(From Book 177: Stories About Seeing Deities and Ghosts)

I have mentioned in the past:

In the celestial heavenly realms, the most wealthy are the Four Great Heavenly Kings.

In the ocean realm, the most wealthy are the Dragon Kings.

On land, the most wealthy are the mountain gods.

These are dedicated to the wealth of the material world. There is also real wealth in the “invisible world.” Beyond the material world, the most wealthy are the “Tao,” The Bhutatathata,” “Nirvana,” “The Wisdom of Buddha” (the prajna of the six paramita).

One time during my consultations, an unusual story came forth:

A man named Jiang had come to me for a consultation about his future. After divining for him, I said to him, “You are going to prosper.”

“Prosper?”

“You will become very rich.”

A group of men who had accompanied him burst out laughing upon hearing this news. The truth was that Mr. Jiang was a young lumberman with very little education and from a poor family. He could rely only on his own labour to make a living cutting timber in the mountain forests. He did not earn very much.

I predicted that he was going to be rich, so everyone thought this was very amusing.

Jiang asked me, “When will I become rich?”

I divined and replied, “In five years.”

I was very positive about this. I said to Mr. Jiang, “In five years, you will definitely be rich. How do I know? Because I saw a great tree under which there was a land god. The land god has followed you. He stretched out his five fingers and nodded to me.”

Mr. Jiang looked very serious.

The others with him again burst out in loud laughter.

Then Mr. Jiang told me a story: He didn’t have much education. He was only a lumberman. His pay was not very much and could only support his day-to-day living expenses. There were even times when he had had to go into debt. If someone had told him that he was going to be rich, it would have been very hard for him to imagine.

But a land god from under a great tree was now following him. It seemed to suggest something very meaningful. He told me that the residents of a town at the foot of a mountain had asked him to cut down several huge trees. They had hired him because of his experience.

That night, he had had a dream. He dreamt about an old man, wearing the garments of a land god. The old man had pointed to one of the large trees and said, “Please don’t cut down this tree. Please wrap a red cloth around it and at the base of the tree, please build a small temple for the land god.”

The old man had then said, “I will protect you and bless you.”

The next morning, when he awakened from his dream, he had set out to cut down the trees. He cut down all of the trees, except for the great tree he had seen in his dream. He pointed to this great tree and said to the townspeople, “This tree has a god; it cannot be cut down. It must be wrapped with a red cloth, and at the base of it, a small temple must be built for the land god.”

(Continued in next issue)

《本文出自師尊第177冊文集「見神見鬼記」文章「山神土地」》