I was very dedicated and diligent from the very beginning after I decided to take up the Mahayana Zengong practices under Zen Master Yuan-Dao. I would practice Chi Kung exercises for one hour every day. Sometimes I did that in one session. At other times I might do it in two sessions. Also I would meditate two hours a day. During a busy day I would split the meditation practice into two or three sessions. During the remaining time I would silently recite the Buddha’s name unless my work required full attention. Except for the occasional wandering thoughts I managed to be mindful of Buddha’s name at all time. Within a year I experienced very obvious improvements in my body and mind. Some times I achieved a state of total absorption in the meditation so that I had no thought of where my body was. Then I was not aware of the existence of myself and I did not know that I had work to do. Then I did not even remember that I was in meditation, etcetera.
The amazing result of the first healing One day I visited my friend, Madam Peng-Hong Si-Zhu, the director of Mu-Sheng temple in Hsinchu. By her side was her granddaughter who was crying endlessly because of severe migraine. After I made sure of the symptoms, I placed my palm on her head. To everyone’s surprise, the pain had completely diminished within three minutes. The little girl then immediately told her grandmother that she should learn this method from this uncle, me! (This event led to the establishment of the Mahayana Zengong class at Hsinchu.) At that time, I was completely surprised myself since I had never healed anyone before. Even my teacher had never taught me how to perform healing. When I returned to Taipei I asked my teacher about my healing experience. Master Yuan-Dao informed me that Mahayana Zengong does indeed have a healing method called the Wish-Fulfilling Palm Method. Additionally he said that this method had never been taught before and that he would now teach me. A few days later, I visited one of my close friends who was sick. When I saw him, he was having some kind of asthma. He was covered with three quilts but still cried out that he was very cold. With his and his wife’s consent, I placed my palm on the top of his head. Within half an hour we had to remove the three quilts since he was sweating profusely. He asked his wife to wipe him down. Now he had already begun to breathe normally. I was extremely happy. Not only had the method worked so well this first time but it also had in fact cured my friend’s serious illness. I was truly delighted that I could now cure the suffering of people around me!
From that day on, whenever I had the opportunity to use the healing method, it always worked without failure! When everyone in the office was having lunch I remembered that my colleague Mr. Huang was suffering from a toothache. I saw Mr. Huang holding his cheek with his right hand and looking down at his lunch box. So, I walked over and asked him what was bothering him. He told me that he had a serious toothache and could not eat. I asked him if he would allow me to give him some healing, to which he replied that he had never heard that I could do healing. I said that I had just learned this healing method and would be willing to try it on him if he agreed. He then agreed. I placed my palm about twenty centimeters away from his painful tooth. I started to concentrate and then emitted energy. Within three minutes, Mr. Huang said: “OK, ok, it doesn’t hurt any more!” After that he started eating his lunch and exclaimed: “Wow! What a guy! You really have some hidden talent.” Another time, one of my female colleagues was suffering from flu. Her throat was infected and she felt considerable pain even when drinking water. Mr. Huang brought her over and asked me to help her. First I entered meditative concentration and then I placed my hand in front of her throat and emitted energy to it for about five minutes. When I stopped and asked her if she was feeling better, she exclaimed, “much, much better. It only hurts a tiny bit now.” After several more instances like these, I gained confidence in my healing ability.
Difficulties in setting up a Center and accepting students After I had studied Mahayana Zengong for one year, Master Yuan-Dao instructed me to set up the Da Chueh Buddhist Hall on Hankow street in Taipei so that we could offer teachings to the general public. At that time we adopted the name Cultural and Economic Association of the Mahayana Bodhi Academic Society of China, India, Burma and Cambodia. In the beginning we faced many difficulties. On the one hand we didn’t have any teaching experience. On the other, it was difficult to convince people to have faith in the teachings unless the individual was sick and was cured right away by our healing. By the way, the healing rate was not one hundred percent because it depends on a number of factors, such as skepticism, cooperation, condition of the illness, and karmic influences. Furthermore, if I had a bad day, the healing effect would not be as perfect as it ought to be. In addition to all these factors, the whole operation was purely on a donation basis. We found that we were in the red almost every month for the first year. Since all classes were free and we lacked teaching experience, we found that the student turnover rate was very high. The number of students in a class was typically about twenty at that time. On the average, less than thirty percent of the students attended six out of a total of twelve classes over a period of three months. One year later, we found that if we charged a nominal fee, three thousand New Taiwan Dollars for the three month course, the attendance rate was much higher. We were still operating in the red. However, we had over twenty students who could perform remote healing. In various events where the Cultural and Economic Association of the Mahayana Bodhi Academic Society participated, we would ask our students to attend and perform free remote healing for the audience. The performance was very well received by the public. We then began to hold public seminars in which our students also demonstrated remote healing. I would also enter the samadhi of Da Zi Zai Light Emanation during which I would empower the entire audience. Each time I did that, over fifty percent of the audience experienced it consciously. Under proper circumstances it would reach more than seventy percent, and sometimes one hundred percent. My confidence in the Mahayana Zengong teachings were strengthened after each seminar presentation. Many people would ask “Why is it that remote healing can be achieved during Zen Meditation concentration?” If we want to have a complete answer I believe that we need to consult with Life Sciences professionals and Parapsychology specialists. Ever since Deng Xiao-Ping liberalized mainland Chinese policies in 1978, many Traditional Chinese doctors, Western medical doctors, Life Sciences professionals, physicists, chemists, and engineers had been working together to investigate Chi Kung from a scientific methodological approach. The effort involved the father of mainland China’s aerospace technology, Mr. Qian Xue-Shen. It might be interesting to point out that mainland China also included the Buddhist meditation in the field of this research effort. In 1988 I organized a team of sixteen members to attend the First International Medical Qi Gong Exchange Conference in Beijing, China. Following our successful performance at that Conference, Mahayana Zengong became known worldwide. Afterwards, we modified the method of our seminar presentation. The number of our students rose dramatically since then.
(Translator’s note: This article first appeared in the Buddhist Newsweek, no. 127, March 16, 1992.)
(c) USMZAS 1998