There was a legendary saying that Min Xiao-gen had had a disciple and let’s just call him Zhang. Practising Taoism under his Master for years, Zhang was not interested in any other practising exercises but practised hard and drilled diligently in cultivating the Celestial Eye only. Being able to see objects nocturnally and see through wall to observe the scene after practising for three years, Zhang then said farewell to his Master and went downhill. Even though Zhang had attained the Celestial Eye, he never did anything good with it. He merely used it to watch others’ (women’s) secrets in their boudoirs but failed to behave discreetly after that. He was fond of publicizing what he had peeped.

Hence, he was already infamous among the villagers in less than a year. He fancied a married woman who was actually his cousin’s wife at the first sight. When the woman’s husband had left the country for business, Zhang spied on her pose with his Celestial Eye. Once he got a glimpse of her taking a shower and found that she had a vermillion mole on her private part. Seeing this, Zhang was obviously thrilled and an idea suddenly struck him. He waited for the returning of his cousin to the village and attempted to make friends with him by inviting him for drinks at the village inn frequently.

One day, when they were getting a little tipsy, Zhang rambled incoherently and spoke of physiognomy. Pretending to make a slip of the tongue, Zhang told his cousin that he would probably make a fortune because a married woman who had a vermillion mole on her private part would essentially bring good luck to her husband. Waited until his cousin wanted to question closely, he prevaricated instead. He paid the bill hastily and left the wine bar at once. From then on, he avoided meeting his cousin any more.

Thus, the matter became so complicated that his cousin finally divorced his wife. Finding his proper place (to describe one who is greatly pleased), Zhang requested a matchmaker to arrange his marriage with the cousin’s wife after some time. Of course, the cousin’s wife was well aware of what was going on. She did know that Zhang had destroyed her marriage, however, she had no idea how Zhang got to know that there was a vermillion mole on her private part. Immediately, she enticed her parents to undertake the proposed marriage.

Zhang sent a marriage sedan to escort the bride (his cousin’s wife) to his home and a big wedding feast was held in less than a month’s time. After getting married, the couple talked about everything naturally. Soon the cousin’s wife learned that Zhang had practised Celestial Eye. Though she had hated Zhang for making use of stratagem in those days, she forgave him because they were husband and wife after all. Besides, she understood that Zhang used stratagem for the sake of loving her. A year after their marriage, they always felt that they were subjected to the criticism of the villagers so that there was no room for them in the village. Discussing the matter over, the couple decided to sell their real estates and simply moved to the city. Zhang then hung the sign (worked) as a Taoist priest that helped people to carry out Zhai Zhan (a kind of memorial service in Taoism that aims at praying for blessings or releasing souls from purgatory) and Guan Wang (a kind of witchcraft that calls for souls of the deceased).

As he had possessed certain mini-miraculous power, he often took advantage of his Celestial Eye to peek the secrets and then told (his clients) that they were orders from the dead. This made many people believe that his Guan Wang Shu (ways are employed to make one’s spirit free itself from one’s body so that one can go to the hell to search for one’s dead relatives) was very outstanding and news passed quickly from mouth to mouth. Soon, Zhang’s reputation was greatly boosted and his business developed into a roaring one. If he could cultivate his mind and nurtured his character henceforth, he would really live a life like a fairy.

However, his true nature was being lewd and as soon as he had fame and wealth, there was an outbreak of his defect --- he relied on his Celestial Eye to satisfy his greed for sex again. He kept on doing so but became more and more daring that his remarried wife was eventually insufferable. She had ever heard that those who cultivated Celestial Eye should avoid filthy dirty things. She then put some menstrual blood covertly on Zhang’s Celestial Eye while he was fast asleep.

