When Guilt Becomes a 'Spirit'

I met a young woman at a Buddhist center, which she had been to many times to seek help for spirit disturbance. The members there had chanted for her, but it didn’t help, so they asked if I could chant for her. (I suppose they believed my chanting would be more powerful.)

I decided to ask her for specifics about the disturbance, and she said it was like blaming her. I then asked her if she did anything different before this thing started. She said, “I attended a Guanyin retreat.”

“During that retreat, did you do anything that you felt guilty about?” “Yes.”

“What was it?” “I flirted with a monk.”

“And he…” “He flirted back.”

“Then after the retreat you felt very bad about what you did.” “Yes.”

“You criticized yourself.” “Yes.”

“You did that a lot, until it couldn’t stop.” “Yes.”

“So, you tried to push it away.” “Yes.”

“But still it happened, except that it felt like it was somebody else doing it.” “Yes.”

“So, you understand the problem now?” She nodded.

“What you need to do now is to reclaim that voice. Accept it as it is. Don’t reject it.” She nodded.

“What is done is done. It’s over. You can’t change that. There’s no point blaming yourself for it.” She nodded.

So, I didn’t chant for her at all. Instead, I went along with my intuition. I asked her for more information and guided her to understand what was happening. With that, her problem was solved. It turned out that the 'spirit' disturbing her was her own creation.

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