Fortune favors the virtuous, divine intervention, mom missed death by seconds

Wei Tuo Bodhisattva 

When I was around 14 years old, my parents became Buddhist. I had done cursory study of some religions, such as accompanying one of my good friends to church every Sunday for some time, and asking questions in Sunday school. I was not impressed by their answers, and not impressed with religion in general. There were some aspects of religion I appreciated, such as the feelings of virtuous fellowship, community, morality, duty,  etc.

My parents followed some Tibetan, Mahayana, and Pure Land traditions, attended some initiations, Empowerments, Dharma talks, etc. I was dragged along to most of these events, so I guess you could say I was a nominal Buddhist as a child. I didn't really consider myself a Buddhist until I attended a 10 day Goenka retreat that changed my life, around age 19. Story for another time.

One of the Dharma protectors in the main tradition my parents followed, is Wei Tuo Bodhisattva. It's not clear to me if he is a Deva (Deity from one of the heavenly realms) who vowed to protect the Buddha Dharma and Sangha, or actually also made Bodhisattva vows to not attain liberation until all beings were saved. But in any case, from the images of Wei Tuo, it's obvious if you are opposed to Buddha or Dhamma, or want to harass their followers, you don't want to mess with a warrior with flaming swords and other weapons. Not good for your health.




My parents have many images of Wei Tuo Bodhisattva hanging on walls around the house, one of them also personally belonged to a famous teacher of theirs. Wei Tuo has been helpful for our family on more than one occasion, and countless times in the teacher's lineage. Here is one especially dramatic incident that happened to my mom.

Wei Tuo stalls my mom for a few seconds, saving her from certain death

At the time my parents were living in an apartment in the downtown area of a major city in USA.
It was close to a 4 way intersection of a downtown.
My mom's car was parked near the center of that 4 way intersection, next to a spot she often parked.

The spot she usually parked in, was occupied by another car.

A huge mature tree was in this 4 way intersection, providing shade for those parking spots.

You probably know where this story is going.

Every year people die from dead branches falling off of huge trees, and having the unfortunate timing of standing under said branch.

Here's a bit of information that people often forget. Huge branches hanging high above you are much larger than they seem. Objects far away look small until you're right up next to them.

This tree located on the 4 way intersection, when the dead branch fell, that dead branch spanned the entire width of the street. It was huge, thick, and deadly. It would have killed anyone who happened to be standing under there, and would have done some serious damage to any cars parked, or moving traffic.

Conveniently, the car that had been parked on that spot (next to my mom's car) had moved away, and at the time the dead branch dropped, there was no traffic. 

No one was injured, and my mom's car was right next to the dead branch with not a scratch. Coincidence? If things like this happen once in your life, you might chalk it up to blind luck. But when it happens many times in your family, and countless times among your virtuous friends, you start to suspect an underlying principle.

The entrance to my mom's apartment was just a short walk away, maybe 5 seconds.

At the moment when the tree fell, my mom was just about to walk out the door, but some force had compelled her to stop, and look at a framed picture hanging on the wall adjacent to the front door entrance. She looked at the picture for a few seconds, then proceeded to open the door and then heard the thundering crash of the tree branch falling.

You can probably guess who was in the framed picture.

My mom notes that she doesn't recall ever having done that before, stopping to look at that particular picture while walking out the front entrance.


On another image of  Wei Tuo in our house, there is an inscription that says:

(Rough paraphrase and translation)

To any practitioner who practices righteous Dharma,

with pure virtuous mind free of any evil,

I vow to protect the interests of genuine Dharma.




If any demon or obstructive force opposes,




I will pummel them into submission and force their surrender.