This is a
funny but true incident that happened on my friend’s construction site just a
few months ago:
Kenny is a
construction project manager and he has a project in Kulim Industrial Park to build
a factory near a hill slope. Somehow his work progress was delayed due to
material shortages and most of all; the construction site has seen many big and
small accidents. So much so that he was given a verbal warning by the local
Health & Safety Authority as final warning before action is taken to close
the site.
So, Kenny’s
site supervisor, Goh is an experience guy; he figured that all those accidents
were caused by local spirits dissatisfied because they are being disturbed by
the construction work. Further no one has made offerings to them.
Kenny is a
non believer but just to satisfy and console his fellow workers; he held a big offering
ceremony and in addition, he also built a datuk’s (earth spirit) shrine. If you
come to Malaysia, you will not miss those small red (sometimes green) houses
for local earth spirits.
The
offering and praying session lasted for one whole Friday morning and everyone
was satisfied; they too thought the spirit community around the place should be
satisfied too. Having said so, Kenny’s smile didn’t last for too long…
One week
following the inauguration of the datuk’s shrine, a work’s inspector from
Health & Safety Department came and visit. That was supposed to be a
routine inspection to give green light to start construction work. But quite an
unfortunate incident happened just when the inspector was about to leave the
site, a steel spanner suddenly fell from 2nd floor and only missed
the inspector by one foot.
What else?
The grimed face inspector ordered the site to be closed for another week!
Now that
was indeed real bad news for Kenny as his project was already 1 month behind
schedule, if the construction work does not begin soon; the whole project will
be delayed. And the company will lose a lot of money.
As last
resort, Kenny gave me a call:
Kenny: “Hey,
Liew! Are you free to talk?”
Me: “Oh it’s
you! What’s the problem?”
Kenny: “How
do you know I am in trouble?”
Me: “You
would never call me if have no problem for sure!”
After Kenny
listened to what I had to say, he described his problem to me and I decided to
perform an earth blessing ceremony using ‘Hayagriva torma cut offering’ (马头明王切割供). In Tibetan ritual, Hayagriva reacts as fast as a galloping horse and hence he is almost always evoked in obstacle removal session. On the other hand, the Hayagriva in Hinduism is very different with the Tibetan one.
On the
agreed upon day, I visited the site with Kenny and his site supervisor Goh. I
purposely asked both of my buddies to let me alone for an hour or so while I
did the puja session and meditate.
An hour
later, both of the guys returned to me and I started the conversation:
Me: “Did
you forget to make offerings to some spirit?”
Goh: “Well,
we had a big offering with mutton curry and yellow sticky rice. We even had the
Datuk’s shrine setup as you can see…”
Me: “There
is one spirit you have forgotten… and it is very angry!”
Goh: “What
spirit?”
Me: “The
mountain spirit, of course! It said that everyone has something to eat and a place to stay but it had none!”
After Goh
and Kenny heard my words, they promised to hold another food offering for the
mountain spirit the following week.
Do you
believe it or not? Right after the supplementary food offering, Kenny’s
construction progress went on very well; he even made up the lost time and with
zero accidents on site since then.
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