouncing up and down while alternately laughing and crying, and she would have such incredible strength that even ten people could not hold her down. After half of a year of treatment at the Wu Wang Temple, her condition remained the same. Later her family brought her to see the abbot at the Tz'u Yun Temple who claimed that he had a fan that could exorcise demons.

The monk declared that she was being possessed by the spirit of a carp. The monk chanted the Great Compassion Dharani, sprinkled some consecrated water, and hit Liu Min Yu's body with his fan-all to no avail. After two months of treatment, the monk said furiously,

"How strange, this carp demon is quite powerful. I am sorry that I can't help you. Please seek help somewhere else, I can't handle this any more."

After that, Mr. Liu Ta took his beloved daughter to the Wu Chi Wang Mu Temple. The chi tung there taped all kinds of charm papers to her body and forbade her to eat anything, except to drink water prepared with paper charms drawn by the chi tungs. After three or four days of such treatment, Liu Min Yu became feverish, her complexion turned dark, her eyes started rolling up, and she continued mumbling to herself. It was a grave situation -she was starving to death instead of getting cured.

The chi tungs announced that they could not offer any help, so she was again taken back to the mental hospital for more electroshock therapy.

Hsie Chun Hsiong continued, "We have visited close to a hundred temples in Taiwan, and none of them could help her. We even went to ask Mr. Li Ping Nan, the famous Buddhist scholar, for help. He did not want to get involved, as he only gives discourses on sutras. Suddenly I thought of you, since you also have some psychic power. We are trying every possible effort we can think of. You must help her. If you don't help her, she is going to die. Earlier today she was raving that two people were coming after her for her life."

After arriving at the Buddhist Auditorium at Wufung, I first paid homage to the shrine. In the auditorium, many members from the Buddhist Society had gathered together to chant for Liu Min Yu. Seeing so many people sacrificing their New Year's Eve dinner to come to pray for a young woman who was fighting her life, my heart was quite moved. Liu Min Yu was sitting down and talking in a high and sharp voice. Her words were portending her own death and telling of the guards wearing death masks, that were coming to take her away. She also pointed at the people who were chanting and shouted abuses at them,

"What is the use of just chanting Buddha's name? The god of death can still come to grasp you away."

I met with Mr. Liu Ta and Liu Min Yu's mother. After chatting a little while with them to find out how their daughter was doing, I proceeded to use the Buddhist ritual of Great Compassion Dharani to prepare some mantra water to sprinkle on the patient. There was no response at all.

At this time, I asked the Buddhists present to chant the name of Namo Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. While standing in the middle of the hall, I kept my gaze at a statue of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva that was enshrined at the altar and chanted the Primordial Ultimate Correct Dharma Mantra to invoke the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva to manifest. After a while of tuning into my psychic vision, I saw the ground beneath the altar split open, and a Bodhisattva, who was wearing a golden Five-Buddhas Crown, a cassock, and holding a metal staff, slowly emerged from it. Slightly raising his eyes, the Bodhisattva spoke, "Lian Shen, many modern men have this karmic illness due to past crazed actions. I am the division body of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva at the Wufung Buddhist Auditorium. It is futile to cry for help, as it is a karmic consequence!"

"Bodhisattva, is she going to die tonight?" I asked anxiously.

"No, these are just words used by her karmic enemies to scare her. She is not going to die yet. Anyway, such enmity won't be resolved by just her death."

"Bodhisattva, what kind of illness does she have? Can I help her?"

"The vibration of her spirit is entwined with those of her karmic enemies. It will take a great effort to separate them."

After saying these words, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva slowly vanished. The earth merged together again, not showing any sign of its previous split. I related the last words of the Bodhisattva to Mr. Liu, and his brows became tightly knit. I also told him that, although his daughter was claiming that someone was going to kill her that night, these were just threats. As it turned out, she did not die that night and was later taken back to the Kuan Temple in Tainan for a rest.

Several days later, Mr. and Mrs. Liu came to my house.

"Mr. Lu, please do your best to help cure her. If she does not get any better, we are going to have to give up on her and commit her to an asylum. We have already expended all our energies and tried all we could to find a cure. The Kuan Temple in Tainan called today to tell us that she was having such a severe flare up that they could not keep her there any more. Tonight we are going to drive over to Tainan to bring her home. We would like to ask you to please come to our house tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. to help her with your spiritual power. Please help her."

I consoled them, "All right, I will do my best, but it all depends on the power of the Buddhadharma. I believe its unlimited power can cure her of her psychosis." That night before I retired, I lit an incense and prayed over this matter.