Without knowing the story inside, Zhang blindly sought carnal pleasure as before. When he was carrying out Zhai Zhan one day, he looked at other women’s privacy and secrets in their boudoirs with his Celestial Eye again. It happened that it was raining and blowing hard at that time when suddenly there was a loud thunderbolt that struck Zhang to death. The area where the bolt fired at Zhang was exactly his ajna. Learning the incident afterwards, Min Xiao-gen could not help getting very grievous. Hence, when he wrote his book,《Making the Secrets Known泄天機》, he admonished earnestly and tirelessly that practitioners of Dan Gong (Chinese alchemy for the purification of one’s spirit and body) should ditch their seven emotions and six carnal desires. Nevertheless, this koan (case) of penalizing lewdness by thunderbolt was widely known among the Taoists in Qing dynasty.

A year passed and nothing special occurred. Who knew that half a year later her husband would have a head-on collision with a big truck as expected? Her husband died of his injuries and this was exactly what she had seen some years ago. Moreover, she saw her daughter being abandoned by her boyfriend, saw her son smoke weed (marijuana), saw her mum suffer from cancer, … . Eventually, all the incidents happened one by one as she had foreseen. Moreover, she saw her husband have an affair, saw another husband go bankruptcy, saw the other husband steal her money for gambling, … . At last, everything happened as she had seen and therefore she had had six marriages in total.

In fact, she was not satisfied with her present husband because she could see that he would lose his faithfulness to her in this marriage in future. Ting-chih Wang then asked Nancy how she had got her extraordinary talents. Nancy said that her father had died when she was ten and she lived in the slums of Hawaii with her mum as well as her brothers and sisters. On one rainy day, her mum told her to go out to buy some oil. When she was entering her home with the full bottle of oil in hand and trying to bend down to take off her shoes, she suddenly slipped and the bottle of oil was broken. She was so scared that she went picking up the oil bottle barefoot involuntarily. However, she went into a skid by the oil on the floor that made her body slide towards the stairs and her head hit exactly on the handrail of the stairs. She was in a coma immediately after the strike.

By the time when she regained consciousness, she saw that her aunt’s home was flooded and her aunt was crying bitterly on a sampan. She was taken aback but then found that she was actually lying on a bed. She went off the bed quickly to look for her mum. She said at the sight of her mother, “That’s not good. Aunt’s home was washed away by the heavy rain.” Her mum gave her a slap and scolded, “You needn’t curse your aunt. Don’t get the idea that I won’t beat you by saying so!” Then she suffered a good beating until she dared not mention her aunt’s incident any more.

Yet, it rained heavily in Hawaii a few months later and her aunt’s home was really washed at sixes and sevens. At this time, her mum recalled what she had said days ago, she then interrogated her carefully. Nancy also uttered some more future scenes that she had seen. One of them was about her brother who would soon catch an acute disease and died. Hearing this, her mum was so frightened that she hurriedly covered her mouth.

However, a series of unfortunate matters did take place one after another and this made her mum very sad but she had to believe that her daughter had really got Celestial Eye after the fall. Gradually, even their neighbours knew that Nancy had had Celestial Eye. Soon, there came a Hawaiian wizard who would like to accept Nancy as his apprentice. During the early 60s, wizards in Hawaii were still important figures because when the American government first tried to take Hawaii as one of their states, she was afraid that the natives there would remain unconvinced and thus she contacted the wizards whom helped her to pacify the feelings of the natives.

Knowing that a wizard would like to take Nancy in hand, Nancy’s family was eager to accept the offer since they were poor. Wizards in Hawaii were divided into two categories in which one that specialized in ‘Shark works’ to harm people was classified as evil whereas the other group was regarded as good. They gave medical advice to people, prayed for blessings, released dead souls and conducted fortune-telling. Nancy’s Master belonged to the good category and hence she was able to learn all the wizardry.

Having been in the profession of a wizard for more than twenty years, Nancy had been very capable of making money and she owned five to six houses for rent collection. Besides, she was always accompanied by a large retinue wherever she went. She could be considered as a respectable witch in Hawaii. Nevertheless, among those who wanted to follow her footsteps desperately, none of them was able to understand her pain.

