The Village Witch

In a small village nestled deep within an ancient forest, people lived close together like one big family. Their houses were built of bamboo, roofed with forest leaves, and surrounded by lush green fields. Life was simple, yet it was never without its mysteries. And in that village, there lived a person whom everyone held in the deepest reverence: the village witch.

People today often imagine a witch as a wicked old woman who harms others. But in olden times, the word "witch" carried no negative meaning at all. It was an honored title, given to those with special spiritual abilities. These people needed no schooling, no training, yet they naturally possessed a strange intuition. Sitting inside their homes, they could know what was happening at the far ends of the village. Upon meeting someone, they could speak accurately about that person's affairs. They could even foresee events that had not yet come to pass.

The story goes that one afternoon, a man came running breathlessly to the witch's house:

"My buffalo is lost! I've searched everywhere and cannot find it. Please, could you see where it has gone?"

The witch was sitting by the fire, gazing into the distance. She murmured for a while, then spoke slowly:

"Your buffalo is heading east, past the large stream, near the old towering trees. Run quickly and bring it home, before it wanders any farther."

The man was half believing, half doubting, but he ran in the direction she had pointed. Sure enough, beyond the stream, by the old towering trees, he found his buffalo calmly grazing. Overjoyed, he led it home, murmuring as he walked: "She is truly blessed with spiritual power!"

The story spread throughout the village, and people trusted the witch even more. It was not only lost buffaloes and lost chickens—people came to her about illness, about marriage, about journeys far from home. Whatever she said, they followed. When someone fell gravely ill, she would pray and hand them a handful of leaves to drink, and they recovered. When someone was about to travel, she would advise which direction to take and which to avoid, and those who followed her words returned home safe and sound.

Thanks to the witch, the villagers felt more at ease. They believed that beyond the material world they lived in, there existed an unseen spiritual world, full of power, capable of shaping their lives. The witch was the intermediary, the bridge between them and that world. And so they honored her wholeheartedly and followed her words.

Nor was the witch the only wonder people witnessed. There were those who had died, yet whose spirits lingered on, appearing from time to time in the dreams of their loved ones, giving instructions about this and that—and afterward, things turned out exactly as foretold. There were people possessed by the spirits of others, speaking and acting just like the departed, even recounting things that only the dead could have known. These occurrences happened so often, so clearly, that people could not deny the existence of a spiritual world running parallel to the material one.

From that point on, belief in deities, spirits, and souls grew ever firmer. Religion—with its gods, its rituals, and its intermediaries such as witches and monks—came into being and endured through countless generations, answering the deep spiritual needs of humankind.

## The Meaning of the Story

Supernatural phenomena—strange intuition, spirits, ghosts—are real. It is precisely because people witnessed such things that they came to believe in a spiritual world existing alongside the material one. This belief was one of the foundations upon which religion was formed. Through this, we can understand that religion is not merely a product of imagination, but arises from the genuine experiences of human beings.

Compiled from a dharma talk by Venerable Thích Chân Quang