Strangely, while I was at the brink of falling asleep, in that state between waking and sleeping, a strange scene of a very long bridge came into my vision. There was fog on the bridge, and it was late at night. A man was carrying a woman who had a big rock fastened to her. The man threw the woman into the surging river. With a plop, the water sprayed all around. For a moment I seemed to have turned into the woman who was struggling painfully to breathe. Next I saw the same man wielding a samurai sword, chasing after another man in a dark alley. After killing the other man, the first man threw the blood soaked body of his victim into a large pool of quick lime. I saw the corpse slowly sinking into the quick lime until just an arm was left. Finally, even the arm disappeared. The man who had just killed two people in a row turned around, and I noticed that his face was becoming more and more like Liu Min Yu. Oh! He was Liu Min Yu! At this moment, I awakened. I looked at my wristwatch, and it was 4:00 a.m.. I got out of bed, washed my face quickly, and walked over to my shrine. After lighting an incense, I prayed silently to the Buddhas to give me guidance.

Very soon, I received this message, "The scenes in your dream are the karmic causes from Liu Min Yu's previous incarnation.

The souls of those she murdered are attaching to her now to avenge themselves. If she wants to be free from them, she needs to untie the knot of grievances."

At 7:00 a.m., I arrived at Mr. Liu's residence. Liu Min Yu was lying down on her bed, not saying a word. Her eyes had become sunken. I related my dream experience and the Buddhas' message to Mr. and Mrs. Liu, and both of them fell silent. Afterwards, they came to my house. I took out a Chinese version of the Ouija board, and both Mr. and Mrs. Liu placed their hands on the coin to monitor the reading. This was the message, "Liu Min Yu killed a man and a woman in her previous life. This time the murderer has been reborn as a woman. The souls of the murdered have been crying out their grievances. They were given a decree by the Ksitigarbha of the nether world to take away Liu Min Yu's life. Liu Min Yu must suffer eight years of madness before the grievances of the man and woman are dissolved. The surnames of the murdered man and woman were Huang and Lin respectively. Because this is a karmic illness, even the deities in the temples could not do anything to help her." The message from the Ouija board was very clear, and Mr. and Mrs. Liu looked at each other in dismay. Then Mrs. Liu sighed,

"No wonder when she flares up, Min Yu always begs for mercy from people named Huang and Lin. She has also talked about this present madness as a result of killings in another life."

When Liu Ta asked the Ouija board if there was any chance or hope at all, the board gave this answer,

"Whoever started the trouble should end it." Therefore I invoked the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva to bring the two wronged souls to the board to talk with us. When the two souls descended to the board, they first refused to back down at all, insisting that they would keep pestering Liu Min Yu until her death. Mr. and Mrs. Liu kept begging and appealed to the souls, saying that a karmic ribbon is better untied than to remain tangled up. Finally the two souls asked for the following terms:

1) Have a gold-plated Buddha statue made and dedicate its merits to the two souls;

2) Sponsor a Ksitigarbha Deliverance Ceremony for three days and dedicate the merits to the two souls;

3) Make a vow to help build a Buddhist temple, donate $160,000 Taiwanese dollars towards its construction, and dedicate the merits to the two souls;

4) Every year for the next five consecutive years, sponsor a Soul Deliverance Ceremony in the seventh lunar month and dedicate the merits to the two souls. These four terms should be carried out as witnessed by the Golden Mother of the Jade Pond, Buddha Shakyamuni, and the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva enshrined at the Tz'u Hui Lei Tsang Temple. At the end of the three days Deliverance Ceremony, the decree for grievance would be removed, and Liu Min Yu would regain her clarity.

For the sake of their beloved daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Liu knelt down at the shrine and made vows to commit themselves to carry out those four terms. The Ksitigarbha Deliverance Ceremony was conducted by me in the presence of four other people, Hsie Chun Hsiong, Liu Ta, and two female devotees from the Lotus Society. We chanted the Ksitigarbha Sutra and observed the Vajra Repentance Liturgy. I followed rituals outlined in regular Buddhist practice by first reading a prayer of intent which was then burnt. I also performed a dance of mudras and the Transformation of Food Offerings according to methods taught by Mr. Three-Peaks-Nine-States.

The first demand of making a gold-plated Buddha was quickly carried out by Mr. Liu. So was the second term. The third term could be fulfilled in the future when the Lei Tsang Temple is expanded. As for the fourth condition, it is just a matter of time until it is fulfilled.

Strangely, on the seventh day after the Ksitigarbha Deliverance Ceremony, Liu Min Yu started to regain her own mind. About a month later, she completely recovered and returned to her old self of glowing health and radiant vigor. She is now working as a substitute teacher. When she received her first monthly salary, she was so happy that she started crying like a child. Soon she will return to the Teachers' University to finish her education. She can then go on living a normal life. (Author's note: The people and events in this chapter are all real. However, in order to protect the young woman's future marriage, I have used fictitious names. I hope the reader will forgive me.)

Toolbox

Back Top Print Bookmark Tell a friend:

© 2008 Padmakumara. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright & Terms of Use.