Can cultivate both Taoism and Buddhism together?

When friends and relatives visit my home, the are often puzzled by 2 dominant altars that are located in my altar area. Primarily I have Taoist altar of 六壬 Liu Ren 風火院 Feng Huo Yuan and 伏英館 Fu Ying Guan. My Buddhist altar has many Tibetan Buddhist Statues.

Some who are outspoken will sometimes ask "How come you have 2 altars, will you get confuse?" Often, I just replied smilingly "Don't worry, the one who is praying is not confuse" and did not explain further or inform them how two can come together.

Well now, I am going to write a bit more on how these 2 can combine together. My initial lineage transmission is from Taoist Feng Huo Yuan. Then I have got interested into Buddhism and took refuge under Gelugpa lineage in Tibetan Buddhism from Tibetan Gurus. I have also took refuge with Gurus who have Nyingma and also Sakya lineage transmission.

Why didn't you give up on Taoism since you have already took refuge in Tibetan Buddhism? One of the most important teachings in Tibetan Buddhism is Guru Devotion. My first Guru are all the Deities in Taoism, without them I would not have discovered and took serious upon Buddhism. It is through their guidance, that I took refuge in Triple Jewels.

Deities in Taoism practice are actually all my Dharma protectors, if you look from a Buddhist perspective. Dharma protectors help cultivators overcome obstacles in life so that they can practice better without mundane disturbance of daily life. And I have a lot of Dharma protectors that have 'spiritual response' towards me. Spiritual response is a term used in Tibetan Buddhism for a person who have succeed in their practice with either Vajras, Boddhisattvas or Buddhas (elaboration of spiritual response need a whole new article to get into detail).

Therefore in our Taoist Temple 金洞山 Kam Dong San, everytime when we do distribute wealth enhancing talismans (招財符） or benefactors talisman（貴人符）. I have always followed by giving and explaining about merits, karma and the need to do some form of donations after they have obtain a spiritual response through the talisman.

Primary role of Deities in Taoism is to create more merits in their own cultivation. When we setup a temple for all the deities, public and members that have obstacles in life can and would come to ask for assistance from the Deities. If it is matter of righteousness or against evil, the Deities would act swiftly in solving those problems. 

When it pertains to wealth matters, and asking for more wealth then Deities would evaluate on what is are the merits of the person and their karmic 'accounts'. When wealth is granted in Taoism, it is through converting of ones merit. Therefore, when we obtain more wealth through spiritual means, 99% of the time it is for you to gather even more merits with those wealth. Therefore it is crucial to maintain the momentum in an upward spiral, instead of spending all your merits from previous life. Money is also a form of energy, it cannot be created or destroyed - but it can be transform from one form to the other.

Hence, Taoist Deities allowed a person to request for help in life's daily problems. When we obtained the help, then we have to do more meritorious activity with our expanded financial capabilities. That is being congruent in our request and also our cultivation as a Taoist.

As a Buddhist, I have to do my daily practice that was passed down to me by my Gurus. Keeping strong Guru Devotion and Boddhisattva Vows. Help other sentient beings whenever possible, with 道法 Tao Fa, I can help more people and also brings them to a path of cultivation.

So back to the question, can I cultivate both Taoism and Buddhism together? Of course, if you can keep your vow, devotion, practice and promise. Otherwise you are threading into deep water....

Tao Fa 道法. You are wishing or you really want it?

This year, I have started to take in disciples that have affinity to learn Tao Fa 道法. As our temple foundation principle is based on non-money demands for Taoist process, most of the disciples have to go through strict selection process. Therefore not many pass the selection process.

In Feng Shui career to date, I have about 400 students globally. Also not many when base on officially started teaching about 6 years ago.

Learning Tao Fa is different from those that are learning Feng Shui, Ba Zi or Qi Men Dun Jia. Because in teaching Taoist Fa, disciples ultimately have to rise up to the Deities expectation. Of course as a teacher, I too have my expectations on them.

Thinking back to the days, when I started learning Tao Fa – all my friend informed me was that the temple in Ipoh (about 120km from Penang), will be having their deity celebration. My friend Eddie said “It will be a good opportunity for you to meet the Master, will you come to Ipoh?” Without any hesitation, in less than a day's notice, I drove all the way from Penang to Ipoh in the evening. When I arrived at the temple during Jin Ying Zu Shi 金英祖師 celebration， all the master did was look at me. He told me that he will not go into meditative stabilization to seek approval for my discipleship, because he already had some alcohol.

3 Main Deities of Kam Dong San - this is their original statues in Ipoh, Malaysia.

With that, I was already very glad that I had a chance to meet and at least enquire the possibility. And because of the late night, I have to stay in Ipoh for a night before driving back to Penang the next morning. After I was initiated, every Friday evening I would drive to Ipoh to meet with him and learn, and about 10:30pm at night – I would drive back to Penang again. This goes on for about 6 months or so. Never in my mind, did I view it as a chore or hassle because of the need to travel in the night to learn Tao Fa.

