Ghost? Christianity vs. Buddhism (Part 2)

Ghost? A dialog among Buddhist, Catholic and Christian (Simple Translation of Article)

16th September 2010 -sin chew jit poh hall-

I attended a talk about "ghost" hosted at Sin Chew Jit Poh Hall. It was a dialog between Buddhist, Chatolic and Christian. Every speaker was given about 15~20 minutes to give their opinion regarding this issue. After all four speakers, the session was opened to the floor for Q&A.

The speaker squence was:
1) Venerable Hui Xuan, Fo Guang Shan (Buddha's Light Mountain)
2) Priest Huang DaHua, Kuala Lumpur Catholic Church
3) Pastor Enoch Lam, Hong Kong
4) Venerable Chang Hui, Fa Gu Shan (Dharma Drum Mountain)

Ghost. An all time favorite topic.

Here's the translation of the posted article.

About 1200 turned up for the dialog hosted by at Sin Chew Jit Poh Hall, looking forward to listen to the idea about ghost by four religious representatives. The seats were full and many sat on the floor as well as stood through the whole talk.

Pastor Enoch Lam sharing his thoughts on exorcism

"Science is unable to evidently proof the existence of ghost, it is just the matter of believing it or not." Being known as "Hong Kong-made Exorcist", Pastor Enoch Lam, shared that it is not easy to be possessed by demon or experience paranormal activity. However, there are two groups of people who will invite these events are the people who, (1) initiates contact with the spiritual realm, and (2) those who are borned with supernatural power. He also pointed out that most of the "demon-possesed" case examples are caused by schizophrenia.

Father Huang: "Demon are evil spirits"

Father Huang expressed that he was afraid of ghost during his childhood. Many of us never experienced any paranormal activities but we are afraid of their existence. Parents usually use "ghost" to scare their children, thus planted the seed of fear in to their mind. In Catholicism, not every priest can perform exorcism. Only priests who are certified by the church may do so.

Venerable Hui Xuan: Away from evil thoughts, away from evil spiritual disturbance

Venerable Hui Xuan expressed that in Buddhism, "Ghost" is considered as one of the sentient beings in the six domains in the desire realm. After death, based on ones karma, those with more demerits will be carried by their sins into the three (out of six) lower realm (Animal Realm, Preta or ghost Realm and Hell Realm).

According to Venerable Hui Xian, buddhists should treat all sentient beings with compassion. Rather than exorcizing ghost or looking down on them, buddhists should accept them and lend a helping hand for them to leave their lower realm and to be reborn in a better realm. "For what is in your mind, is what you will encounter". Venerable Hui Xian thinks that encountering paranormal activity relates to the character and habit of a person. As long we are able to change our poor conduct and evil mindset, we will be free from the disturbance of bad spirits.

Venerable Chang Hui: Buddhism rituals are held to liberate suffering beings

Venerable Chang Hui was very compassionate towards sentient beings in the Preta Realm. She mentioned that the deceased who are very attached to this world will be guided by their memories and habits, lingers around as ghost. We should give them a helping hand to enable them to be reborn into a better realm. Thus, many buddhism rituals are held, out of compassion, to relieve their suffering. These rituals are not pure superstition.

Venerable Chang Hui also stated that every religion has their way of dealing with these paranormal activities, whether it is exocizing or lending a helping hand to relieve suffering, it is up to the belief of individuals.

(I hope I am able to translate the article with minimum distortion)

-Proper fatih-