Thursday, March 25, 2010

Negative Side of Art of Fortune Telling

There are many people now who are attarcted to the art of Feng Shui. Once people learn Feng Shui, they will naturally learn Bazi too. That's the art of fortune telling based on the date and hour of birth of the person. There are many positive aspects of fortune telling. If done correctly, you could possibly direct a person to much fulfilment in life. Perhaps you will be more certain of which career you should be pursuing, and what are the pitfalls you should watch out for.

I know one tarot reader who read the "fortune" of a young lady. Based on the cards on display, he saw that one baby of hers will die or perhaps had died. But he was careful not to jump to conclusions. Instead he advised her that she should take care of her health for her pregnancy. After careful and wise probings, the lady revealed to him that he had indeed had a baby that died after a few months pregnancy. And thankfully, this tarot reader didnot ask for thousands of dollars in return for "washing away sins" or anything like that. I think that this tarot reader is much wiser than a lot of other fortune tellers.

The problem with Bazi reading (like palm reading, face reading and others) is that it gives the person whom it is read a feeling of his/her destiny being etched permanently. That's what most Bazi readers will tell you, i.e. you can't change your destiny. But then, those unscrupulous readers will then offer "extra services" to their clients for "purify" away those bad fortunes that they have predicted. And these "extra services" often are costly. I think it is irresponsible for such fortune tellers to be telling a happy couple (with no affairs at all at that time) that one of them will be having affairs and that he/she can purify away such misfortune by paying him thousands of dollars. He would tell the couple he has a Thai master or he knows of some Thai monks who can look into past lives and with some prayers he can eliminate the potential affair. Lots of couples have fallen for that and have parted with thousands of dollars to such unscrupulous fortune tellers. I know of men whose wives had never had any doubt on them before, would thereafter start worrying if their husbands will cheat on the wives. And the wives continue to give their husbands headache after headache and not a shadow of any mistress can be seen...yet.

And those people with mistresses, they often failed to see that coming. Take a peron I know for instance. Her husband was caught having an affair. When she came to me to voice her frustrations, I asked her if she had ever had her fortune read based on her date of birth or palms, and she confirmed that her fortune teller told her that she will not suffer from her spouse having affairs.

Then there was another case of a young girl who was told that her current boyfriend would not be her future husband but would be parting from her soon. Her daughter was told that she will meet another guy (much older than her) who is rich but will not have a smooth lovey-dovey life with her. The good news is, according to the fortune teller, is that this "future husband" of hers will die young and she will inherit his wealth. Due to this fortune telling, Guess what was the consequence of that "fortune telling"? The mother, who was there with her daughter when the fortune was read, advised her daughter not to be so committed to her current boyfriend after that. What do you think about that? For me, this is pure silliness. It's like trying to make the fortune teller's "story" come true. It's ridiculous!

Then I know one person told my mother that she will be lucky this year and will win the lottery or 4-Digit numbers. My poor mother believed her and spend a lot of money buying numbers. If I know who give her that advice, I will sure pay him/her a visit and give him/her a piece of my mind. But I will have to take the risk of adding some negative karma as a result of any anger for I will sure give him a good scolding.

Face reading is even worse. Those with crooked nose are said to be dishonest, manipulative and cannot be trusted. I think I have read that somewhere. There are feng shui masters who had even publish this in newspapers and magazines. But yet, they have the cheek to put in a caveat to advise people not to be judgemental. Now, how do we not be judgemental when you have already warned us about people with crooked nose? Just imagine how people with crooked nose will feel. They will surely feel humiliated. And worse, if human resource managers in every corporation were to know about this and believe it. Then people with crooked nose will never get a decent job.

Look, even if those "affairs" and "split with current boyfriend" are in the destiny charts, we know that in Buddhism nothing is inherently there. The same is true for our destiny. Destiny is not just made up of previous karma, but fresh new causes and condition that keep coming together and changing all the time. It is never carved in steel. There is no such thing as a destiny book where all our lives' paths are written. It's a fiction. A myth. Even if there is, we will realise that the writings on the book keeps on changing every moment. So, our destiny's constantly changing. The palm and time of birth only captures a snapshot of our destiny at a particular point in time. It's like a Balance Sheet. If you know accounting, a Balance Sheet captures a snapshot of the asset and liabilities of the company on a certain date. The next day's Balance Sheet will look different. Same with our destiny. It keeps on changing based on fresh causes and conditions that are very complicated and inter-dependent. Never fall for fatalistic comments by irresponsible or unwise people. They are unwise because they could have given better dharma advice to these people so that they could make their own decisions on a better platform.

