What’s done has been done.The only thing is to get used to a
vegetarian diet from now on.Me and Yanning can only learn from this
experience.We plan to take our 3 refuges next year.Right now,the
vegetarian diet and lots of mediation is important to us in our
daily lives and to repent or chan hui from our sins.
We are still getting visits from those Taoist deities in our
dreams and we were still warned of pain of punishment if we refuse
to give ourselves to them cos they said that our uniforms had been
chopped with their seals with the red ink at the temple that day so
we technically belong to them.
Was wondering…should I and Yanning throw away those uniforms or
burn them up so that they would not pester us anymore?
In the six realms of samsara, there are 3 lower realms, 3 higher
realms. The 3 lower realms are hell, ghost, animal. The 3 higher
realms are human, asuras, heaven.
Where are we? Human realm, of course.
Where are those deities from? Not heaven... those deities you
see in temples, communicate through mediums, those are
spirit-deities.
Spirit-deities are ghosts from the lower realm. However because
they have relatively better karma than the other ghosts, they sort
of 'control' the ghosts and also receive worship from superstitious
people. Notice that they have 'mafia-like' characteristics - they
also have desires, craving, and they try to 'control their
followers' such as by appearing in your dreams and warning you. But
if you set your mind straight and have the intention to turn to
Buddhism and take refuge, and make up your mind about your
religion, probably they will stop bothering you.
As my Master said - those spirit-deities belong to the lower
realm, they do not have happiness themselves, how can they bring
happiness to others? Even we are in a higher realm than them.
Of course I am not saying they are all bad... many
spirit-deities also want to do good deeds, they also advice people
to do good deeds. Those spirit-deities also want to accumulate good
karma so that they can be reborn in higher realms or have better
karma. They try to help people in mundane ways through their
supernatural powers (all ghosts have some limited supernatural
powers).
However, we should not be superstitious about
spirit-deities. As my dharma teacher told a friend of mine
many years ago,
>Subject: Reply to your questions
>Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:41:27 +0800
>
>Hi C,
>
>I'm Li Zhu lao shi's daughter, & replying on behalf of
her.
>
>1) Those "chosen" people were possessed by some other spirits
who claimed that they were the Tua ya bei, Ji gong and so on, all
these spirits were those human beings who were very superstitious
when they were alive and like going to all these superstitious
places to learn these kind of teachings & practice them. All
these teachings would lead human to the habit of greed, darkness,
ignorance, dependent & insecurity. These spirits would always
get angry & develop hatred easily when their wishes were not
fulfilled. They would punish those "chosen" people, making them
sick or worsen their living. Therefore, a wisdom human wouldnot
believe & accept these stupid & superstitious beliefs. They
would rather choose the Bliss & Wisdom teaching which would
lead them to brightness & rightful thinking.
>
>
>2) Some temples tie white strings around many golden buddhas
statue is because it's a form of superstitious tradition which they
think the white strips would bring them brightness & luck to
them. So from here, we know that all humans like to choose the
brighter path & not the darker one. Only through Buddha
teaching, would you achieve it.
>
>
>
>Lastly, if you wish to become a monk in future, you must start
to learn the Buddha teaching now, through reading Buddhist books
& listening to the CDs or coming to our centre to join our
activities.
>
>May Buddha Be With You,
>Li Zhu lao shi