Deepest Gratitude to Namo Shakyamuni Buddha!
Deepest Gratitude to the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva!
Deepest Gratitude to all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Dharma Protectors!
Deepest Gratitude to Master Jun Hong Lu!
Good afternoon to all Buddhist friends.
I’m deeply grateful to be given this opportunity to share my story about my drug-fuelled young adulthood after falling prey to bad company at a tender age of 18. Completely sucked into the abyss, I was ignorant to the reverberations that awaited me, some of which continue to haunt me till these days even though 20 odd years have come to pass.
In the true sense of the word, my life is a wreck. As the youngest and the only son in a traditional Chinese family, I took advantage of my ‘status’ to make ridiculous demands on my parents and sisters. Oftentimes, my sisters and parents had to be accountable for my wrongdoings. As a result, this had shaped me in an undesirable way and unsurprisingly, character-wise, I was defiant and atrocious to say the least.
At a tender age of 16, disregarding fervent objections from my parents and sisters, and longing for freedom, I made my way to Kuala Lumpur – the capital city of Malaysia – in 2000 to work, unknowingly setting foot on the darkest journey of my life. I befriended some bad hats. This echoes what Master Lu once said, “You attract what your mind thinks”. Desiring pleasure and instant gratification, night clubs soon became my hangout joints after work.
One day, out of the blue, an acquaintance said, “Hey, check this out and it will give you an awesome feeling”. Curious and heedless, I popped the pills. For the first time, I became so high that I felt detached from reality and was hooked from that very moment onward. This marked the beginning of my love affair with methamphetamine, a powerful and highly-addictive drug that affects the central nervous system, and ecstasy, a synthetic drug with stimulant and hallucinogenic effects.
Over time, I craved a higher dose in order to get the same high. To feed the insatiable inner demons, my gang of friends and I would do anything to have that ‘rush’ again. We stole, cheated and harmed others, including our loved ones. I was binge drinking and womanising, and arm-twisted one of them to abort our child conceived out of wedlock.
I rubbed shoulders with gangsters, criminals and evil-minded people, who prey on the vulnerable and unsuspecting. I was simply behaving like an animal and had no conscience whatsoever.
As the Chinese saying goes, “Paper cannot wrap up fire”, I was unable to hide my dark secrets from my family and close friends, they started to lose faith in me and distance themselves. Feeling cursed, self-absorbed and yet, unable to extricate myself from my afflictions, oftentimes, it felt like I was on the verge of going insane. This came at a time when some of the drug junkies that I hangout with perished, as drugs drove them to their wits’ end and they opted to end their young lives thinking that death would cease their misery once and for all.
Many of the drug peddlers that I had had dealings with similarly could not escape the clutches of karma. Their lives or that of their loved ones also came to a tragic end for a host of reasons, clearly resonating what Master Lu says, “In this Age of Dharma Decline, retribution is served speedily”.
I have to count my blessings for pulling it through. That said, years of drug-taking has taken a toll on my health. I suffered from urinary and faecal incontinence, and extreme gastrointestinal pain. Till these days, I am still on medication to suppress many of my health issues. How foolish I was to have exchanged those fleeting fun with all sorts of physical ailments and negative karma that I have to come to terms with in the future. So apt is the saying, “Bodhisattvas fear causes, sentient beings fear effects”.
In 2010, I made my way to Singapore to reset my life. But, as the saying goes, “Leopards don’t change their spots”, almost immediately, I reverted to my old ways of hanging out at night clubs and casinos. Unable to control my nocturnal lifestyle and gambling impulses, I ended up completely broke and sleeping on the streets as all my income was funnelled to feed my vices. To put it bluntly, my animalistic behaviour took control over me for the next 10 years!
As fate would have it, things started to unravel in 2020 when I borrowed from the loan sharks who subsequently used various hard tactics to trap and recruit me as their runners. In dire need of quick buck, I caved in to their demands and was tasked to remit cash loans to innumerable unknown accounts. This did not last long – two months into the ‘job’, the bank froze my bank accounts for investigations. I was called upon by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to give an account and my admission of guilt was documented there and then. That was June 2020. Despite two decades of living a fearless life, this time, I was shaken to the core. The officer in charge told me to wait for three months for them to decide their next course of action.
Emotionally drained and having nowhere to turn to, one day, by chance, a testimony of someone, who shared the same fate as me, popped up on Facebook. Awed by his story, especially the application of the Three Golden Buddhist Practices – performing recitation, making great vows and releasing captive lives – that helped resolve his predicament, without hesitation, I contacted Singapore Guan Yin Citta. This marked the pivotal point of my life.
The volunteer, who attended to me, encouraged me to apply the Three Golden Buddhist practices and beseech for Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s succour. Eager to address my predicament, I made the following great vows:
- To become a vegetarian for life;
- To abstain from killing;
- To allocate 30% of my monthly pay over the next three years solely for liberating captive lives;
- To recite a total of 600 Little Houses to repay my karmic debt over the next 12 months; and
- To dedicate my life to practising Guan Yin Citta.
Not long after, one day as I was walking home from work, an intense fragrance of sandalwood permeated the air wherever I walked. What a memorable 1 August 2020! This helped strengthen my faith in Guan Yin Bodhisattva. I stepped up my recitation of the Buddhist scriptures and my learning of the Buddhist teachings.
By then, it had started to hit me like a ton of bricks as to how far I had veered off the right path. No words will do justice to express my remorse. Many a time, I will tear up when reciting the Eighty-Eight Buddhas Great Repentance or when confiding in Bodhisattva. Knowing the gravity of the seeds of evil karma that I have planted in this life, in my prayer, I often implore, “I’ve gone astray in the human wilderness and committed heinous deeds for so long, may the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva not forsake me. I’m sincere to mend my ways”.
The much-dreaded day – 15 September 2020 – finally arrived. The police rang me to deliver their decision. After a stern verbal warning, they decided not to file the case in court. Overwhelmed by emotions and with tears rolling down my cheeks, I expressed my deepest gratitude to Guan Yin Bodhisattva for giving me a new lease of life.
In retrospect, the saga with the loan sharks was a contributory factor to my betterment. Besides cutting ties with all the baddies that I used to hangout with, these days, I spend my leave days at the Practice Centre. My once rocky relationship with my family has improved significantly. The transformation in me took everyone by surprise.
With greater exposure to Master Lu’s teachings gained through reading, online classes and interactions with Buddhist practitioners at Singapore Practice Centre, the past one year or so has been a fruitful one for my spiritual cultivation.
I constantly remind myself that I have to remain steadfast in my spiritual practice in order to transform my destiny. I’m resolved to living a purposeful life in the second half of my life journey. I will perform to my best capacity to be Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s thousand hands and eyes in my Buddhism propagation so that others too can benefit. I sincerely hope my transient presence would benefit as many sentient beings as possible.
Before I end my testimony, I would like to leave this catch-phrase from the Lord Buddha as food for thought:
“Even if it’s for a thousand kalpas, the deeds we commit would never fade. Come the day we meet with our fate, suffering is certain as karma awaits”.
If my sharing is improper in any way, I would like to seek forgiveness from Namo Shakyamuni Buddha, the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Dharma Protectors and Master Jun Hong Lu.
Thank you!