Sixth Sense Development Yant (第六感开发符)

The Vietnamese sixth sense yant

This is the Vietnamese 6th sense yant used in conjunction with companion ngai magic. If you are a ngai master and have difficulties in communicating with your ngai spirits, then this yant is for you.

The method is simple, draw the above yant on a piece of rice paper, burns it in a cup and consume the ash with some water. This yant will empower a person's eyes, ears and soul and awaken one's 6th senses.

The khata:

Hon dau nrap dau, hon tang nrap tang, hue tam hue nln, hue nln, hue nlan eap nhu lnl

After consuming the ash, one should meditate and recite the above khata repeatedly while closing one's eyes. In due time, he/she should see white light in front of him/her. Then the person only needs to concentrate on his/her 3rd eye area and in time he/she shall see some sort of scene or an image of a person. 

If this happens, the practitioner can communicate with the 'thing' and asks this 'thing' to guide him/her.

There are some dangers in this method, so please don't practise it. I only want to show you other alternatives to develop your 6th senses; and this is uniquely Vietnamese!

The Granny Who Munches Biscuits (爱啃饼的婆婆)

When my late dad got a short transfer notice from Kuala Kangsar to Taiping, he had not enough time to seek a place to house the family then. So we had to put up in a friend’s old double story shop house in Padang Rengas; which is situated beside the main road.

The shop lot we need to put up with for 3 months or so had been vacated for quite some time. According to my dad’s friend, we can stay downstairs and do whatever we wished but we were to leave upstairs alone for some reason that he didn’t want to reveal.

In fact, we the kids weren’t too interested with upstairs as it was hot and pitch dark even in daytime. There weren’t any windows so you can imagine that upstairs was very stuffy under the tropical heat.

When it was time, we finally moved into the building and all went well for the first week or so. Though Padang Rengas was a small town, the easy life and tranquility made us enjoyed life in small town. The neighbors were friendly too so pretty soon we mingled quite well with the locals.

No complaints so far except of some minor nagging issues. For example someone seemed to be staying upstairs as almost everyone could hear footsteps walking upstairs. Well, since the whole building was built with wooden planks; a little movement could be heard clearly downstairs especially during night time.

At times, I could see a greyish shadow came down from the stairs and moved towards the living room and the kitchen at night. My dad only brushed what I saw as kid’s vivid imagination.

One evening when I returned from playing with my new found friends, I saw someone was sitting in my dad’s favourite arm chair reading newspaper. At first I thought it was my dad but the hands suggest the person was an old lady. You wouldn’t have mistaken the identity as old ladies of those days like to wear a big round jade bracelet on their left wrist.

I couldn’t see the person’s face as it was covered by newspaper. On approaching the arm chair, the newspaper seemed to be floating in the middle of the air for a few seconds before dropping onto the floor. I told dad about the matter but he said it was only the wind.

Another interesting matter of the old house was that almost all of us except dad could hear the sound of someone munching soda biscuit (苏打饼) upstairs. At times this sound would be particularly noticeable especially after midnight. The most familiar noise would be ‘crunch, crunch, crunch…’ which come and think of it now would be a little eerie.

Soon it was time for us to move out of the old shop house as my dad has finally found a new house in Taiping. On the day my dad returned the house key to his friend, he asked of the strange noise at night. And this friend gave a very interesting answer:

“My late mom liked to stay upstairs alone that’s why I disallow anyone to go upstairs. She likes to eat biscuits at nights too… but I didn’t know she still stays in the old house after these years!”

Now the shop house was taken over by another businessman. Every time I travelled from Kuala Kangsar to Taiping, I couldn’t help myself staring at that interesting house for a few seconds before passing on. 

The Relau Haunted House (湖内鬼屋)

This is the notoriously haunted mansion in Relau, Penang. I was taking this photo this morning in my car with the engine running and suddenly my car's engine stalled for the first time in 8 years! Perhaps it was the spirits who had play pranks on me... Anyway, the shrine worships '9 brothers of stone' (石头公九兄弟) and the internal of the mansion is out of bound to general public.

This is a famous or infamous haunted mansion situated just beside the Relau Metropolitan Garden. It has been the subject of a few paranormal programs coverage both within and outside Malaysia.

According to local history, this is a western-oriental style mansion belonged to a Chinese captain, Zheng Jinggui (郑景贵). There is a pool in the center of the mansion and the place was used to conduct business negotiations. Incidentally, this pool is touted to be the ‘first swimming pool in Penang’.

This is how this mansion became haunted:

About 50 to 60 years ago, a young lady committed suicide by jumping into the said pool because her parents had objected her relationship with her lover. Because the lady had died with great hatred, her restless soul still haunts the mansion and areas around it.

Many years later, a 70 year old nun moved into the mansion to meditate. She claimed to have seen the spirit of this young lady emerged from the swimming pool. It was said that the old nun has made a personal request to a Theravada monk so that the restless soul is delivered.

When the time was right, 3 monks in charge of 3 temples together with 30 disciples performed a grand deliverance ritual to save this poor soul. I was told that the lightings were interrupted twice during the prayer.

Perhaps the deliverance ritual was not successful as the mansion and areas around it still haunted by the spirit. A local even claimed that a ‘ghost car’ emerged from the old mansion with a full of headless passengers.

The mansion later fell into the possession of a family with the surname Wen. Not long after Wen family taken over the place, one of the suns and a maid had fallen into the pool and drowned. Not long after the drowning incidents, the said drowned souls started to haunt the mansion; together with the soul of restless lady previously mentioned.

