PureInsight | June 20, 2005
[PureInsight.org] Lisa is a friend of mine. She is a very emotional and sentimental woman. One day she brought her boyfriend to my home to have him hypnotized. She loves her boyfriend very much, but she feels unhappy a lot of times because the relationship has been really tough on her. She knows that I can perform hypnosis so she hoped that hypnosis might reveal the true cause of obstacles in their relationship. Her boyfriend agreed because he was interested in hypnosis.
At first we were surprised to find out that once he was hypnotized he started snoring. I thought he might be tired from work, so I decided to let him take a nap before I started asking him questions. To our surprise, he was not really asleep. He began to tell us things without me asking him anything. Under hypnosis, he visited one of his previous lives when he was a scholar in Mount Changbai in China during the Qing Dynasty. He was a frail scholar from a family that had fallen into obscurity and poverty. He made a living as a woodsman and from moonlighting by writing letters for the villagers on the mountains. Although his family had become obscure, he had never forgotten the expectation of his ancestors --- all the men in their family must pass the national qualification examination for government officials! He had passed the regional qualification examination, and was now preparing to go to the capital city for the national qualification examination. When Lisa's boyfriend visited his previous life, he was selling a bundle of firewood to a wealthy woman in the village as he tried to put together money for his trip to the capital city.
During the hypnosis, he repeatedly complained, "That wealthy woman was very stingy. She only gave me a small number of coins for a large bundle of firewood." However, the wealthy woman was the only person in the entire village who could afford to buy firewood from him. In order to come up with money for the trip, he had no choice but to accept the unreasonable price. After one and half a year of hard labor, he finally saved enough money for the trip to take the national qualification examination.
Several days later, he came down from Mount Changbai. It was dawn when he reached the foot of Changbai and saw a small tavern on the side of the road. He was very glad to find a tavern to stay overnight. After he entered the shabby tavern, he saw under the dim oil lamp a burly woman who could almost pass as a man. She was sweeping the floor when he came in. There was no other customer in the tavern. The woman was just about to close the tavern because there were no customers that night. She was delighted to finally see a customer. She put away the broom and invited him to sit down. She quickly brought him hot tea and a hot towel. The scholar was very grateful. After a few days of the trip, he felt tired and hungry. In a short while, the woman produced a plate of hot steamy stuffed buns and put it on the table. That would be his dinner. They started chitchatting and introduced themselves to each other. The scholar learned that the burly woman has been a widow for many years and had been running the tavern on her own. She was known as Mrs. Wang. Mrs. Wang learned that he was a scholar from Mount Changbai and was on his way to the capital city to attend the national qualification examination. Mrs. Wang told the scholar to take a few days of rest at her tavern to restore his strength before he continued his trip. The scholar suddenly detected a strange taste of the stuffing in the buns. He couldn't tell what type of meat was in the stuffing. However, he was afraid to question it so he told Mrs. Wang that he was too full to eat more. Mrs. Wang took the rest of the buns back to the kitchen. He then bid her goodnight and retired to his room.
In the middle of the night, he heard a noise. When he sat up in his bed, he saw that Mrs. Wang had already entered his room. She had an oil lamp in one hand and a sharp butcher knife in the other while approaching his bed. He had never been mugged before and was terribly frightened. He repeatedly pleaded, "I am just a poor scholar. I have no money. Please spare my life!" Mrs. Wang put down the oil lamp on the table and told him, "Do not fear. I won't hurt you. I am a very lonely woman who has been running the tavern by myself for many years. I have become terribly lonesome. I would like to ask you to marry and run the tavern with me."
"No!" the scholar kept shaking his head. "No! I cannot marry you! I am just a penniless scholar. It is my only ambition to attend the national qualification examination in the capital city. I must not be late for the examination. It is the expectation of my family for me to pass the examination." Having been rejected, Mrs. Wang gave him a fierce look and sneered, "Penniless scholar, how did you like tonight's stuffed buns?" The scholar remembered the strange taste of the meat, and confessed that he found the taste to be strange. Mrs. Wang smiled and told him, "If you refuse to have sex with me tonight, you will become the stuffing tomorrow night." The scholar had no choice but to ask for her mercy and ask for more time to consider.
