Newborns

Recently there have been quite few friends who have met with unhappy situations regarding their new born. Some have met with 'confinement nanny' who are incompetent which resulted in their babies experienced 'traumatic' care during their first few weeks in physical world.

Some encountered baby that have medical complications 1-2 weeks after being born. Nothing serious, but persistent problems. 

In Taoist rituals, when a baby is being born into a family – the father of the child usually would have to do a simple praying and offerings to own ancestors as a form of notification and also request of protection for the newborn in their first month of birth.

Prayers and offerings items would include

1. 5 types of fruits
2. Local cakes and desserts
3. Vegetarian dishes
4. Paper offerings

The person can include different sets of offerings as above for all the household deities.

For Buddhist rituals, the best is to do animal liberations and dedicate the merits to the newborn baby. Due to his or her birth, lives have been spared – this will generate merits for the child and also parent to help them alleviate sickness in their first few months after birth.

Rain Rain Go Away

http://dractus-stock.deviantart.com/art/Sky-heavy-clouds-3-132253529

 Ability to request from the Heavens to stop rain or having rainfall is one of the many effects of cultivation either in Taoism, Buddhism and many other religious establishment of humanity.

My first experience of trying to affect the weather started 5 years ago. A friend from Indonesia passed me a rosary that belongs to a Al-Hikmah adept. One of the effects of the rosary is that one can affect the rain to stop or to shift rain clouds in about 3km radius.

Of course, I was very skeptical about the claim. During monsoon rain season, I would constantly test out the rosary. If it rains, I would request that the rain would stop – and after about 10 minutes the rain would automatically stop as if someone switch it off. I have tested it during heavy rain and it works as well. The limitation was the area that it affects, maximum was about 3km radius.

Then in my meditative stabilization, I would ask request from the deities, are there any methods in Taoism that I can use to stop rain. As I know, there are some talisman that we can burn and request for clear sky for a certain period of time, so important Taoist work could be carried out.

Then I started to practice on those methods. The methods that was taught to me, was to make storm clouds disappear. As a person in the internet age, I googled up whether there are similar methods globally by other religion or country. With no surprise, there was even many documented videos on Youtube.http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=making+clouds+disappear&aq=5&oq=making+clouds

It was really fun to practice, as I would see some storm clouds from afar, and then practice to make them dissipate and dissappear. When I was passed on the method, in my meditative stabilization, deities warned me that too much use of the method would cause weak health for me. As it involves projecting the heart chakra outwards onto the storm clouds. This method is the fastest, as it involves direct projection. Normally, from Taoism procedures, we would need some elaborate offerings, petition and also burning of talisman to request for good weather for a certain event.

About 1 month into the practice, I developed cough and further lead into bronchitis. There was even once in my sleep during that period, that my lungs got so congested that it feels as if I am was going to suffocate. I knew then that I have crossed the allowed threshold of my body. After through testing and knowing that it works, I have decided not to meddle with it anymore as the side effects was quite memorable till this day. A senior Taoist from another sect share with me that during his initial cultivation, he had also requested for rain to stop – for no apparent reason but just for fun. Instantly on the evening itself, he was punished by his Taoist deities to kneel in front of altar for a period of time, which he cannot stand up consciously.

As I do Buddhist practice of Smoke Offerings to pretas, local land gods, dragon kings and others, I have also notice that if it was about to rain and I started my practice – the there would be no rainfall for the whole evening even though there are heavy clouds with thunder and lightning. I have observed this many times, sometime even though it started to rain for about 1 minute and if I preservered in doing the practice, the rain would cease immediately. This is almost 95% of the time. This practice requires to be done outdoor, if it rains, then the practice cannot continue. I would attribute it to the generosity of the land, mountain, river and dragon kings for allowing the practice to complete. My friend who also do practice of Rice and Water Offerings, also experience the same effect.

Actual fish liberation day photo by 松林

In our Kam Dong San Temple recent fish liberation, it is the first time that we encountered some shower rain for our liberation activities. After we have setup the altar, I requested for the local land and mountain gods to allow our liberation activities to continue without any further rain. In which I have also requested our Kam Dong San deities to assist. 

 Actual fish liberation day photo by 松林

Then using 法 Fa, I draw 2 separate 花字 (Hua Zi) Taoist Symbol onto 2 heavy clouds on the sky. Within 10 minutes the rain stop, clouds dissipate, sky cleared and we were able to continue on with our liberation activities. Very glad that all our spiritual friends assisted on that day!

Understanding that everything happen for a reason, be it rain or sunshine – my own preference is to let nature takes it's course unless absolutely necessary.