During the weekdays, I would need to do meditation on my own. Requirements on me was to meditate in the wee hours of the morning, 3am-4am every day. I just do it without any excuses whatsover. Bearing in mind, that when I was initiated, one of the prime directive in using Tao Fa is that I must not take any form of monetary reward for it. So all these work and effort that ultimately cannot bring any form of money or career into my life. Thinking back, most likely it is a past life imprint, for to have so much interest and passion for something you cannot earn money with.

Anyhow, my disciples now have it very much easier than what I went through. For one, they do not have to travel and secondly they touch base with me almost everyday either online or through the phone.

They also have a big place to gather in Kam Dong San Temple, plus we have so many activities going on each month. Possibility to learn is almost endless. Everything is provided for them, and as a Master, I am not holding anything back.

Kam Dong San Temple, Penang.

My only regret is that, after taking in disciples, I have finally understood and experienced that Tao Fa is not for everyone. I am also in  agreement with previous masters that why in the olden days, our lineage ancestors have so much restrictions and also extremely difficult selection process. As the person using real Tao Fa have to shoulder the responsibility of not only themselves but also of nature and the Tao.

If you do not have enough merits in your life, even if a master agree to teach you, undoubtely you will have many obstacles that appear such as event or people diverting you away from your learning. Some people will have their bad habits magnified in times that they need to have disciplines in their life.

It is in these times, the power of the will is one of the way for the person to overcome their learning obstacles. They will also need to do a lot of merit earning activities so that they will be able to advance their study.

You will be face with the true reality of whether you are just wishing you can learn Tao Fa? or you really want to learn Tao Fa? Your answer is not how nice you can answer BUT it is in your ACTION.

This posting is dedicated to all my current and future disciples of Tao Fa.

Grandma, we are glad that you like your new blouse

During the lunar 7^th month, I was in Bangkok with temple members doing coffin donation charity for ourselves and also on behalf of temple members and their family. Penny (one of our close friend and temple member) have casually mentioned to us that she dreamt of her late grandma. I have casually told her that maybe her grandma needed some provision on the other side.

When we got back to Penang, it was close to end of the lunar 7^th Month, at that time suddenly I've also got some hints and decided to ask Penny whether she had bought provision to burn for her grandma.

Within the day, she went to the joss sticks shop and bought all the necessary provisions including new paper clothes, gold papers, powders, rebirth mantra papers etc in preparation to offer for her grandma.

Penny asked me whether anything she should recite or say when burning those offerings for her grandma because the ancestral tablet was not with her in Penang. I have just told her that to think about her grandma when she burn those offerings, and added that why don't you ask Peter to help you out. Her husband, Peter is a disciple of our Kam Dong San Temple.

Therefore the next morning after our conversation, Peter helped her burn those offerings by requesting our Temple Deities to help in the confirmed delivery to her grandma.

Peter posted on my Taoist Disciple page the same day after burning the offering.

After the offering, Penny did wonder whether her grandma did receive it. She told me that she didnt dreamt of her grandma anymore.

Anyhow, about 2 months after, Penny's dad dreamt of her grandma wearing a beautiful floral blouse. Penny's dad is also a Taoist cultivator. Her parent asked around the family on whether anyone burn any offering to their grandma. But nobody have burn anything matching the description of what his dad saw in the dream.

Then Penny realized that the blouse description matches exactly one of the blouse which she offered to her grandma, of course her dad have no idea what she burned for her grandma as the offering was done in her own home.

Peter relayed to me last week, that when he burn the offering and request the help of our deities, he did it with 100% trust and faith that they will help him. Faith and trust in Kam Dong San deities have again show the efficacy of all the deities in helping members and disciple.

Is there another world after we move on? I will leave that for you to decide.....

Cheng Huang and Kam Dong San Deities, I bow with full respect

3 days ago, I received a call from a temple member. She was very happy that finally her shop have been sold.

She own the shop-lot for more than 12 years in a building that does not have any crowd traffic. She has been trying to sell the shop ever since 5 years ago. I have tried to negotiate with the local earth gods in the area to help her sell off her unit. After the negotiation, she did have a surge of people coming to look at her shop-lot but did not turn into a sale.

Her shop is also hard to sell, because the developer had failed to obtain a strata title for their own individual units after all these years. And she refuse to pay the maintenance to the management due to this. As she was involved in court case with them. Finally they decide to sue her personally. She went to Kam Dong San Temple and request from Cheng Huang (City God) to help her out. She requested that Cheng Huang took up her case and help her solve big problems to become small problems and if small problems to become neutral. She also requested Kam Dong San Main Deities to help her.

Within 2 weeks, the shop that she tried to sell off for more than 5 years, suddenly have someone who is interested and immediately paid her a deposit for her shop-lot. Not only that, they paid her above market price for her unit. All in a time that she needed the money to settle with the management of the building.

I am very glad that it turn out wonderfully for her, as she is a long time supporter of our temple. Once again, Cheng Huang office works with super efficiency! I bow fully with great respect! 城隍和金洞山众位仙师大显威灵！

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.