He waited for opportunities to escape, but each time he tried to escape Mrs. Wang came after him with a butcher knife and caught him. He was forced to sleep with Mrs. Wang, but there was not a moment that went by that he did not think of escaping this murderous, burly woman. Meanwhile, he repeatedly told Mrs. Wang stories from the books that illustrate the heavenly law that all bad deeds will be ultimately punished. He told Mrs. Wang that if she did not stop murdering people, she would be condemned to hell when she died. Mrs. Wang admired his education and his morality. She also felt guilty about robbing him of his chance to attend the national qualification examination and thus completely destroying his chance to have a successful career as a government official. She slowly accepted the scholar's moral preaching and decided to stop killing people. A few years later, they left the tavern and moved to Yangzhou in southern China to establish a new business.
During the Qing Dynasty, Yangzhou was an important hub of land and water traffic between northern and southern China. It was also a city of commerce and culture. After Emperor Shengzu (or Kangxi) and Emperor Gaozong (or Qianlong) made many inspection tours to Yangzhou, it reached an unprecedented level of prosperity. Many businessmen from all over the country established a branch business in Yangzhou. Therefore, there are many different varieties of styles of businesses in Yangzhou. The scholar and Mrs. Wang opened a restaurant of northern style cooking on the bank of the Huai River. They both worked hard and the business went very well. Their restaurant attracted a lot of travelers from the north. Although Mrs. Wang had stopped killing for many years, the scholar still feared her very much. Mrs. Wang had never stopped feeling insecure since day one and felt the scholar might leave her anytime. Besides, she was now haunted by the memories of her past murders and felt guilty and afraid of karmic retribution constantly.
Men's relationships are truly predestined. A few years later, the wealthy but stingy woman from Mount Changbai also came to Yangzhou and came to dine at their restaurant. The scholar and the wealthy woman were shocked to meet each other in Yangzhou. She asked, "You should have gone to the capital city to attend the national qualification examination. Why are you running a restaurant in Yangzhou?" She demanded to know what had happened to him after he left Mount Changbai. The scholar burst into tears as he told her the plight and fear he had to live under for many years. The wealthy woman felt sorry for him and decided to help him flee from the burly and murderous Mrs. Wang. However, each attempt at escape failed. Eventually the scholar became tired of escaping. Mrs. Wang gave up on winning the scholar's love. The wealthy woman also gave up after many failed efforts to help the scholar escape from Mrs. Wang. Surprisingly, the three of them eventually became friends. Malevolent relationships between the three of them turned into benevolent ones. The wealthy woman dined at their restaurant almost every night and had long heartfelt chats with them. She confessed that she had always felt her life to be meaningless although she was wealthy. Mrs. Wang thought she was hopeless because she would certainly go straight to the hell after having killed a lot of men. The scholar had given up his pursuit of fame and career a long time ago. After a lot of discussions, the three of them decided to go to Mount Wutai and spend the rest of their lives cultivating in a Buddhist temple and repaying their sins for a better next life.
Finally, Lisa's boyfriend said that he saw the wealthy woman chanting Buddhist scripture, Mrs. Wang refilling all the oil lamps in front of the Buddha statues, and the scholar with his head shaved wearing a monk's robe. He had become a Buddhist monk. The three of them became very diligent cultivators for the rest of their lives.
In this life, the three of them were born in Mainland China and Taiwan, but they have all come to New York and have become good friends. In 1998, the three of them learned Falun Gong (or Falun Buddha Fa) and have become cultivators again. Mrs. Wang became Lisa in the present life; the scholar became Lisa's boyfriend; and I was the wealthy woman from the Qing Dynasty.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/5/2/32179.html
