Shake Your Fortune

Shake Your Fortune

Kau Cim (literally meaning “seek lot”) is a Chinese fortune-telling practice of requesting answers from a sacred oracle. It is a practice that originated in China and is sometimes known as the "Oracle of Guan Yin" in Buddhist traditions (Guan Yin is the female bodhisattva of compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists).

The prediction begins with the bamboo cylinder (Cim Tong) storing a number of bamboo sticks. The answer seeker thinks silently or whispers the question to the deity for an answer to their query. The question needs to be asked decisively as one should not lose focus or hesitate in the middle of the routine.

While thinking of the question in your mind, remove the lid from the bamboo cylinder and hold the container at a shallow angle - almost horizontal. Then gently shake the container up and down. The bundle of sticks - each bearing a number - stir and move about, and then after a little while one particular stick begins to move forward, out of the bundle, and eventually this stick falls out completely. This is your fortune stick. In most cases, if multiple sticks leave the cylinder, those fortunes do not count. Each stick, each with a designated number, represents the oracle’s answer.

Answers can be consulted by an interpreter (temple priest) or can be interpreted by strips of paper with answers in correspondence to their number on the stick. The interpreter usually uses a book of Chinese poetic phrases and stories to help analyze the stick result. The interpretation is generally short ranged, typically covering no more than one year, using Chinese New Year as the starting point. The interpreter typically charges a small fee. Often, interpreters provide other services such as palm or face reading.

Because the accuracy of the predictions very much depend on the interpreter, some people run the result through a number of different interpreters to see whether similar results are drawn. The interpreted answer is usually a historical Chinese story re-told in a modern context. The story is a loose parallel to the forthcoming event the fortune seeker is about to experience.

In many cases, an offering is made prior to the asking of the question in order to generate good favor from the higher powers. These offerings typically consist of incense, fresh fruits, cakes, a roasted pig or fowl, or cash donations.

Source: http://ecumenicalbuddhism.blogspot.com, www.goodorient.com