How to Prepare Taoist Altar for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year 2015 is just around the corner. During this period, many people would be thinking on how to clean their altar to celebrate the coming new year.

Cleaning a Taoist altar, there are some guidelines in which I  will explain on this posting.

The first question that people usually ask me is that, do we need to select a date to clean the altar?
There are no specific date needed. If you are particular, the best time to clean would be on the 14th day of the 12th Lunar Month 十二月十四 (2 Feb 2015). After cleaning then you can do so offering on the next day which is the 15th day of the 12th Lunar Month.

What are the materials to prepare?

1. Clean NEW paint brush, or a paint brush that is totally dedicated to clean only your altar. The brush you are not going to use it to paint! but to brush off the incense residue and also accumulated dust.

2. Prepare 5 different colours flower.

3. Clean NEW cloth

4. Clean NEW bucket to contain cleaning water.

How to clean.

Clean your hands thoroughly with soap and wipe it dry before touching anything on the altar.

1. Remove all incense base sticks  (red ones) from the urn and put it into a container - as you are supposed to burn all the base sticks once you clear them.

1. Use the clean brush, dust off all the incense residue if any from your statue. However, you cannot dust the Face of the statue, the rest is ok.

Tai Sui General Statues from blog.joshfahler.net

2. After dusting off the statue(S) then use the brush to dust off remaining residue from the altar table.

3. Use the 5 different colours flower, place it onto the clean bucket fill it with half cold and half boiling water. So it will be lukewarm. Use the water and the clean new cloth, soak the cloth into the lukewarm flower water and then squeeze it dry and wipe the altar table.

4. There is no need to wipe the statue or the incense urn. They are suppose to be dry as long as they are on the altar. Therefore having a brush to dust it off is crucial.

5. After you have completed the cleaning and wiping process. Arrange all things back into order, meaning arranging the offering cups etc.

After all the arrangement is done back into place, then you can offer incense (3 sticks) on all the available incense urns.

Oh Yes Babies !!

Sam and his wife first visit to Kam Dong San Temple was 2 years ago. They were introduced by my temple committee and disciple Peter.

They consulted spiritually on how the deities could help them for successful conceiving and pregnancy. After their second visit, they approached Peter to help them asked me, whether I can go to their apartment and do Feng Shui audit. I gladly oblige and all my consulting fees was donated back to the temple, because the medium highlighted that there was something wrong with their house Feng Shui.

After I have audited their house, adviced them on some changes. Both Sam and his wife continue to participate in many of our temple activities. Spiritually I have also adviced both of them to read the Ksitigarbha Sutras many times to dedicate to their un-successful pregnancy attempt.

Sam and his wife were also very diligent in participating in our monthly fish liberation. He and his wife continue to chant many Great Compassionate Dharani, Heart Sutras everyday. He also did his Sang Offering consistently.

Sam also ended up become temple disciple and then also my Tao Fa disciple in 2014. Great news came when his wife Hooi Yee was pregnant with twins! The receiving of 2015 Tai Sui General Ceremony also coincided with the twin babies full moon.

Everyone in Kam Dong San is very happy and great rejoice to the new addition to Sam's family. Twin baby boy and girl. Their names was also selected by our main Kam Dong San Deities.

Kam Dong San Temple : www.facebook.com/kdspg

The Trick to Money is Having Some - Part 2 (Final)

This is the 2^nd part of the Trick To Money is Having Some. For part 2, I am going to emphasise on how to seek spiritual help in obtaining wealth. This will only work, if you are completely immerse with my part 1 posting http://yinyangjournal.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-trick-to-money-is-having-some-part-1.html

Taoist Method.

1. Earth God at Home/Office 地神
   Earth God in Taoist system of belief represents, the local earth deities. Slightly higher than spirits, they are bound to the area, place or home. Every home/area or office has its own assigned local earth deities. If you already have a Earth God in your home/office, the practice is to regularly do proper offering.
   Proper means regular offering of tea and water. 1^st and 15^th day of the Lunar Month, make more elaborate offering of fruits. You can also regularly make gold paper offering. Common offerings of biscuits, sweets and chocolates are also encouraged.
   Some homes that I have visited, they have Earth God setup, but no water offering, no tea offering. The urns are messy, cobwebs around. They only thing they do is just offer incense when ever they are free. This is a sure way to get problems from Earth bound deities. Because unlike higher Deities, they still have a lot attachments.

Earth Deities of Kam Dong San Temple (www.facebook.com/kdspg)

1. God of Wealth 財神
   
   Some will have consecrated God of Wealth in their home/office, in this case we are mentioning 趙公明元帥. You can also visit temple that have this Deity. The best time is during his celebration which is on 5^th day of the 1^st Lunar Month. Bring offerings such as fruits, biscuits, chocolates, juices etc. Remember don't be stingy, if you have read part 1 posting then you will know what is the mind set to have. Request for blessings and also for good ideas! Why good ideas? 1 idea can make you millions.
   