I was staying in an apartment opposite to the haunted mansion for a few years. A medium who always perform exorcising ritual to appease the restless souls told me that the restless soul of the three not only haunt the mansion and areas around it; they at times too would enter into the apartment block where I stayed and wander about. People experiencing bad luck and small kids can see these shadowy figures. My bro’s son and daughter did complaint of being disturbed by some shadowy figures and I had to perform rituals to cast them out a few times.

It seems that all those Taoist and Buddhist deliverance rituals had failed to send the restless spirits to the other side. Perhaps these spirits will roam the area for another 50 years or so but I just have to let them be as I don’t have another 50 years to go in this life!

The Fallacy Of Book Of Death (度亡经的谬误)

It is none of my business as to how a person interpreted the ‘Book Of The Death’. I only want to point out some mistakes people who think they understood the book very well superficially.

A few days ago, I overheard a lady who appeared to be a follower of Tibetan Buddhism attending one funeral service:

“Oh! The dying process in Tibetan Book Of The Death says that all reincarnation process would ceased after 49 days…”

I didn’t interrupt her words as I had no intention to start a lengthy argument with the lady. Since there are still many people like her who just take words of the ‘book’ superficially, I might as well point out some unknown facts of the ‘book’:

1. The book is for those people who are practitioners who can see the energy spots (bindu) and energy channels (nadi). Because during the dying process, a person’s consciousness is already in a state of confusion and it might not be able to ‘listen’ to what a guru tells his/her soul. So if you cannot see the deceased’s soul, you have no idea of what he/she experienced; moreover to liberate the person’s soul. If you cannot save his/her soul, the only option for the dead is to follow you home! (no joking)
2. Since the deceased’s soul is weak, the only best thing is to guide the deceased’s soul into a practitioner’s body and go over the process described in the Book Of Death. So a practitioner needs to enter the state of meditation in order to guide the dead soul and not just by reading. Only by confining the soul in a practitioner’s chakra and energy channel that the dead soul can control the timing correctly.
3. The ‘day’ in the book does not refer to our humanly ‘day’ of 24 hours. The length of a day for deva is much longer than a ‘day’ for a dog for example. There are just too many people literarily take the so-called ‘day’ in the book as our human day… provided that you can guide the dead soul into your own energy channel and synchronize the ‘animal day’ into ‘human day’.
4. The description of duration between death and birth as 49 days. As I have pointed out that this may not be true for a person who is destined to be an ‘asura’ or a ‘hungry ghost’. The length can be immediately to hundreds of years.
5. The duration of light a dead soul experiences can be in split seconds to a few minutes pending on the soul’s karma. A practitioner can hold the light for as long as 7 days in meditative state. 

So, if the process is as simple as what the lady has said, then there is no need for a guru. Although you can recite the book to the deceased, his/her soul might not be able to hear you if you are not ‘in sync’ with his/her frequency. A good try if you would, but I call it a waste of time and bad karma though you meant good.

  

The Discorse Of Generation Stage (生起次第论)

Generation stage or ‘utpatti-krama’ in Sanskrit means the ‘sequence of happening or new born’ is the central practice in tantric Buddhism to achieve enlightenment. It is practice in conjunction to the ‘3 existences and 4 births (三有四生)’ of life and birth according to the Tibetan Book Of The Death. It is the fundamental practice of nadis and bindus (气脉明点) in‘completion stage’; and also the route to accomplishment of rainbow or light body of the Great Perfection.

Having said that the generation stage is the key practice in the achievement of ‘vajra body’ (金刚身), there should be a set of detailed theories and pragmatic practices. The core of generation stage is based on the visualization of a deva-body (天身) to enter the samadhi (meditative stage) of the ‘3-existances’ meaning the death, in-between and life. In plain language; a practitioner ‘creates’ an elusive, empty and enjoyment body that he/she shall be reborn as in accordance to the Book Of The Death. Since this deva-body is free from any karmic bonding; so this practitioner shall be freed from cycles of existence. That is all to the generation stage.

There are 4 essential accomplishments of generation stage:

·         Ritual

·         Effect

·         Results

·         Body

The result of a ritual is to purify the habits of 4 births (四生).

The result of ‘effect’ is to purify the cycle of life and death and planting the seed of trikaya (三身) thus building the foundation of completion stage (圆满次第).

The actual result of generation stage is the attainment of worldly 8 merits (世间八功德). He/she shall become the mantri of the realm of existence.

The body of generation stage shall be the enjoyment and empty body. Due to functions of enjoyment and emptiness, a practitioner achieves the accomplishment of Mahamudra (大手印).

Just to make a long story short, the generation stage is the foundation of completion stage. An important point is that the generation stage is only ‘mind games’ as most of the actions are only visualizations; it is in the completion stage that the actual physical transformation of deva-body takes place.

Of course, the generation stage is only practiced by Maha-yoga and Anuttara-yoga practitioners. Most of people I met in Malaysia only stop at the level of karma-yoga (事瑜珈) which is far from entering the actual generation practice. You will understand what I said by going through the curriculum of generation stage; if you can get hold of a copy that is.

Sad to say that such a profound practice is seldom revealed by visiting Rinpoches or so-called ‘Living Buddha’ (活佛) who only collects donations to build temples. A reason is perhaps the lack of study material in local languages other than the Sanskrit and Tibetan. Even books in Tibetan give wrong information at times. So a guru is still needed if you can find one in the market.