There are many other examples that can be cited here that tell of irresponsible fortune tellers who not only not helping people but end up ruining the very lives they are suppsoed to help. Isn't that a pity? More negative karma created for themselves, probably.

Remember this - OUR DESTINY IS ALWAYS IN OUR OWN HANDS...I don't mean it's those lines on your palms. But I mean, DON'T LET FORTUNE TELLING DECIDE 100%FOR US, ...You can consider what was said by the fortune teller ...BUT YOU SHOULD DECIDE BASE ON A SOUNDER PLATFORM, i.e. on WISDOM and COMPASSION... and definitely, LOADS OF COMMON SENSE.

8 comments:

Bodhiactivity said...

Forever, spirituality or things on the mystic side will be used to play on human weakness - our hopes and fears. That's why so many people are irritated or unbelieving or suspicious when u bring up topics on spirituality. They associate it with superstition and hocus-pocus.
Although there is such thing as accurate fortune telling, and also such things as destiny, i personally agree with you. To go to such people often brings more trouble than it solves.
Other kind of problematic fortune telling comes from certain religious figures for eg when they say you are the reincarnation of some great figure from the past. That has ruined quite a few peoples' life in my circle of acquaintance. I feel that such nonsense is totally not helpful. If those people are who they are, i'm sure they'd be able to function in that capacity quite naturally without whipping up so much excitement and expectations and of course, pride and a sense of 'specialness'.

Bodhiactivity said...

if you can write a very clear essay with good reasoning on this, i will post it up on the buddhist forums. i think people shd be educated.

Mahabodhiyana said...

I can't seem to get the paragraphs to separate...not sure why.

Anyway, just to inform you, there are fengshui masters who even offer me free service to help me solve issues. But I rather rely on the Buddhist methods/teachings. And it's not that I don't believe in fengshui or Bazi. You get what I mean. One day when I have more time, perhaps I will write it better as you sugegsted.

:)

Bodhiactivity said...

i dun know why, your blog topics always vibe with something happening in my life at that moment. call it coincidence perhaps. same for this post. maybe later i'd repost back with new and re-oriented perspectives.

Mahabodhiyana said...

Just a note. I'll edit the post from time to time.

Bodhiactivity said...

thanks for rewriting, have posted your article on forum. Most ppl agree with what u say. Hope your effort reeducate those who are having wrong understanding...

about the events in my life... it has cleared up quite okay. I just want to say something, greed is always the problem. Whether it is materialistic greed, greed for physical gratification, or greed for spiritual things eg signs, feedback, powers.. or even greed for understanding/knowledge or curiosity... it kills the cat... all these are manifestations of greed and can lead one into serious trouble. For all who are on the spiritual track, please constantly monitor your own motivation and be on the lookout for greed in disguise.

Bodhiactivity said...

someone said this:

Let me share with you guys my story. Before I became a practicing Buddhist, I went to seek fortune telling once. It cost me $80 and the fortune teller was very accurate in telling my past. He told me at certain age, I would lose a big amount of money (破财). I was quite worried and wondering what could have made me lost money.

One day when I went to renew my fixed deposit, I was persuaded by the banker to buy Lehman mini bonds and other structured finance products (this was before Lehman brothers collapsed). He told me the basic was guaranteed and I really listened to him and invested. When I went home, one of my family member asked about my fixed deposit and luckily she asked. Immediately she brought me to cancel it because she said it was not secured compared with normal fixed deposit. I was angry with her because it was so embarrassing to cancel on the very day, I bought it just 15 minutes ago!

Lehman brothers collapsed on the same year that the fortune teller predicted that I would lose a big sum of money. The year he predicted I would lose money had long past and nothing had happened. Thus, I am sure he was talking about the Lehman brothers thingy.

I believe it was that I heeded Buddha's advice to accumulate enough merits to change my future predictions.

Thus, I advise practicing Buddhists not to seek fortune tellling because the future is in our hands. Anyway as I mentioned before, true fortune teller will not entertain real practicing Buddhists because they are unable to see our future.

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