Why do I warn against excessive attachment when someone frequently perceives shadows or spirits?

Strong perceptions and sensitivity to energy are not in themselves simply good or bad, and some things seen may be real. The concern is excessive attention and attachment. The programme warned that becoming fixated on this energy or ability may mark the beginning of going astray. For people sensitive to outside energy, the priority is stabilising their own condition rather than continually sensing external things.

However strong your ability, after seeing spirits with closed eyes, opening them still leaves you a human in the human world, with a living physical body. As we said, you remain on earth in the same space as everyone else, needing food and the toilet. If daily life becomes seeing shadows, ghosts and deities everywhere, you begin living in their world and neglect that you remain human, which is dangerous. I have also said that some people, although I personally encounter this less often, gradually lose contact with reality, neglect work and family, and discuss only practice and energy while much of life is in disorder. That is not right either. Practice remains within human life; we cannot truly leave the human condition. The old saying about caring for your stomach before the Buddha reminds us to value ordinary living.

Over time, many become unable to distinguish actual perception from imagination. Perhaps they initially saw a few shadows, then imagination developed and repeated thinking convinced them it was real. If a desire to see things is present and a negative being takes hold through a vulnerable point within, it may magnify that desire. You might originally perceive only a little, but receiving more makes you trust your ability further, while those negative thoughts and desires nourish the interfering being. I have also described unstable soul energy producing continual shadows before you, ghosts behind you and divine perceptions elsewhere. In severe cases, discernment fails and even hallucinations may arise. Over more than twenty years I have seen many friends go astray, beginning with strong perceptions and later unable to distinguish them from hallucinations, even accepting hallucinations as real. Some experiences may have been genuine, but they could no longer live normally.

An early friend frequently described dreaming of ghosts and interpreted outside footsteps or pipe noises as possible ghosts approaching, as though surrounded all day. I said that seemed excessive: other practitioners did not constantly have ghosts beside them. Later I understood that the friend desperately wanted powers, sensed things indiscriminately during every meditation and continually displayed supposed perceptions, abilities and a special mission. Much of it might not have been genuine perception but wandering imagination. For this friend, I considered it possibly a case of inner demons attracting outside ones.

Meditation is similar. If you are not calm and focus too much on sensing outside things, your feelings may not be entirely correct, which becomes frightening. Why do people speak of going astray in practice? Attachment to mistaken perceptions and spirit communication begins to lead them off course. Someone on the programme recalled meditating with friends, some of whom later went astray. For example, one said the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady wanted others to worship them, while another claimed to be the Water Immortal King.

For things only you see, the programme mentioned two approaches. One was the earlier advice to contemplate emptiness and treat them as nonexistent, explaining the Buddhist approach as calling what only you see and others do not a false hallucination, and facing it as unreal. That approach is not wrong; it is more conservative. Our Daoist spiritual cultivation approach considers that some things may be real and others false. The point is having wisdom to judge. Losing that discernment over time is dangerous.

The programme discussed a case the speaker said was also in their book. The person was already very sensitive to outside energy. Initially, perceiving lights, shadows and images felt enjoyable and became habitual. Later, an interfering presence claimed to be the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady, and the person found it interesting to ask questions at work. Others also asked, receiving answers through nods and head shakes, which some considered accurate. Eventually, questioning continued even during work, reality became confused and normal life was exceeded. Family first found it interesting and apparently divine, then increasingly concerning. By then the person could not control it and felt occupied within. When seeking help, it became clear something was genuinely wrong. The speaker reminded people that the unseen world must have logic. Use principles to judge whether a deity would occupy someone this way. Without understanding deities and their virtues, people can easily just cooperate.

Dao Xuan also described her own approach. With deities supporting her and granting the function of sensing energy, she uses it when assisting Master in services. She does not randomly tell friends she has this ability and invite questions, nor go around saying an environment is bad, a person is bad or a shop assistant has something following them. She feels a normal practitioner should not act like that. Such conduct calls for examining whether gaining the ability has produced desire or pride.

I have also read online claims of a divine mission, driving two ghosts from a convenience store daily, purifying anyone with interference and constantly capturing or killing spirits. Many readers admired apparently boundless power. Frankly, I did not regard that person as an exorcist or Fu Mo practitioner. In more than ten years of this work, we have not spent all day carrying swords and implements to find and capture ghosts. Without cases, we attend to our own affairs and consider sharing positive energy and sound ideas. The world has karmic rules, and many matters require suitable conditions before intervention. A ghost present without disturbing human life is not necessarily doing wrong. Even if seen, rites and dedication of merit can help it reach a better place, rather than killing every one encountered. That makes oneself excessively heroic.

The programme also warned that excessive involvement may disorder your life until you cannot distinguish ghosts, hallucinations or a heroic fantasy. Some unable to be heroes in reality seek heroism in another energetic world, but energy can often rebound upon them. Pretending to possess great powers does not preserve your life forever. Encountering a powerful ghost or being engulfed by negative energy still harms fortune. With genuine ability, sharing sound principles matters more than praising your own strength. When people read another story of you capturing and killing a spirit, does their wisdom increase? Do they accumulate positive energy?

I knew a temple leader who often boasted that, when he passed another temple, its deity jumped away and side-hall deities bowed to him. After close contact for a time, I found he had indeed gone astray; the deity had also become darkened, and all the students left. Another friend claimed to have cultivated beyond temple deities and therefore neither held incense nor knelt to worship. I replied that, in human understanding, they were deities and he was human. If truly beyond them, should he not already have become a deity instead of remaining human? This is excessive pride and arrogance. Divine virtues must include clarity, freedom from desire and humility, not arrogance. If deities truly behaved that way, demons should no longer exist: every deity would already have captured them all.

The programme also recounted a friend’s account of a fellow practitioner who developed spirit communication through qigong. Closing his eyes, he could supposedly enter the Buddha’s teaching world and directly hear Shakyamuni Buddha, Medicine Buddha and Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, making others envious. The speaker’s thought was that, opening his eyes, the man remained a person seated before them. If so accomplished and hearing Buddhas directly, why had he not gained something or even ascended, but returned to human life? The reminder was that attachment to such ability carries risk because you begin feeling fundamentally different from others.

Strong perception does not necessarily mean high spirituality or a divine mission. Many people I have met with spirit interference had powerful perceptions. Without sound understanding of practice, some inflate themselves and wonder whether they are chosen for a mission. Others receive images, sounds and feelings and assume these must come from deities. In my view, however, many such messages actually come from harmful spirits. If you do not understand deities, you also need to understand ghosts. Knowing neither leaves no clear basis for judgment.

Ultimately, return to the source: care for your virtues and aspirations and return to your clear, still nature. Some things seen may be real, and sometimes need not receive excessive attention because they are simply part of this world. But excessive attention, attachment and fixation may eventually leave you seeing what is false. Without discerning wisdom, risk arises and you begin going astray. Practitioners should convey sound principles and faith rather than turn followers toward sensational supernatural beliefs and continual life in a spirit world. We already inhabit a world where humans and spirits intersect. There is no need to exaggerate it, because we remain human, not deities.