Secret Behind The Legs (两腿后的秘密)

Before I go on with my story, please don’t have any funny idea of what lies behind our legs. Perhaps you have thought of something else which I don’t want to know. Anyway, please hold on to what you think of should lie in behind one’s legs and let me finish my story.

A pretty simple Thai game for a person to see the spiritual world is by lower one’s head and peep through his/her legs in a quiet place. I have no idea what is the success rate of such an exercise to actual see a ghost this way. Perhaps my personal experience when I was studying in my primary school in Kuala Kangsar will give you a clue…

Well, my primary school was reputed to be a haunted one and many people had one kind of contact with spirits or another. I could not say if my experience is real or it was just my hallucination due to being influenced by all those ghost talks around me. You can’t blame me for that as I was about 8 years old then.

When I was in standard 2, I was arranged to be seated at the last row of the class. Behind me about 10 feet away was some empty chairs meant for observers from district educational department since there were some trainee teacher come and go at that time.

It was a rainy after around 5pm the school would end half an hour later. Due to the weather condition at that time and for the students’ safety; the school admin has decided that all the students would stay in the class until outside condition improves. So, my classmates and I were asked to be seated in our chairs and do whatever we like to until further instruction.

At that time, I was tidying my desk and one of my pencils accidentally dropped under my chair. So I leaned over to find my pencil and as I was about to pick it up, I suddenly caught a glimpse of a pair of black shinny boots at a supposedly empty chair behind me.

I thought it was odd, so I purposely drop another pencil and lean over to see between my legs due to curiosity. Well, I couldn’t just stand up and bend over in a classroom full of pupils. My friends would think I am nuts and I would not have a chance to explain myself.

The second time I bent over, to my surprise, I saw a man in Imperial Army uniform wearing a pair of army boots. So I quickly raise my body and looked around me. Everyone was minding his/her own business and the chair behind me was indeed empty.

In order to find out who the queer person was, I again dropped another pencil and bend over to find out. This time, the ‘man’ was not in the chair but his face was just behind me. Our face to face distance was so near that we nearly ‘kiss’ each other.

To be honest, the face I saw was just a skeleton wearing an army cap! Due to fright, I instinctively raised and shouted in horror; then I tripped myself when I tried to turn my back. My chair fell backwards and so did I.  Perhaps my commotion has startled the whole class and the noisy classroom immediately turned quiet.

The teacher immediately rushed to my place and as he pulled me up from the floor, he seemed to understand what I have gone through. Without waiting for my explanation, the teacher said:

“It is not good to drop pencils too many times.” 

Coffee Nation: North Vs South (南北话咖啡)

The earliest coffee culture in Malaysia perhaps can be traced to the deep brown coffee in Northern Peninsular or just pure black coffee from ‘kopi tiam’ (coffee shop) served by Hainan tea shops (海南茶室) prevail in Southern Peninsular Malaysia.

In this sense, each shop will have its own special flavor pending on many factors: from the warm to hot ceramic cup to self-blend secret coffee bean recipes, then ingredients used in the frying of coffee beans, temperature and the precise control of thick, weak, sweet, bitter and sweet tastes of the producer. All these factors caused coffee produced by all coffee shops are slightly distinct.

So it is not difficult to discover that there would be some die-hard fans for every ‘kopi tiam’ in Malaysia. These fans can assuredly tell you what is really called a real cup of coffee.

Having said so, if you are a frequent traveller like me who travels from Johor Bharu in the morning and arrived in Penang at night or vice versa; you will find that there are distinct variations in the north and south coffee. That too means that you are few lucky ones that can taste coffee of different flavours in one day.

The northern coffee is much thicker and looks darker. It carries a special smoky flavor, which is not everyone’s cup of tea figuratively speaking. On the other hand, the southern coffee is slightly sour in flavor and the color is lighter.

In the past, coffee/tea shops are favorite places for local folks to meet and talk. Traditional coffee/tea shops are spacious facing main roads. The floor tiles are mostly black and white floor tiles. They are furnished with semi-antique wooden chairs and tables, coupled with a tall wooden casher’s counter. One could see white steams rose from the kitchen when shop owner is making coffee. Of course, unlike the western folks, coffee is best to be enjoyed with bread, butter, homemade ‘kaya’ (coconut jam) or even half-boiled eggs with soy source. I can 100% assure you that all these combinations will bring you to heaven! But simple good old coffee/tea shops are getting less now days in big cities.

Now days there are many types of coffee available out in the market with many types of modern coffee franchises. I personally like the old coffee shop where I can lift up my legs and talk out loud without attracting any attentions. 

Last but not least, do you prefer a cup of 'kaw' (thick) coffee or just plain (weak) coffee?

Traditional Taiping Cakes (太平传统糕点)

If you come to Taiping town Jalan Panggung Wayang hawker center and the morning/evening market, you can find all sort of traditional Chinese and ‘nyonyah kuih’ (cakes). I just bought a few to show you and to satisfy my appetite. For example the Chinese cup-cake (发糕), 9-layer cake (九层糕), baked tapioca cake (烤木薯糕) and ‘pretty face cake’ (kuih seri muka/salat). The later four types of cakes are sometimes called ‘nyonyah kuih’ by locals or the ‘ladies’ cakes’.

I am not about to do a detailed introduction of all available cake types in Taiping as those info can readily be found in the intranet. Suffice to arouse your taste buds and motivate you to visit Taiping soon. 

