Even ghosts are afraid

I am not exactly an atheist, but I usually do not take spirituality and beliefs seriously. Even things that are considered “important” such as buying land, building a house, moving in, etc., I do them on the day of the week without paying attention to the date or time. If gods exist, they certainly do not hold grudges against good-natured people like me, so I have kept my mouth shut and up to now, I still feel that my life is peaceful, everything is going smoothly, and I have not encountered any terrible disasters or calamities.

Right next to my house is a family that quarrels all the time, all because of spiritual beliefs. The wife is rarely home because she is busy going to pagodas from North to South, but when she comes home, she quarrels loudly with her husband and children. Sometimes she demands to build an additional door on the side of the house to comply with feng shui. Sometimes she demands to dig up all the bricks in the yard to bury crushed quartz stones to bring in wealth. Every few weeks or so, she brings a feng shui master home to look around, measure, and then demands to demolish this and build that. Each time, the husband takes a stick and chases both his wife and the feng shui master out of the house, but after only a few days, the wife invites another feng shui master and slowly brings him home. No one knows where the wealth comes from or when she will win the lottery, all she knows is that the couple quarrels all day about whether or not to believe this or that master. The positive point is that thanks to the shining example of this house, the superstitious movement of middle-aged and elderly women in my neighborhood has significantly decreased. Every full moon and new moon day, the whole neighborhood no longer has to wear masks and gasp for breath like fish out of water because the women compete to burn votive papers on a grand scale like before.

Speaking of spiritual beliefs, recently there has been a lot of spirit possession at Ba Vang Pagoda. I think it's strange, there's no such thing as a spirit or ancestor appearing, not only not asking about their descendants, but also threatening and extorting money like thugs blocking the road to beg students. But I don't understand why many people still believe it? Don't they have any faith in the personality of their grandparents and ancestors? Later, if my descendants believe in those superstitious things, I will appear but to scold them and open their eyes, not to take their money.

Or maybe, those superstitious people are not blind but blind themselves to believe in absurd and unreal things. Because, in the end, those are exactly the things they want to see and hear to justify their own mistakes and weaknesses. Doing illegal business, doing unrighteous things and then encountering disasters, they blame it on being haunted or followed by ghosts. Blaming it on karma from past lives without admitting the obvious karma they caused right before their eyes. They did not live a good life, so the ghost is themselves. Why blame the grandparents and ancestors who are buried in peace and return to blame?

The dead are not scary, the living are. The most haunting horror movies sometimes do not show any ghosts or demons, because what ghost is scarier than human ambition and selfishness? So those of you who want to summon spirits, just stay home, no need to go far. Sit in front of the mirror and open your eyes wide and look: It's a ghost!