MY AUNT’S SPIRIT POSSESSION

(Quỷ nhập- Câu chuyện ôn tập lời dạy của Tổ, Thầy by Bạch Hạc on Wed Jul 31, 2013, translated by Ngocxuan – edited by Xiaobaiyun)

A story that confirms Grandmaster’s principle of exorcism

My Respect to Grandmaster and Teacher,
Greetings to Religious Brother Dong Quan

In 2004, my aunt was possessed. All her side of the family were Protestants and believed only in the Heavenly Father (God). They also believed that when people die they will go to Paradise to join Him. Her husband and children were, however, atheists. Although a Protestant, my aunt had a statue of Guan Gong (a Chinese god) on the family altar.
One Sunday, coming home from church, she was possessed by a ghost. Her immediate family, being atheists and having plenty of money, brought her to various famous doctors, foreign hospitals, and Bien Hoa Psychiatric Hospital. No one could find anything wrong with her and it was concluded that she was of perfectly sound body and mind. Fortunately, there was a doctor who believed in spirituality, and he suggested that they should explore this avenue to see if that could help her.

Listening to his advice, the family invited a priest over to perform an exorcism.
The priest declared, “She is possessed by the devil (Satan). I will now remove him,” and started to spray some holy water onto my aunt, holding a cross in front of her face and putting the holy bible on the top of her head. After reciting a prayer, he loudly ordered: “In the name of the Heavenly Father, I command you, Satan, to leave this body of the Lord’s sheep!”
There was a devilish glint in my aunt’s eyes followed by high pitched ghostly laughter, and then suddenly… BAM!
A powerful slap on the priest’s face sent him spinning a few times before hitting his head on the table edge, bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose. Before exiting from my aunt’s body, the devil shrieked, “How much merit do you have for you to give me orders in the name of the Lord! How dare you, you insolent priest!”
Fortunately, there were some people from the church accompanying the priest who picked him up and carried his corpse-like body away. That was a truly scary scene.
The second one who came was a shaman, who commanded a fee of 30,000,000 Vietnamese Dong (about $1500 U.S., which was considered to be quite costly compared to the usual fees for such services at that time). This shaman was attired in full ritual robes and his methods were very traditional. According to his initial assessment, using fingers divination, he knew that the ghost had become a ferocious goblin because of his long time spiritual cultivation, therefore the family would have to abstain from meat for three days.
He set up an altar to perform his magic, putting on it all sorts of statues, including the Monkey King and Nezha (Chinese deities in Buddhist mythology), surrounded by yantras (magic formula) written on yellow papers with red ink, a wooden sword covered with charms, and a prayer book filled with Chinese and Sanskrit characters. In short the scene was very similar to the Hong Kong exorcism films seen on television.

The shaman waved his sword around expertly to invoke the goblin, who immediately took over my aunt’s body; his rolled up eyes and the sound of his gnashing teeth was a creepy and hair-raising experience for everyone present.
The shaman pointed the sword at the goblin, chanted some mantras, stamped his feet and shouted, “Get out! Get out now!”
The goblin burst into contemptuous laughter, saying, “Do you believe that I will break that sword of yours in half and use it to spank your bottom? You dirt-bag! Lu Ban himself (a Taoist Master) can’t even scare me, let alone a quack like you!”
The goblin then jumped up onto the altar and started smashing everything on it, including the spiritual paraphernalia, tearing up all the yantras and prayer books, then grabbed the wooden sword and in one powerful move broke it in half, which he used to spank the shaman repeatedly, making loud noises.
I felt sorry for the poor man but even more so for myself. I had a hard time restraining myself from laughing, because I did not want to be reprimanded by the elders, but it was hilarious watching the spirit chase the shaman around. It reminded me a scene from the cartoon series Tom and Jerry, where the bulldog was chasing the cat.

The third mystic practitioner coming to my aunt’s help was known for his kindness. He did not charge anyone money when he examined them, performed acupuncture, or gave them Chinese herbs.
When he did not get any reaction from the Spirit after performing all kinds of mudra signs he took out a stingray’s whip, which he said was left to him by his master, and that its whipping would annihilate the spirit forever without any chance of liberation or reincarnation. Seeing the whip, the spirit became even more violent. The shaman charged toward the spirit, and they grappled and fought each other until the shamans’ whip was ripped to pieces. The latter realized he did not have the power to deal with this demon and left quickly after telling the family to look for another more powerful shaman.

The fourth helper was a venerable monk. All of my aunt’s family went to the temple to look for him. As soon as the family reached the temple’s gate, the spirit, through my aunt, started to wail and refused to enter, saying that there were some scary looking heavenly guards there.
It took a few members of the family to succeed in dragging my aunt (with the spirit inside her) into the main temple hall. Once there, the spirit immediately prostrated before the Buddhas and bowed repeatedly, all the while crying heartily. The monk performed a mudra, looking at the spirit as if he was talking to him, and then turned and said to everyone, “It is fate that your family has come here. I will help you only if the Buddhas agree.”

As soon as the monk finished his sentence, the spirit cried even louder, one of his hands clawing at the ground and the other thumping his chest, banging his head on the ground with his eyes rolled up, and drooling from his mouth.
The whole family was pale with fear. They dropped to their knees, crying and praying, “Our family has never believed in Heaven and Earth, Deities or Buddha. This is our first time coming to a temple and prostrating before the Buddhas. We sincerely beg you to have pity on our mother and wife and help her overcome this illness. We promise from now on to believe in the Buddha and the Deities, to do good deeds and to abstain from meat on the 1st, 15th and 30th of the lunar calendar. Please have pity and save us. ” The whole family prostrated to the Buddhas about a hundred times before the spirit finally stopped wailing.

The monk then prostrated before the Buddhas and said aloud, to let everyone hear what he was saying, “Namo Amitabbha Buddha. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your compassion in saving the world.” He then turned to the spirit and said, “Please have some compassion and forgive this woman. Her family has truly repented and now believes in the Deities. The Gods are waiting to lead you on the cultivation path.” At that instant, my aunt’s body started to shake briskly and the spirit left.
This whole event was witnessed by a sizable audience of different social status and religious beliefs. From then on, my aunt’s family, although still being Protestants, frequently visited the temples to pay respect to the Deities and Buddhas.

Just one further thing: when all the above events came to an end, the monk told my father privately, “The spirit who possessed the lady that day was an ancestor named …. He achieved enlightenment by spiritual cultivation and had asked the high Deities for permission to come back and help to educate his family about spiritual matters.”

I gratefully prostrate before Grandmaster and Master. All the meanings and principles behind this story would have forever remained a big question mark for me if I had not encountered Grandmaster’s precious Dharma and Teachings.

Respectfully submitted,
Your disciple