A Trip To Kuala Sepatang (十八丁走一回)

Kuala Sepatang is a small fishing village off Taiping town. As the name implies, this is a place for enjoying seafood. In addition there is a mangrove conservatory and a charcoal production plant that one can visit...

Fishing boats and mangrove trees.

Most of buildings in Kuala Sepatang are built on swamp areas. The three stories building at the background is a restaurant.

Crabs and mantis shrimps awaiting to meet their masters.

Sumptuous seafood lunch: soft-shell crabs, steam fish, clamps and vegetables all for MYR120++!

Small seafood restaurant from outside but BIG inside!

If the seafood is not enough, please get yourself some 'black gold' which comes with a lucky number and one sells for about USD9 only.

Perhaps seeing is believing... Do join me next trip to satisfy your appetite and more activities to come!

The Essence Of Great Perfection (大圆满精要)

Both mahamudra (大手印) and great perfection belong to the 4^th empowerment of Tibetan Buddhism. If we were to compare, the practice of great perfection would be one step higher than mahamudra because it is touted as ‘the pinnacle of Tibetan Buddhism’. Actually, both mahamudra and great perfection are teachings originated from India but flourish in Tibet just to point out historical fact.

Some gurus treat mahamudra and great perfection as the same and in my opinion; they are not so correct because both of the training system are different as their end results are different. If you still remember the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, then the aim of mahamudra is to attain enlightenment during the dying process. On the other hand, the aim of great perfection is to achieve enlightenment before the end of this life if possible.

Some Chinese scholars also like to compare Zen with great perfection; and they too were just as wrong too. For the practice of great perfection is based on systematic stages of exercises that stretch a practitioner’s body, mind and spirit. Zen practice on the other hand depends very much on the intellect of a student. And it is exceedingly difficult to grasp the gist of Zen compared to the more systematic great perfection training.

In order to understand great perfection, there are two essential theoretical points one must remember:

·         The nature of our mind is luminous. It is our ignorance that has masked out the Buddha within us.

·         The nature of our mind is empty, so is the nature of outside world. This is known as borderless emptiness.

Having understood the above, we now must understand the nature of our mind. Our mind likes to cling on worldly matters that interest us and our mind is creative. It is the creation and destruction of thoughts that have made our world ever changing. So as to let our mind rest in Dharmadatu, we must:

·         Let our mind rest from creation and destruction of thoughts

·         Let our mind rest from meditation (meditation makes our mind dull)

·         Let our mind rest from clinging on illusive world

Great perfection understands the nature of our mind is not stagnant, so in order to counteract our changing mind and not to kill creativity, the concept of Trikaya or three bodies are developed:

·         The peaceful state (such as in peaceful sea)

·         The enjoyment state (wavy sea)

·         The transformation state (the evaporation of sea water and rain fall)

In short, the practice of great perfection is all about our mind as the saying goes:

不修，不整，不散乱。

One neither engage in practices, nor put it in order; just not scattering.

To sum up, great perfection not only comprises of views (见) but also physical training (修) to purify our body, mind and speech. A practitioner of great perfection should stop mantra recitation and visualizations which are only illusion generating activities of lower yoga practices.

There are many types of supplementary trainings to make our body relax and to unlock our energy channels such as yoga postures. The all famous white yoga is meant to use sun light to clear our energy channels so that the mandala of 100 deities of intermediate state can present at once in the space in front of us. Once the mandala of 100 deities are seen, then the practitioner can proceed to practise the black yoga will transform a practitioner’s body into rainbow body.

All of the materials can be found in most major languages in our bookshop, so it is not a taboo to describe this practice openly. The question remains whether a person can put this precious teaching into practice as it is almost impossible to get an accomplish master these days.

The Intermediate Beings & Ghosts (中阴身与鬼)

In fact, there is no notion of ‘ghost’ in Tibetan Buddhism. The next close idea of a ‘ghost’ is the ‘intermediate body’ which can refer to a potential being of deva, asura, hungry ghost, hell being, human or even animal.

After a dead spirit experienced 3 to 4 days of long slumber, it awakes to go through the actual dying process of about 14 days and then if this spirit is not liberated; it will enter a stage of ‘becoming’ of its future body e.g. a human etc.

Contrary to common understanding of Tibetan Book Of The Dead. Not all dead spirits will be reincarnated within 49 days period. Only a handful especially those who have created severe karma or extremely good karma will be reborn instantly. For majority of folks, they must wait for a particular period of time. The period can range from a few weeks to hundreds of years.

This is same as when you are changing your job. When you have tendered your resignation to your current boss, you normally give 1~3 months’ notice. The time between the beginning of resignation to the beginning of a new job is the ‘honeymoon’ period. i.e. you only wait for your time to start the new work while passing down whatever left in your hands to your colleagues.

Likewise, an intermediate being is a free body until it is time for its reincarnation. If you have psychic eyes, then you will notice that this intermediate body looks like a blob of grey mist measuring about 3 feet height. This intermediate body can move about freely and it can pass through walls. It can also have certain magical powers such as predicting the future and mind reading. However, this intermediate body lacks the ‘seeds’ of father and mother; it has no form and this intermediate one cannot withstand the blow of winds and it is afraid of strong lights.

In another way, intermediate body behaves like the common notion of ‘ghost’ as it needs to seek shelter from elemental forces and lights. It also needs to feed on energy to survive. So until these intermediate beings are reborn, they shall attach to human, animals, trees or electrical appliances for energy.

