The hailstorm and the naga illness

I waited out in the cave while the hailstorm was destroying the village. After the hailstorm, I met few people in the village who were not affected by the hailstorm. They explained that it was the Tibetan amulets they purchased, which protected them. Thus, I concluded that it was not a natural disaster but some dark energy, the negative qi (energy). This unknown negative qi even affected my cave that is located in higher altitude than the village. It got flooded from the following heavy rain. This is something that must be prevented in the future. I came up with two possible ways. First, the ritualists or people with ritualistic skill must find a reason why this hailstorm happened. Someone could have upset the local spirit or prayed to local deity with bad intension or negative qi. The ritualists must filter the unresponsive gossips and plan for preventive rituals. Secondly, what people did, including me, was a reactive action to the tragic events and what we need to do is a preventive action. We cannot always blame others. Blaming others only detriments the suffering of our lives from karmic effect. Ultimately, we must improve in every aspect. According to Buddha’s teaching, life is Duhkha, suffering. Since we are in Samsara, the cycle of birth and rebirth, we can conclude that we are living in a cycle of suffering. The best we can do is, therefore, to improve ourselves and minimize our ignorance. This hailstorm is not the last challenge that this village and people will face. We can do better and minimize our loss in the future.

In the end, it is certainly my fault and ignorance for my loss. I not only did not buy the protective amulets but also I did not prepare for the hailstorm at all. As a result, I lost all my cave paintings and I have produced only half of my healing skills and secondary art skill. In order to reflect on my behavior, I decided to donate 5 units of gold, which I could have bought protective Tibetan amulets, to repair the village bridge. I could go help to rebuild the bridge however I decided to contribute my time to help others with what I can do best as a doctor. Since most of the people in the village did not buy the protective amulets, there are many who were affected by the hailstorm. Along with the help of ritualists, I first helped people by reminding of positive faith in them and then, I used a medicinal herbs that I have been collecting near my cave to cure the physical damages.

While people in my village are busy with fixing and rebuilding, one of our traders who came back from other villages, told us a story that the village next to ours got afflicted by a naga illness. He also explained that the naga illness is extremely dangerous mental disease, which was cursed by deity. The people who are stricken by the naga illness must have done something wrong. Therefore, the deity caused the naga illness on them due to their bad karma. Most of our village people were scared that we could also affected by the illness and raised their voice to ignore the ill neighbors in order to prevent the negative vibe or qi to come to our village. However, some ritualists and doctors disagree with them. They argue that it is our selfish consciousness, which will cause the negative karma and therefore, naga illness. We all know that it is the cycle of suffering that we live in. I know that it is less suffering if we help each other. Conclusively, I had to gathered a group of doctors and ritualists to help these people.

When our group came to the neighbor village, people were severely affected by the naga illness. The doctors immediately began to make rinchen rilbu pills, which will add positive qi to the ill. The naga illness is a form of mental disorder thus optimism towards healing and great care with love are the two key factors to switch the negative faith to positive ones. In order to approach to the sickness in every way, ritualists burned the incense for the olfactory sense and chanted mantras for the auditory sense. Finally, people were started to get better. Once the naga illness started to fade out enough, we took them to the quite area to play the rituals of self-reflection and forgiveness. Their desire and bad karma caused them ill. The ritual that we made them to do was to empty out their minds and to neutralize their mental state. However, they still have much to reflect on themselves in order to create good karma.

For our group of doctors and ritualists to come to this village cost us 10 healing resources and time that help our own. Also, it was demanding work to care all the ill people in other village. Technically, it was an extra suffering that we chose to do. However, it did not hurt us or bring back the negative qi to our village. It was rather healing to heal others. I am not sure if this great feeling is karmic effect or not but I was happy to see people getting better because of our small action.