The Scholarly Couple and the Midnight Cursing

**Summary:** An educated couple suddenly cursed each other like thugs; their neighbors thought they had gone mad, but it turned out they were influenced by wandering spirits.

In the deep of night in a small alley, neighbors were startled from sleep by screaming and the clatter of breaking dishes. A man’s roar blended with a woman’s vile cursing: “You useless thing, get out of this house! I don’t need you in my life!”

An older neighbor clicked his tongue, thinking to himself: “These two are such educated people, so polite at seminars, and now they’re shouting like fishwives.” The next morning, he knocked on their door and asked, “You two had such a terrible fight last night? There are broken dishes everywhere.”

“Did you hear us arguing? Honestly, I don’t understand it. I’ve always respected my wife, but that night, my mouth just ran away with curses I couldn’t control.”

“And I love my husband dearly, yet that night I was screaming as if someone was urging me on, cursing just like the women at the market.”

The husband sat dazed, his hands trembling as he held a tea cup: “I’m a lecturer, my wife is a doctor. Our whole lives, we’ve never spoken harshly to each other. That night, my face flushed with heat, and I heard whispers urging me to scold her.” His wife wiped her tears: “It was the same for me. It was like someone had loaded a tape of curses into my head. I only panicked after the words came out.”

The neighbor shook his head: “It’s likely some troublesome spirit at play. Try placing a bowl of rice before your ancestors’ altar.” The couple listened, and each evening they chanted a few lines of sutra and set out rice for unseen beings. A week passed, and the sound of breaking bowls ceased. They both slept peacefully again.

The turning point came when the husband realized: “It turns out our minds and intentions were influenced by a wandering spirit. Our true nature holds no hatred for my wife.” They stopped blaming each other and went together to the temple for the Vu Lan festival, asking the monk to perform a ceremony of liberation for the spirits around their home.

Months later, the household was peaceful and warm again; the sound of arguments vanished. Neighbors remarked: “Even with all their education, they still needed the Buddha’s protection.” The couple now visits the cemetery each month to burn incense, understanding that the realms of the living and the departed interact through the spirit. Though unseen, these interactions require our compassion to be resolved.

**The Meaning of the Story**

The departed often influence the minds and intentions of the living, changing our thoughts without our awareness and causing discord in the family. We must not hastily blame one another. Instead, we should use loving-kindness and the recitation of scriptures to transform the situation, for they, too, need to be loved just as we do.

*Compiled from a dharma talk by Venerable Thích Chân Quang*