The conditions of these intermediate beings vary: for example an intermediate body of a deva or an asura (demi-god) will have more magical power and happier than the ones destined to become an animal or hungry ghost. Perhaps we can categorize the common ‘ghost’ as those intermediate beings of lower classes: animals, hungry ghosts or hell. Because these beings from lower realms cannot own food and shelter, they depend very much on their human hosts to supply. Hence, theoretically speaking only lower class beings would dwell in a shrine to serve our human world. Higher beings would not like to stay in filthy human realms.

Of course, the above discussion centred on what is told to us by the book of dead. Traditionally, the Chinese believe that all human will become ghosts when they passed away. All ancestors must be remembered and worshipped so that they will protect the descendants.

If people died outside of their house and no one would pray to their spirits, they shall become wandering spirits and haunts anyone who is in bad luck. So you will find the Chinese give sumptuous food offerings during the famous ‘ghost month’ to appease these good brothers and sisters so that they will not create trouble.

Of course, theoretically speaking, ghosts should not exist in the West where all dead are laid to rest in peace until the judgment day… Unless people there refuse to give out the ghost figuratively speaking.

The Real Meaning Of Mahamudra (大手印的意义)

For tantric practitioners, the word ‘mahamudra’ is a meditative practice belongs to the 4^th empowerment. If we were to translate ‘mahamudra’ to general term; then it would be the ‘great seal’.

In early 80’s, there were people in Taiwan and China who made some hand gestures and claimed that those hand gestures were ‘mahamudra’. Of course this sounds to be a joke these days. Perhaps a slap on their faces would be more appropriate to call the ‘great seal’.

Actually, the word ‘mahamudra’ refers to the meditative practice that simulates the process of dying according to ‘Tibetan Book Of The Dead’. After the dissolution of 5 elements, the life energy/wind moves into the central channel (中脉). At this point, the white bodhicitta (白菩提) representing the father element falls down from the crown chakra into the heart chakra and everything turns into white. After that the red bodhicitta (红菩提) representing the mother element rises from the base chakra into the heart chakra; everything transforms into red. Both of the red and white bodhicittas meet at the centre of the heart chakra and this is known as the ‘first primary luminosity’ (第一光明).

Holding into this first primary luminosity is the ultimate aim of every mahamudra practitioner as beyond this point, the environment would become dark as if during dusk. And when the environment turns into pitch dark, the decease’s consciousness will become dull and it falls into 3~4 days of deep sleep. Beyond this point, there is nothing a practitioner can do but to depend on others to perform other deliverance rituals to save him/her.

If one misses the union of red and white. The white bodhicitta would move downwards and exit the decease’s body through reproduction organ as yellowish liquid. Likewise, the red bodhicitta exits through one’s nose, mouth ears or eyes as yellowish liquid.

At this point if a practitioner is observant, then he/she can recollect the deceased’s bodhicittas into his/her own heart chakra and perform the  ‘slow phowa’ (慢颇瓦) method; that too will save the deceased’s soul from the torment of going through the intermediate state (中有).

The duration of ‘first luminosity’ varies depending on each individual. It is somewhere between a flash of lightning for a person with bad karma to 7 days for a mahamudra practitioner. Generally speaking, for average person; the duration is about 10 minutes or enough for a person to eat a bowl of rice.

Let’s return to the discussion of mahamudra: Basically mahamudra practitioners try to force their life force energy into their central channels using vase breathing techniques. This will produce the near death experience and through repetitive exercises; the practitioner will master of the best timing when his own pure light unite with the pure light of the universe. It is through this union of lights that a practitioner achievers ‘liberation’ from reincarnation.

No Place To Go (情归何处？)

Planning for funeral service for some rich and famous guy is no easy task especially if the deceased’s family members are of various religious believes. There is a joke within funeral service community concerning funeral of a rich person happened some time ago in Ipoh:

Uncle Lee suffered from stroke and kicked the bucket a few months later. His 3 sons gathered to plan for their late dad’s funeral service. His elder son who is a follower of Taoism started to say:

“Since I am the eldest, I will make the call… I want dad’s funeral service in Taoist style!”

The second son who is an ardent Buddhist followed:

“I want dad to go to the Pure Land free from cycles of birth and rebirth!”

The third son who is a Christian then said:

“I want dad to go to heaven; so he should have a Christian funeral service!”

The three brothers argued for one night and finally a consensus was made: first a Taoist ritual, then a Buddhist and finally a Christian funeral service. All of them thought that decision was an amicable solution and their dad can have the best of the three worlds.

So, on the first night Taoists were summoned to perform the ritual and they sang:

“Uncle Lee! Please proceed to the eastern heaven to enjoy your status of immortal!”

They sang for the whole night and finally the lead Taoist said to the eldest son:

“That will be $3,800. Thank you.”

On the second night, a group of Buddhist monks were summoned and they sang:

“Uncle Lee! Please proceed to the western Pure Land to enjoy your benefits!”

The monks sang for the whole night and the lead monk said to the second son:

“That will be $3,800. Thank you.”

Finally on the third night, a group of clerical staffs were invited to sing hymn and they said:

“Uncle Lee! Please rest in peace until the day of judgment.”

After some hymns and praises, the lead person said to the third son:

“Please donate $1,000 to the church’s fund. Thank you.”

On the fourth day, as when Uncle Lee’s coffin was to be sent to the crematory, suddenly good old Mrs. Lee suddenly possessed by Uncle Sam. Before everyone could open his/her mouth to ask. Mrs. Lee started to scold:

“Wah lau eh! You guys want to kill my old bones ah? First you ask me to go to the Eastern Heaven. Then you ask me to go to the Western Pure Land… before I can touch my buttock on the lotus seat… you ask me to return to my coffin and RIP!?”