   Don't request for 4D or lottery, that is hard to come by, because it will need a strong luck on your side to fulfilled it.

Vajrayana Method.

In Buddhism the basic core idea of wealth, is the ability to detach from it. Not get more of attachment! However as mentioned in part 1, when your motivation is different, then wealth is still greed, but greed with a higher purpose, which is to help others. If your sole motivation to practice any wealth method in Vajrayana for your own selfish ego, no matter how dedicated you are, it won't have any results.

1. Sang Offering/Smoke Offering
   
   Sang offering is a practice where the practitioner gathers dry food such as grains, sugars, rice, medicine, incense and blend it into powder form. Then the powder is burn and the smoke aroma becomes an offering to all higher deities and karmic debtors. This particular offering is especially helpful in clearing obstacles in your life. As manifestation of obstacles are usually your karmic debtors who are in the way of what ever that you may try to accomplish. Some Sang offering practice requires empowerment from a Lama or Rinpoche while some does not require empowerment.
2. Jambhala Practice
   
   Whenever there is a Rinpoche in town offering Jambhala Initiation, whether it is White, Yellow, Black,Green or Red Jambhala you will see throngs of people lining up. Many have the mistaken notion that once you get the initiation, wealth will be upon you.
   
   To practice any Jambhalas, first few requirements are highlighted in part 1. Without the correct mindset, no result can be obtain from your practice. However if you are practicing for the well beings of others, Jambhala practice will be very swift.

General Method.

1. Do donation. Donation? you may ask, you may also be saying that you don't have any to give. The reason you are reading this posting is how to get money, not give it away. Because you are not clear of the rules, which is why you have problems getting it. Give or donate to a charity that can benefit lots of people immediately. Why immediately, because the idea is to gather worldly merits that can help in your financial prosperity. Keep in mind however that it is a lower motivaton to donate and expect something in return from the universe. The highest motivation would be donate without any notion of expectation. Until you reach there, this is the way to start.
   
   
   
2. Practice Liberation. Liberation of animals especially fishes, helps you to gather merits or worldly merits fast. This is because through life liberation, essentially you are helping the animals/fishes to extend their life without fear. This type of merits would help your tremendously if you have a lot of karmic debtors.

If you are totally down and out, without anything to give, then give your time and your attention to a charity organization. There is always something you can contribute, for you to slowly gather some forms of merits. When you have more then you can start to practice on the methods that I have recommended here. The idea is to start, or else you can never go to where you want by standing still.

A Gift of Thanks....

Happy 2015 ! May all you benevolent wishes come true for 2015 !

Just before Christmas 2014, our temple Kam Dong San (www.facebook.com/kdspg) receive a gift from our renovation contractor Mr. Saw

He was in charge for much of our temple renovation. When I met Mr. Saw about a month back, he was asking me whether how much did our temple charge for spiritual help. I told him we did not charge any amount, usually any token of appreciation/donation is accepted.

He then relayed to me that his daughter's newly renovated apartment in the Macallum area had some spiritual disturbance. He told me when the daughter came back from KL (Kuala Lumpur) and stayed in her new apartment with some friends, they will hear strange noise in the kitchen at night, like people open and shut the kitchen door. The daughter's friend even saw some shadow floating around in the area of the apartment. After this incident, his daughter refuse to stay in the newly renovated apartment.

Mr Saw, then asked me whether I need to visit the site to confirm. I just asked him to come up to KDS Temple to offer some incense to all deities before we can help him.

The following week, he came with his wife, I have prepared 2 talisman for him. 1 to burn in the middle of the home, the other to stick on the front main door.  He further asked me if there is big problem. I assured him that it was just some spirit passing by, nothing to worry about.

I can see from his face that he was actually quite skeptical, because I did not give him anything else. Just 2 piece of yellow paper!

Mr Saw did mentioned to me during one of our conversations when he was renovating our temple , in which during his younger days he was quite interested in Taoism especially Tao Fa. Therefore he had known many of our 'pioneer' Master in this field. He was very curious young man and where ever there are known Tao Fa Master he would always visit their temple. Sadly however many of those legendary figures in Tao Fa have already move on from this plane.

When we received this trolley gift from him, it was due to his gratitude on the help we have rendered him. His daughter's apartment no longer had strange noises, the daughter now have no problem staying in the apartment whenever she is back in Penang. And he now sees the effect of the deities protection through the simple 2 piece of yellow paper.