Ting-chih Wang then asked, “How will my future prospects be?  What do you see?” She replied that she could not see anything because there were two ‘spirits’ interfering her. All she was able to see was a blank space with bright light. Ting-chih Wang asked, “Do you think you’ll keep on learning Buddhism as well as practising Vajrayana or not?”

She said she could not feel it either because she was just like sitting in a spacecraft all of a sudden and her body seemed to be turned upside down that made her unable to feel anything. On the contrary, Ting-chih Wang could feel that Nancy would not concentrate herself in learning Buddhism. Under her earnest request at that moment, Ting-chih Wang taught her the cultivation of ‘Brow Chakra’ practice tentatively. Nancy thanked a million when she left but she came to bid farewell merely after three months. “Why?” she was asked. She answered, “The Celestial Eye gradually becomes ineffective and there’s a great drop in income!”

‘Concerning the prophecy of Ting-chih Wang’
Nancy did not want to continue learning Buddhism somewhere along the way, yet she dared to come and say goodbye. Such behaviour was regarded as her respect to Ting-chih Wang. As a result, she was not being interrogated then, “When you first came, you asked for practice to be rid of the Celestial Eye so as to be exempted from sufferings. Now it’s beginning to work but why do you complain that your income is decreasing instead?” It is actually meaningless to ask such a question. As a matter of fact, those who are used to having the benefits from extraordinary talents will often find it very difficult to escape from the gateway of fame and fortune.

After about one more month, Nancy phoned unexpectedly saying that she had seen the future of Ting-chih Wang, “A female follower has given a tranquil house to Ting-chih Wang as a present. The house is located in the suburbs with plenty of flowers and plants as well as fruit trees planted in the garden. There’s a waterfall at the back of the house where Ting-chih Wang is found sitting in front of the waterfall expounding doctrines.”

Having heard what Nancy said, Ting-chih Wang could not help laughing for he has never accepted followers’ properties. Furthermore, basically no more followers will dare to get in touch with Ting-chih Wang nowadays as he has stopped to play even Divination any more. In addition to his bad temper, who will still like to be the suckers of his followers? In fact, half of what Nancy has detected is actually Ting-chih Wang’s ideals.

Ting-chih Wang has really wanted to live in a place where there are lots of flourishing flowers, plants and trees as well as a waterfall so that he can stay quietly at home behind closed doors to spend his remaining years happily. Nancy might have probably detected Ting-chih Wang’s intentions and trimmings were added to exaggerate the story when such a phone call was made to play up to him. In conclusion, Divyacaksus (an instantaneous view of anything anywhere in the form-realm) as well as Paracitta-jnana (an ability to know the thoughts in others’ minds.) and so on are no more than just responsiveness only.

People may have their brains affected because of serious illnesses or tumbles and pouncing and so forth. The unfortunate ones will have their brains damaged while the lucky ones will have exploited the potentials of their brains. Our brains really have the potential to be responsive. Sometimes when we say ‘a sudden inspiration’, it is actually the occasional activation of the potentials of the brain. For people with extraordinary talents, they can activate the potentials of their brains more frequently. Min Xiao-gen could practise the ajna and achieved the Celestial Eye under the same principle.

Our Rinpoche said with emotion, “People who lack sincerity will receive ‘evil concentration’ and in that case the Celestial Eye isn’t Celestial Eye any longer. Whatever seen are all visions, illusions or illusory images from one’s mind; what goes around comes around. Those who have achieved the Celestial Eye will neither show it off nor lay it ostentatiously. Only people who don’t understand their own chakras (they are thought to be energy points in the subtle body and seven of them are considered to be the most important ones), nadis (they are believed to channels in the subtle body through which the life force moves) and bindu (it means ‘point’ or ‘dot’ and is considered the point at which creation begins and may become unity) nor delve deeply into them (it is an exception for one who has attained Buddhahood) will always use their Celestial Eye from time to time, actually … … (it was only explained to more than 20 disciples at that time).”