  

The Dissolution Of 5 Elements (五大分解)

The dissolution of five elements in tantric terms means our human dying process. How a person dies is described in the famous ‘Tibetan Book Of The Dead’ (西藏度亡经) or its variants. However, the description in the book did not mention that our human dying process begin at a much earlier stage. This would be a great surprise to many of people out there who treated this book as a guide for the dying only.

Tantric practitioners discovered that our human body has 72,000 channels (nadi) when we are born and we stand to lose one channel every day and when all of the channels are exhausted; the person will die. That is in a very ideal condition of course. For a normal person, he/she may exhaust two or more channels if the person does not watch his health.

In order to defer one’s dying process, a person must involve in the practice of vase breathing (宝瓶气). The theory is that if we can reduce the frequency of breathing then we can prolong our lifespan. Of course, no one can escape from dying in any way.

Likewise, the dissolution of 5 elements occurs in conjunction with the exhaustion of our energy channels. The sequence of elements resolution is as follows:

When the earth element dissolves into water, a person feels he/she becomes lethargic and weak.

When the water element dissolves into fire, the person feels thirsty and dry(1).

When the fire dissolves into wind, he/she feels cold.

When the wind dissolves into space, he/she feels breathless.

When the space dissolves into consciousness, the person is losing consciousness.

Almost everyone understands the above cycle of elemental dissolution. But what is not mentioned is that this dissolution cycle begins when one energy channel started to die; further this cycle of elemental dissolution increase in intensity when one ages.

For example, when a senior citizen feels his/her legs become too weak to walk, then this is the sign of the dissolution of earth element. Old folks tend to pee a lot and get thirsty frequently; this is the sure sign of dissolution of water element. The senior needs to put on more clothing to keep warm hence the dissolution of fire element. A senior citizen would feel breathless; again this is the sure sign of dissolution of wind element. Finally an aged person would complaint about his consciousness getting blur; this is again the sign of dissolution of space.

The above cycle keep repeating itself until all energy channels are exhausted. At this point, we say that the person is experience the actual dying process. So for a normal person, the dying/aging process is repetitive. Hence, you are warned of the approaching death. There is no reason to argue that a person dies too suddenly.

Of course, the exception is on those who die of untimely death. The question of if a person would meet his/her premature death can be predicted in astrology; or through the checking of energy flow through heart, throat, crown and naval chakras. If certain part is blocked in the blue east channel of heart chakra; then the person would die of head related injuries caused by earth elements, during year of wood for example.

Now you have no reason to say that you are oblivious of your approaching death! 

Note:

(1) When a person is experiencing actual dying process, he/she would complaint about thirsty. Now, it is very important just to use a wet towel to wet his/her lips only. If this dying person is given some water to drink, then you will KILL him/her immediately! You can drown the dying with only a very small quantity of water. I have seen this happened in many cases, so be warned!

Problems With Spirits (鬼魂的问题)

Spirits are pitiful beings yet they are best to be left alone. Once they have entangled with someone, then they would cause a lot of problems: emotionally and health wise. Even the spirits of our deceased love ones can cause problems to the livings too. Perhaps some modern theory claiming that spirits feed on energy is true. When spirits attached themselves to a person they will literary ‘suck’ the person dry by any means they can think of. Amongst other methods, there is no other way to cause a person to discharge a large quantity of energy in one time than having ‘sex’.

If you are not too afraid of ghosts, then when you really see one and you do not scramble as with others; you will notice that a ghost cannot hold its form for very long time. If you look further, you would notice that the ghost gradually becomes a blob of mist. And if you persist, then the mist would disperse and the ghost would be gone. I found this phenomenon when I was engaging in my Yamantaka meditation practice in a graveyard.

However, if you supply the ghost with energy such as shouting at it or having intimate act; then this ghost would make its presence known by moving or throwing things about. Anuttara Tantra practices require a practitioner to visualize himself/herself as the Yidam and the ghost/spirit as the sex consort. Using psychic heat and illusionary yoga practices, the practitioner can unite the ghost’s energy with his/her own in forming the perfect illusion body (完整幻化身).

Returning to our previous story, we thought our ordeal with the ‘woman in red’ was over after we spent a night in James’s house. However, we were very wrong. A week later I dreamt of a lady in red introduced herself as Elaine and she said that was abandoned by her previous master and she would make me a very happy man every night. After that without asking for consent Elaine started to have intimacy act until I woke up with wet pants. Of course, that was only a wet dream.

After a few nights of similar wet dreams, I started to feel something was wrong. So I called up Henry and his condition was no better than mine; he has developed deep and dark eye sockets and both of us looked as if living pandas.

Perhaps Henry’s condition is worse than mine as he claimed to have seen Elaine lying flat face down on top of his car protruding her extremely pale face on the car windshield while he was kissing with his girlfriend in the car. Worse of all, when Henry was sleeping with his girl, they felt as if an ice bar was sleeping in between them. When they switched on the light, they found nothing.

A series of strange things had not only made the relationships of Henry and his girlfriend to be stiff; they also couldn’t have good night sleep. Henry’s girl even dreamed of Elaine shouting at her mentioning that Henry belonged to her.

Finally Henry and I decided to visit our Mao Shan master. Our master scolded us a few rounds and he said that he would do whatever he could to help us. Because Elaine was a vengeful spirit and that it was quite powerful, there was no guarantee that our master could defeat Elaine.

