TianMing 天命: Heavenly Destiny

GuZhe 瞽者, Chapter 4

DaoGaoYiChi MoGaoYiZhang

道高一尺 魔高一丈

The devil will try to drag you ten steps down to hell as you take one step closer to heaven

—Chinese Proverb

Commentary: I think of this saying when I need self encouragement every time I encounter some significant obstacle or am facing a very difficult situation. Devils have been existed all around the world since the most ancient of times! For long periods of my life, I have been working with finding my inner joy and strength in order to stay away from devils’ threatening or temptations so that I may to cultivate my own humanity, or as we say in Daiosm, be a real human being. Even so, it is always easy to slip down into the devil’s side rather than staying true to my real human heart! I am glad that I am still choosing to stay on this long and challenging path.

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Previously, from chapter 3

The moment her gaze left my face, I sensed the grief energy of the world and made a loud crying sound, like roaring thunder that shook the building. My mother held me on her chest and soothed me, and I closed my eyes, and according to my mother, kept them mostly closed until I was two years old.

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ShengYuYouHuan 生於憂患 — Born with the Wind

The whole world had been turned upside down! Even Confucius, who had been respected as the Greatest Sage Master for over two thousand years, suddenly was marked as the Number One Bad Guy by the Long Live Chairman. I emerged from my peaceful heavenly cave shortly after those Red Guards — the “nationalist” young teenagers, girls and boys, marched to Confucius’ tomb in ShanDong 山東 province, QuFu 曲阜 city, with gunpowder and completely destroyed his temple as well as the cemetery of his family and disciples.

Figures 1-3: Riots took over the Confucius Temple and destroyed everything on site

“Trying to keep your eyes closed for the first two years in your new life will help you understand the world.” Thunder God gave me this farewell advice when I departed from his Heavenly Cave. A few days after I was born, my mother actually gave me the nickname Blindman because she thought I might be a blind baby.

After decades of my inner cultivation practices and Chinese astrology studies, I had my own understanding of the reasons I came back to this stormy world and why the Thunder God told me to keep my eyes closed for the first two years in this life. The answers are not easy to describe and I will try my best to share them with you in this article.

Shaping Destiny

The primary reason to keep my eyes closed during my first two years was that it help me understand TianMing 天命, the destiny of the world as well as my own personal destiny. With understanding, I would be better able to shape my destiny and uplift my real human being.

Yes, any existence has its own TianMing. For instance, each individual person, an event or object, a community, a society, a company, a nation, the globe as a whole, and even the universe has its own destiny. While this is true, it doesn’t mean any destiny is unchangeable. To reshape your destiny, it is important to first learn your true destiny, which is like having a clear and accurate diagnosis in order to receive the best treatment. You could learn more about destiny from my old article by clicking here: Destiny.

Can you really change your Karma?

Let’s take a closer look at my early child destiny.

Pretend to be Blind

GuZheShanTing

瞽者善聽

The blind are good at hearing

— YinFuJing 陰符經

My father returned home from another harsh fishing trip. I heard his steps through the wooden stairs up to the bedroom. Mother greeted him and showed me to him. I was bundled in such a way that only my head stuck out. The bundle was a square sheet made with handcrafted traditional blue cloth, padded with cotton. It was hand sewn by my grandmother before I was born. Please remember that poor families couldn’t afford to buy commercially made products for their daily lives at the time. I grew up with either home or village handmade products, everything from underwear shoes, all my clothes, and all our furniture.

Mother whispered to me, “Here is your uncle.” I lifted my upper eyelid to open a little slit. I saw my father’s smile, his kind and fully pockmarked face. “Your father has a tough destiny, you will only call him uncle instead of father every time you address him. This just one of the methods that he used to avoid the attacks of devils and ghosts.” Mother continued whispering and I quickly dropped my eyelids to pretend that I was blind. “There was a smallpox epidemic in this area when your father was a baby. He was infected and became very sick. Many babies died from smallpox at that time because there was no medicine available to help them. Instead, your grandparents took him to the local shaman for help. The shaman saw there were ghosts around your father and that were trying to take his life away. The shaman drove off the ghosts temporarily with talismans and chanting. He advised your grandparents that they would have to hide your father from devils and ghosts for the rest of his life. In order to do this, they would have to pretend your father was a girl, and they dressed him this way until he was 12 years old. His sister was instructed to addressed him as sister instead of brother. The shaman also emphasized that any children your father had must call him uncle instead of father. This is the reason you will adress your father as uncle.”

I listened quietly with my prenatal consciousness and thought about the strange destiny my father had, which already deeply impacted with my own destiny.

My Destiny

The first month of my life in this world was pretty quiet for me because it was traditionally YueNei 月內 (moon month), which meany I spent the whole month on bed with my mother. No others were allowed to visit except for immediate family members. My grandmother was our care taker during the month. Mother was a good story teller and she always whispered stories to me, even while I slept.

My day of 满月, Full Moon (or, completed the month) was the day after one complete moon cycle after the birth. We followed the ancient tradition by hosting a big ManYue lunch banquet with all our relatives and family friends in order to celebrate me joining the family.

Shortly after the banquet, a blind old man came to ShuChangLi, the Log Field Yard where my family lived. He was lead by a teenage boy who walked in front of him while they both held onto one end of a small bamboo stick. As was common at the time, the blindman is a professional fortune teller from another village. He climbed over the mountains through the only small hiking trail that connected our village to the outside world once in a while, in order to make a little money and gather some food donations.

My family was happy to see the blindman, who arrived after the banquet while everyone was chatting. They invited him and his assistant to come in and asked him to calculate my astrological chart. The blindman asked my mother for my birth time and then he moved his left thumb through different creases of his left fingers. After a couple of minutes, he was able to tell his assistant about my chart and asked him to write it down to give it to my mother. Mother couldn’t wait to know my destiny and asked the blindman about my future while he was still telling my basic chart to his young assistant. Even to this day, most people in China don’t understand anything about how to read and interpret an astrology chart.

Figure 4 - Earthly Branch hand mudra diagram from Calculating the Bazi by Karin Taylor Wu

The blindman answered, “Wow, this little goat (referring to my yearly animal sign) will not belong to this place. He will leave home when he is 15 years old and he will travel further and further out into the world. His body is Yin Wood, born in the Rabbit Month and the Rabbit Hour, which means he is strong and independent. There are double Martial Stars and Taiji Stars in his chart, which means he will have a stable life, either becoming a high ranking government official or a spiritual teacher. Don’t worry about his future, he will be able to work through any kind of obstacles in his life by himself.”

Curious about my childhood and how my destiny unfolded? Please wait for the next chapter - stay tuned!