《太上灵宝智慧观身经》

Jingguan Zhenren (the Perfected Person of Quiet Contemplation), amid the subtlest workings of thought, contemplates his own true countenance, deeply penetrates and attains wisdom, and clearly sees that the Four Great Elements (earth, water, fire, and wind, which constitute the body), the six sense-cognitions (the cognitive functions of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind), the five aggregated shadows (the five skandhas, namely form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness), and the worldly dharmas of the five seals are all empty and quiescent, without self-nature. He therefore enters the gate of the formless.

What are called outer thoughts and inner thoughts—whether a thought arises or passes away—must all be clearly contemplated until every thought is exhausted. In the world there is no absolute purity or impurity, nor any truly unchanging arising or ceasing. Even when one reaches the end of thought, there is no substantial “end”; in the final analysis, all is empty. To realize emptiness thoroughly is to ascend into the mysterious and wondrous realm.

Why is this so? What is called inner thought is the contemplation of the realm as empty. This very “emptiness” is itself empty, and the notion that “emptiness, too, is empty” is equally empty, for within emptiness there is no discrimination. Emptiness free of discrimination is likewise entirely empty; within emptiness there are not two things. Hence it is said that all thoughts ultimately come to an end.

If good men and good women can perceive the emptiness of all phenomena, and give rise neither to a mind that clings to arising and ceasing, nor to arrogance, nor to fear, nor to aversion or craving, they can be spared the many sufferings of the world. The suffering of separation in birth and death, the suffering of harm by ghosts and spirits, the suffering of disputes and quarrels, whether official or private, and the sufferings of flood and fire, weapons and warfare, hunger and cold—all of these can be kept far away.

Such benefit does not fall upon only one or two persons, nor does it extend to only one or two worlds. It can benefit immeasurable, countless human beings and the hosts of the heavens, and the power of its merit is inconceivable. This teaching is therefore called liberation, benefit, and the immeasurable, and is also called the supreme meaning (the most fundamental and highest principle). If one can write, copy, read, recite, or expound these principles, one enters the gate of wisdom, roams the chamber of wisdom, sits at ease upon the couch of wisdom, and partakes of the food of wisdom, and thereby realizes the true essence of wisdom.

Thereupon, at that time, the hymn of wisdom was spoken:

Wisdom originally has no arising;

its light brightly illumines the ten directions.

Empty and still, it congeals and towers at the mysterious edge of heaven,

and the heavens draw upon the fragrant grace it spreads.

The wondrous principle within is beyond conception;

through empty stillness comes sympathetic resonance, and the true appears.

Being within being seems to be, yet is not;

non-being within non-being seems not to be, and yet is not non-being.

To constantly contemplate oneself with wisdom is the foremost practice in cultivating the great Dao (the Way). By following this method, one gradually enters a profound and subtle realm, and the heavens will receive and proclaim the excellent merit found there. Its mystery is beyond reckoning or debate, and the resonance of emptiness and stillness can commune with the true Dao. Within what has form, non-being is manifest; within what is formless, there is not utter vacancy either.

To constantly contemplate oneself with wisdom is the foremost practice in cultivating the great Dao. Through it one gradually enters the realm of the profound and subtle, and naturally one's Shen (spirit) and consciousness are recorded and safeguarded. The Celestial Venerables (the revered deities of Daoism) often come to protect and bless the practitioner, and even the Demon Kings guard these precious scriptural words. The body of the practitioner becomes luminous and firm like diamond, and in the end transcends the mortal world to become a Supreme Immortal.

Wisdom gives rise to the very root of the precepts. The true Dao takes the precepts as its foundation, and through them the Three Treasures (the Dao, the scriptures, and the master) flourish, and are also honored and transmitted by the high immortals. Boarding this vessel of the Dharma that sails toward deathlessness, one may in an instant cross over to the vast realm of the Dao. When these precepts are proclaimed, the spirits of all the heavens come to bow in homage.