Basically our master used a few more powerful ghosts to overpower Elaine. According to our master, he could only prevent Elaine from disturbing Henry and I for a short time and the rest would be up to our own.

Soon after consulting with my Mao Shan master, perhaps the luck was on my side and I accompanied a friend to attend an empowerment ceremony of Yamantaka. After the empowerment, I had a dream that a policeman dragged a woman in red away from me. Since then, I have not dreamed of Elaine or having any wet dreams.

With me engaging in Yamantaka practice, I have temporarily left Mao Shan magic alone until today. Although I did try conjuration rituals of Hikmah and other systems, Elaine had never appeared even once.

Last time I heard that Henry had married Elaine just to pacify the spirit. But I would need to ask for his permission to tell his side of the story. As for mine, my relationship with Elaine ended with Yamantaka. 

Woman In Red (红衣女郎)

Perhaps you would agree with me that the best time in one’s life is when a person earns his/her first pay; perhaps in his/her early 20’s. This is the period when one can really happy go lucky with parents around. I am of no exception. But in my early 20’s, I was engrossed with lower Mao Shan type of Taoist magic together with a few friends. In case you are not familiar, lower Mao Shan type of magic deals mainly with ghosts. So performing ghost hunting became our favorite pass times.

For those who live around Taiping, you would be familiar with the Burmese Pool situated at the foothill of Maxwell Hill. The entrance to Burmese Pool is from a T-junction opposite to the Taiping War Cemetery. There is a camp where school uniform units used to camp during school holidays.

The said Burmese Pool is believed to be haunted so it is best not to visit the area after sunsets. My friend, James who was a scout said that he has seen a figure believed to be a woman in red sat on a boulder near a bridge during one evening walk along the pool. When James tried to approach the figure, it suddenly disappeared. On hearing James’s strange story, I begun intrigued and wished to visit the place during sunset.

My pal, Henry was also practising Mao Shan was also interested, so I invited him to join the expedition to hunt for this mysterious woman in red. Another reason that I wanted Henry to join is because he had a car and that ease the transportation of things; further Henry has psychic eyes as he can see spiritual world. It was an asset indeed.

So preparations were made for the big day without first notifying our master for the fear that he would stop our naïve move.

We were at the bridge that runs across the Burmese Pool river at half passed six in the evening. So according to Henry’s intuition, we burnt some incense and talismans to call up the spirit or whatever it might be. Or course, our effort might not be fruitful if the figure James saw was indeed a tourist who happened to be there. Anyway, just for the fun of it; we pressed on with our ritual.

After a round of chanting, Henry and I sat on a boulder facing the river to meditate. The environment at the pool started to darken and around 8pm or so; Henry and I suddenly saw a red orb hovering about 10m away from us. So we tried to communicate with it hopefully to make it materialize itself. After some trying, the orb disappeared behind trees opposite the river. We decided to call it a day as we had another meeting with James to report our success.

Though we didn’t manage to see the woman in red, at least we managed to attract an orb which Henry thought to be the manifestation of the woman in red. So we returned to the car and Henry drove to James’s house to fetch him.

Soon we arrived at James’s place and Henry honked his car as usual. James was seen exited his house but he only managed to walk a few steps and then he stopped as if trying to peep into the car for something. After some effort, James finally shouted:

“Hey! Guys, who is our lady guest tonight?”

Both of us thought James was joking as he likes to joke a lot. So Henry who was a little impatient and he shouted:

“Are you kidding? Hop on…”

When James got closer, he shouted as if he had seen a ghost:

“Waaaalauuuu!”

As soon as he screamed, James retreated into his house and shut the door. Both of us felt very strange, so we stepped out from the car and went to knock at James’s door to ask what had happened.

We only managed to walk a few steps before our intuition told us to look into the car…

“Waaaalauuu!”

Both of us screamed out almost simultaneously. There in the back seat was a figure of a woman whose face was covered with long hair though we were not very sure of the color of her clothing.

What else? We ran frantically and rammed into James’s house there we stayed for the whole night. Luckily the ‘thing’ was nowhere to be seen in the car. And we had to seek our master’s help which is another long story.

  

Family That Keeps Ghost (养鬼人家)

In Japanese Onmyodo (阴阳道) a ghost servant is known as ‘Shikigami’ (式神). There are many types of shikigami and a shikigami powerful shikigami can be inherited in a family. In Omyodo, a shikigami is normally summoned using talismans or some kind of oath bound object that the spirit is bound to. In other traditions a spirit is otherwise known as jinn in Middle East, ‘gui’ (鬼) in Chinese, ‘hantu’ in Malaysia or a ‘pee’ in Thailand.

There are many ways to keep a ghost and almost all cultures having one method or two to deal with ghosts. Ghost keeping is most popular in Malaysia between 60’s to early 80’s. Of course, the ghost keeping I refer to is different from keeping a ‘kumanthong’ or Thai kid spirit. In the eyes of experts, kid spirits can be of little service and they tend to be trouble makers. In the eyes of serious, the most useful type of ghosts are those ghosts of youths died in freak accidents or suicide; best if the person is still single. A married ghost, a sick ghost or an old ghost is of no use as they are too week.

Today, it is very difficult to find anyone actually ‘keeping’ a ghost. Other more common types of ghost keeping is through the Taoist ‘yin 5 legionnaires army’ (阴五营兵) ritual. On the other hand, this type of ghost keeping ritual is the weakest through experience because they are the easiest to be exorcised. Anyone can yell: “Hallelujah!” and these ghostly pets will move out from a premise.

