《太上洞玄灵宝三途五苦拔度生妙经》

The Marvelous Scripture of Dongxuan Lingbao on Deliverance from the Three Paths and Five Sufferings and Salvation from Birth and Death, transmitted by Heaven Above.

The author of this scripture is unknown. It was probably composed during the Northern and Southern Dynasties or the Sui and Tang periods. It mainly recounts the six paths of reincarnation and karmic retribution, and urges people to accumulate merit and cultivate fields of blessing (accumulating blessings through good deeds). The whole text is a single juan and is included in the Zhengtong Daozang, in the Original Texts category of the Dongxuan division of the Three Caverns (Dongzhen/Dongxuan/Dongshen).

In the Fragrant Grove Garden of the World of Everlasting Joy, the Heavenly Worthy of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao Tianzun), together with the Five Elder High Gods, the Celestial True Beings of the Ten Extremes, and the countless holy hosts of the heavens of the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing), expounded the subtle True Scripture of the Mysterious One, setting forth the principles of the “Wondrous Gate of Non-Duality” and of Twofold Mystery (Chongxuan). All the beings assembled there heard the sound of the teaching, grasped its hidden and profound meaning, and thereby gained access to the realm of true constancy. Beings of the human world and of the heavens alike rejoiced beyond anything words could express.

At that moment the Heavenly Worthy sent forth a subtle radiance of nine colors, illuminating the boundless worlds of the ten directions. Everything above and below, within and without, stood clearly revealed, transparent as lapis lazuli, with nothing concealed. The assembly then saw that, in the hells deep within the Ninefold Darkness, countless beings were undergoing suffering. In the Thirty-Six Hells the guilty souls were interrogated and punished. Divine generals charged with punishment, mighty celestial warriors, and the officers of the Three Offices, the Nine Bureaus, and the One Hundred and Twenty Departments administered penalties in turn, without a moment’s pause.

Some guilty souls clung to bronze pillars or lay upon iron beds; some climbed mountains of knives and scaled trees of swords, bearing iron staves with mountains of fire upon their heads; some were cast into boiling cauldrons or passed through furnaces of live charcoal; some were hung upside down and repeatedly pounded, crushed, and ground. When thirsty they drank fire; when hungry they swallowed charcoal. Into some, molten copper was poured until every part of the body burned; some were crushed by stones or pierced through by needles.

Still others struggled back and forth amid ashes and charcoal, or froze in bitter ice until flesh and bone split open. Some were sawn apart and hacked with blades, pecked by birds and swallowed by snakes; some were pinned fast by long nails, or had their tongues furrowed by iron plows; some sank into filth and foul stench, or were swept into surging waves; some shouldered blocks of iron and great mountains in order to fill rivers and pour them into the seas; some had their spines broken by ox-headed demons, or were torn by bronze dogs. In an instant they passed through countless deaths and rebirths and endured every kind of pain, and even across hundreds of millions of kalpas they could scarcely find release.

Some beings, once the retribution for their offenses was exhausted, were reborn in other forms: as pigs, geese, chickens, and ducks, slaughtered at will; or as camels, horses, oxen, and donkeys, driven by others; or as deer, wild beasts, birds, fish, venomous snakes, jackals and wolves, tigers and leopards, devouring one another in a cycle without end.

Some were reborn as human beings, yet suffered every manner of illness—blindness, deafness, and loss of speech; lameness and twisted, crippled limbs; bodies covered in sores and rotting flesh; collapsed bridges of the nose; or madness and dementia. Some remained ill for years without recovery, bedridden and in pain; some were ugly in appearance and lacking in wisdom; some endured hunger, cold, and destitution, with no one to rely upon; some fell to the low estate of servants and slaves, constrained and ordered about by others, unable to act of their own will.

These karmic offenses followed them as a shadow follows the form, so that through hundreds of millions of kalpas beings continued to transmigrate without ever ceasing.

At that moment, all those present, beholding this confluence of causes and conditions, sighed in grief and astonishment, their hearts filled with compassion and pity.