Understanding Taoist Talisman

In spiritual Taoism, most often you will see paper talisman being used, commonly called FU 符.

Talisman in Taoism is an official way to communicate with different deities and spirits. Of course other cultures would use different methods such as chanting a specific verse or word, commonly known as mantra. Because of length of Chinese civilization, our culture already have characters since 2500BC to represent written communication. Therefore in Taoism, written words are used as the main form of communication medium with the higher deities.

If you look at different countries in South East Asia such as Cambodia, their main communication medium with deities and spirits is through chanting of mantras. Some Thai monks and Thai occult masters would usually make their journey up to Cambodia to learn different types of magic. It is said that Khmer language is more suitable for magic as compared to the Thai language. Most of the katha (Thai language for mantra) that are used today are still mainly in Khmer language.

Bomoh (Malay language for Malay Shaman) would use the words and alphabets in the Quran to help heal those who are afflicted with spiritual disturbance. And the list goes on for different cultures with their different methods.

For some, they would find it hard to believe or puzzled on how that a simple drawing on a yellow piece of paper be able to help spiritually. The criteria and preparation to draw a talisman is not as simple as your normal art or calligraphy hobby. Far far from what you expect.

1st Criteria

The person must be initiated into a Taoist lineage. If the person is not initiated in a Taoist lineage, the talisman is just a piece of art or nice calligraphy. Initiation is to open up the communication channel between the person and the Deities of a specific Taoist Sect.

2nd Criteria

The person must have received a collection of talisman that has being passed down through the generations after they are initiated and qualified to use the talisman.

After the above 2 criteria is fulfilled, the person can only be considered potentially qualified to use talisman. Why only potential? Because the person would then need to ingest more than 100 types of talisman - ranging from protection, summon, suppress, cast off, balancing and also controlling types of talisman into their body upon qualifying to use talisman. 

After which every month they would need to ingest about 60 talisman to maintain and build up their spiritual qi reserve.

If the person is a bit lazy or likes to procrastinate, very soon they would not have the required spiritual reserve do to the various rituals. Just like a computer, no matter how good your CPU is (meaning the lineage transmission) if you have small size RAM, you cannot perform complex task and are easily drained. 

Like any other religion, we are just the medium - in talisman execution however we have more freedom to deal and do spiritual process as compared to other types of spiritual Taoist as the rituals and process are usually locked and governed by the Deities.

Upon qualifying to draw the talisman, then comes the procedures of drawing the talisman.

Preparation:

1. Brush, water, ink, cinnabar must all be cleanse spiritually before they can be use to draw talisman.

2. Each piece of paper that is going to be used must be cleanse off through a specific mantra.

Actual Drawing:

1. Before drawing, the person have to request the deities to descend their energy on to the person  by chanting specific mantra of the lineage. This is to inform the deities, that one of the disciple is now requesting the energy to do a spiritual process.

1. Each specific symbol on the talisman HEAD, BODY and BELT have a specific code and mantra that must be chanted while drawing the talisman. For example, when you see nice ribbon on the talisman, actually it has a specifc chant that the person must do when drawing it. It is similar to unlocking a specific door using a specific key code. Without this, the talisman is a useless piece of imitation.

2. After completing the talisman, then we would need to write different codes either in request or summoning layer upon layer on to the 符但 NERVE (black dot on the bottom)  of the talisman. The NERVE is the soul of the talisman, if mistakes are done, it is also render useless. Therefore absolute concentration is needed, which also is one of the factor to determines how effective the talisman when it is being used. When all is done, then the drawing process is considered finish.

Officiating and Seal of Talisman:

1. When the drawing is complete, then we would need to put the deity seal 神印 onto the talisman. Again the person need request the deities energy to descend and then would chant specific mantra to seal different sections of the talisman.

Reporting and Energizing 敕符:

1. When all above is complete, the person will then have to take the talisman to the front of the deity and do the official reporting verbally through specific edicts. It is to inform the deities and the spiritual world that a specific talisman is being drawn. 

2. After the reporting procedure, then the person would need to request the deities to descend the energy through them to energize the talisman at hand. 

After all the above process, then only the talisman can be used or ingest. Hence, it is not as simple you may have expected. 

Conventional talisman that is available on books or yearly Chinese almanac will not have the effect of a hand drawn talisman. By one simple reason alone, as those talisman have not gone through the official required process to call it a Talisman. Some even more outrageous as to ask the public to print out directly from the web!

I find it very peculiar and sad, when some of my Western students of Feng Shui or Qi Men Dun Jia decide to attend classes on how to draw talisman. There was even an incident last year, that one of my student pass me a Fu De Zheng Shen talisman 福德正神 in one of my teaching tour in Europe as he has attended the How to Draw Talisman Class. I do not know whether to laugh or cry, in the end I just accept it politely as a calligraphy effort by him.

So next time, when you request a talisman or being handed a talisman from a Taoist practitioner, learn to appreciate the work that it took to hand you the 'physical blessing' of the Deities.