I had one to one encounter with a ‘family ghost’ before my involvement into Taoist magical world many years ago. Once I had to stay with a Chinese family in Singapore for one week due to some errant. The family was normal enough to me but they had this very odd altar situated beside the normal main altar. This altar was just a small table with a tablet inscribed with inscriptions: “Miss Law” (罗小姐位). Behind the tablet was a small coffin wrapped by some yellow talismans. There is a glass of plain water and some flowers in a vase. And an incense burner is placed in front of the said tablet.

Since my temporary landlord didn’t mentioned about this special altar, I dare not ask since I only temporally stayed with the family. All went well until one night when I woke up to pee. As I passed through the living room, I saw the landlord; Jason inclined his head sideway over a bucket of water as if listening to something. At that instance, Jason saw me but he continued to lean over the bucket and then utter something softly. I didn’t want to be a busybody so I went on with my business.

Another incident that I felt odd was that most of the time I went into the lift, as the lift door was about to shut; the lift door would suddenly jammed and then reopened as if someone wished to enter. At first I thought it was the lift malfunction, but after complained to the building management; the problem persisted.

The last night I put up with Jason and the family, I woke up in the middle of the night by a presence. It was the silhouette of a long hair lady standing in front of my bed. It had this Jasmine smell that reminded me of the Jasmine on the special altar. The figure stood there for a few seconds and then vanished into thin air.

The next morning, I told Jason about my strange encounters during my occupancy. Jason explained to me that my strange encounters have something to do with his special family member, Miss Law. Jason kept this spirit to watch over his family and business; and Miss Law was said to be a helpful ones too.

I had not visited Jason for about 20 years now. Perhaps Miss Law was too lonely and she wanted to talk; or perhaps she didn’t like to be ‘locked up’ and rather to be liberated… I could only imagine.

The Restless Disciplinary Master (不眠的训导老师)

Before I forget, here is another school ghost story from an old school watchman:

My late dad was a very dedicated teacher and even he was terminally ill, he still thought of his teaching duty. Of course, my dad was not the only one who was engrossed with his work. One of his colleagues; Mr. Wong who was the disciplinary master of the school my dad worked at; remains restless until today. Perhaps he still roams the classroom tonight…

Mr. Wong worked or should I say that perhaps he is still working in a primary school in upper Perak in another way. He was physically there for around 20 years or so and he was quite a straight teacher and no naughty pupils escaped his canning. So everyone was very scared of Mr. Wong.

Mr. Ong had a history of heart problems and he refused to take the doctor’s advice to take early retirement; instead he work harder and spent most of his time in the school. And one day a teacher went into his office to get his signature only to find Mr. Ong’s lifeless and stiff body lean face down on his desk. Apparently he has already passed away for quite a while unnoticed. It was quite unfortunate because it was during school holiday and only a few teaching staffs were present.

Almost everyone in the school knew about the sad news except the good old watchman who just returned from his long holiday. As I was told that it was just passed 7pm, after good old watchman, Chew locked the main gate and started his usual petrol duty for the evening…

When Chew walked pass the disciplinary office and found that someone was typing in the office. Chew thought it was Mr. Wong working overtime again. So he knocked on the door and there was a voice: “Come in!”

So Chew pushed open the door and there was Mr. Wong sat in his usual place typing as usual. Chew didn’t want to disturb Mr. Wong, so he just casually asked: “Working late?” Mr. Wong didn’t lift his head and his reply was just a ‘yup’.

Chew understands Mr. Wong well as that implied that he didn’t want to be disturbed. So he immediately shut the door again and went on patrolling…

The next evening at about the same time, Chew walked past the office again and he nearly bumped into a stranger. Chew started the conversation:

“Hello there! I haven’t seen you around!”

The stranger replied:

“Oh! Hello! I am the new disciplinary master just started my duty today.”

Perhaps Chew should just stop the conversation there but he asked what he shouldn’t ask: “What happened to Mr. Wong?”

The new disciplinary master looked at Chew with a strange look and he paused for a while before uttering:

“What? You meant you are not aware that Mr. Wong passed away last weekend in his office!?”

Chew almost fainted hearing the news. And I believed him that he said that particular night was the most horrible night watch he has ever carried out!

Since that night, the disciplinary office was said to be haunted by Mr. Wong’s ghost and at time; typing noise could be heard coming out from the office. Other watchmen claimed to see someone switched on the light in that particular office and when approached; the light would be switched off again.

A few months after Mr. Wong passed away. The school held a scout jamboree and many scouts from northern regions attended. Many tents were erected for junior scouts but the senior ones slept in the air-conditioned school library. I thought the seniors would setup good examples by showing the juniors how to survive in wilderness. This is the other way around that they took all comfortable places and let the juniors to suffer in hot tents.

With the seniors out of sight, it is not surprisingly the place was extremely noisy at night.  A group of scouts were playing hide and seek near the disciplinary office at night. Suddenly a man appeared in front of the boys and shouted to them:

“Be quiet! You are too noisy! I am the school disciplinary master, Mr. Wong. I want to talk to your person in charged.”

No one knew who the man was but they dispersed and returned to their respective tents. After sometime, the scout master came to inspect the boys and one boy asked the master:

“Mr. Wong wanted to see you!”

The scout master almost fainted because he knew that that was again the restless spirit of Mr. Wong.