Among the assembly was a Perfected One named Fajie. He rose from his seat with a composed and solemn gait, set his robes and cap in order, bowed his head in homage to the Celestial Worthy, and then lay fully prostrate upon the ground, paying reverence with the great obeisance in which the whole body touches the earth. Coming forward, he addressed the Celestial Worthy, saying:

“Since your servant began to attend upon the Celestial Worthy, many kalpas have already passed. Within the realms of the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing)—the pure immortal realms where the revered deities of the Dao dwell—and in the golden gates and jasper palaces, celestial halls adorned with gold and jade, life has been tranquil in Wuwei (non-action), free and joyful. I have often feasted and roamed in the immortal realms, listening to the sounds of the Dharma. Such delight has continued for many kalpas.

“Never before have I seen such causes and conditions of birth and death, the cycle of the six paths of rebirth, and afflictions without end. I do not understand why those guilty souls that appeared just now within the light suffer every kind of hardship without cease. What faults did they commit in former lives, and by what causes in the present life have they come to be bound by all manner of pain?

“I earnestly beg the Great Sage to expound for us teachings never before heard, so that we may understand the root of sinful karma and the causes and conditions by which it takes form. May you bestow the great medicine of the Dharma to heal beings sunk in the sea of suffering; send forth the great sound of the Dharma to awaken the foolish and benighted; send down the great rain of the Dharma to cleanse and moisten body and mind; spread the great clouds of the Dharma to shelter all beings; raise the great torch of the Dharma to illumine the dark places; and open the great gate of the Dharma to guide beings who have lost their way.

“If we may receive your compassionate instruction, we shall have looked up to and received a profound and mysterious grace.”

At that time, the Celestial Worthy replied to Fajie: “Well said, well said. With a heart of compassion and pity, you keep these living beings in mind, and your question comes at just the right moment. You ask about this wondrous Dharma so that it may serve all sentient beings of future ages—beings who possess feeling and consciousness—as a Dharma boat for crossing the river, a bright lamp to light the way, a ladder-stool for climbing high, and a bridge for passage, so that living beings may escape sinful karma and sorrow, break the bonds of hell, and ascend to the heavens. Across long kalpas, it will still be able to deliver countless people. Listen carefully; I shall now explain it for you.

When the way of the world declines and customs grow corrupt, human hearts become shallow, fickle, and false. Those who do good are few, and those who do evil are many. People are unfilial and disloyal, neither humane nor righteous, neither kind nor trustworthy, unwilling to yield and lacking integrity. They arrogantly neglect the true Dao (the Way), slight the Three Treasures—the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha—revile the scriptures (Jing), and slander the teachings. They also harm living creatures and destroy life, greedy and ferocious, never knowing satisfaction. They indulge the six passions and five desires—sensory craving and every kind of desire—and are drawn along by the three karmas and ten entanglements, that is, the karma created by body, speech, and mind, together with the bonds of all manner of affliction. They plant the roots of sin and accumulate evil karma. What one has oneself done, one must in the end bear, just as an echo answers a sound. Even if one spoke for an entire kalpa, it would be hard to list every offense; here I only summarize the essential points.

The destinations to which evil leads are called the “Three Paths, Five Sufferings, and Eight Difficulties.” These evil destinies—places of suffering brought about by evil karma—are the hardest to escape. Without the teaching I transmit, there is no way to deliver beings from them.

Of the so-called “Three Paths,” the first is hell, where living beings are examined and punished for their former faults; the second is the path of animals, where living beings repay the karma they created in the past; the third is the path of hungry ghosts, where the suffering is deepest: when thirsty, they can drink only flame-like essence and vital energy (Jing and Qi), and when hungry, they can eat only charcoal.

The so-called “Five Sufferings” are punishments and painful conditions such as mountains of knives and trees of swords, bronze pillars and cauldrons of boiling liquid, and a bitter sea of surging waves.

The so-called “Eight Difficulties” are eight favorable conditions that are hard to obtain. The first is to be able to be born as a human being; the second is to be able to change from a female body into a male body; the third is to have a sound and complete body; the fourth is to be born in the Central Kingdom, the civilized heartland as understood in antiquity; the fifth is to encounter a ruler and a father who possess the Dao; the sixth is to be compassionate and humane by nature; the seventh is for the country to be at peace; the eighth is to be able to meet the Three Treasures. To possess all eight conditions is a very great good cause; to lack any one of them is called a “difficulty.”

