1 – The story about Dada the monk (not his true name):
Dada is a Vietnamese with Cambodia ancestry, the son of very poor parents. He became a monk at a Cambodian temple in Soc Trang province when he was only seven years old. At about the age of 13-14, he and a fellow monk sneaked out of the pagoda and went to the village where his fellow monk came from. As the latter knew the people there very well, he came up with a scheme to get money in which Dada would act as a fortune teller. Naturally, Dada’s divination for the villagers were very accurate, and he was much admired.
Unfortunately for him, a family who had just lost a buffalo came and asked for a reading to find his animal. Dada was clueless and trying to buy himself some time, told the man he would do it the following day.
That same evening the two rogues racked their brains for a plot and couldn’t find any, they constantly worried that the whole village would find out about their scam and curse them.
That night Dada kept tossing and turning all night, thinking the worst. He started invoking all the names of the gods and goddesses from traditional folklore that he believed in, praying to the village chief spirit, the local earth god, all the genies and spirits of Hades… to save him until he was so tired and dozed off. Suddenly he dreamed he was running, his feet above the ground, crossing many uncultivated fields and finally stopped in front of a rotten tree stump. And a voice from that tree stump was heard, telling him about the stolen buffalo and its precise location.

He awoke and before he could check the information he just received, the man with the lost buffalo was already there, and pressed him for a reading. He told the man the location he had been given in his dream.

Quite unexpectedly, the owner went and recovered his lost buffalo. Dada was rewarded with some money, enough for the two mischievous young monks to buy tickets for their journey back to the temple.
Since then, he has gradually become famous for his fortune telling, giving very accurate predictions (he is still making money with fortune telling)
Old Guru question for discussion:
Old_Guru asks the readers to guess who that spirit could be and how dare him to openly compete with Sakyamuni Buddha by helping a disciple of his earn money in fortune telling, then use it to learn magic with over 90 well-known Cambodian gurus (I will tell about them later), and eventually become the Head monk of a big pagoda in Cambodia?
Is that invisible entity a good or evil fellow?

Until next time
Old_guru 08-12-08