If living beings fall into these sufferings, they revolve for a long time and cannot return. Transmigrating and sinking, they remain far removed from the Dao. They drown in lust and the Five Turbidities—five factors that defile the mind and nature—and cling to the six passions. Contacts from without and disturbances from within intertwine, so that calamities and misfortunes entangle them. The various realms touched by the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, and the discriminations of beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, continue thought after thought without cease. Once they lose the proper Dao of being human, they fall into hell and suffer long in endless darkness, unable to gain release.”

The doctrinal explanation further states: Sentient beings are constantly obscured by delusive thoughts and fail to recognize the true principle. Clinging to disputes over right and wrong, they revolve again and again amid karmic offenses. The arising of thoughts and intentions, and acting as one pleases, may all become the causes and conditions of creating transgression.

How long can a human life last? The moment life appears, it begins to pass away, like the spark struck when stones collide, gone in an instant; and like foam on the surface of water, unable to remain firm for long. Birth, aging, sickness, and death press near day and night. Worldly affairs continually change and may scatter and collapse in a moment. Even if one obtains wealth and rank, it lasts only a brief while—still more so when there are also hunger and poverty, together with worry, sorrow, and affliction. Some suffer many kinds of illness, their bodies maimed and incomplete. After death, they may further pass into the hells. Such suffering is truly grievous.

May the venerable deity of great compassion broadly open the gates of saving teaching, point out the road that leads to the Great Dao (the Way), and open a path of rescue and deliverance from suffering, so that these departed souls bound by karmic offenses, together with the men and women yet to be born, may all receive the benefit of the true teaching and universally enter the halls of blessing.

The Celestial Worthy replied: If sentient beings can purify their conduct in the three aspects of body, mind, and speech, they will not fall into the Three Paths (usually referring to the three places of suffering—the hells, hungry ghosts, and animals). What are called the “three karmas” are the karma of the body, the karma of the mind, and the karma of speech.

The Celestial Worthy replied: If sentient beings can purify their conduct in body, mind, and speech, they will not fall into the Three Paths of suffering—three destinations of hardship, usually the hells, hungry ghosts, and animals. The so-called Three Karmas are bodily karma, mental karma, and verbal karma. Bodily karma includes sexual misconduct, killing, and theft; mental karma includes anger, craving, and delusion; verbal karma includes florid and cunning speech, lying, sowing discord, and abusive reviling. These Three Karmas are the root of the ten evil karmas. They obscure the conditions for doing good and continually breed offenses and afflictions. If one can purify them, one can forever escape the Three Paths.

If sentient beings can cleanse away the Five Poisons, they can be freed from the Five Sufferings. The so-called Five Poisons are the eyes’ craving to gaze on every kind of color, the ears’ craving to hear every kind of sound, the nose’s craving to smell every kind of fragrance, the tongue’s craving to taste every kind of flavor, and the mind’s arising of all manner of desire. All of these are roots of the Five Poisons. They leave a person long entangled by desire and unable to attain liberation. If one can purify them, the five kinds of suffering can be forever eliminated.

If sentient beings cultivate the eight virtues, they can transcend the Eight Difficulties—the eight predicaments that obstruct cultivation of the Dao (the Way)—unite with the Dao, and realize the true realm. The eight practices are as follows. The first is filial piety; the second, benevolence and compassion; the third, upright chastity and incorrupt purity; the fourth, loyalty and trustworthiness; the fifth, skill in forbearance; the sixth, gentleness and humble yielding; the seventh, observance of the precepts and the keeping of fasts, together with single-minded realization of the Great Dao; the eighth, equal regard for all people, without distinction of close and distant and without enmity. By continually cultivating these virtues until meritorious deeds are fully accumulated, one can transcend the Eight Difficulties and forever enter the ranks of the immortals and the perfected.

These methods are essential points of cultivation. They lead a person from the coarse and shallow toward the refined and subtle, to realization of the Great Dao and ascent into the true realm. The Celestial Worthies of past, present, and future, together with the sages of the worlds in the ten directions, have all cultivated these virtues and risen into the realm of Wuwei (non-action). You should hold a compassionate heart, take pity on sentient beings, and proclaim these teachings, so that those who have not yet heard them may come to know them. In the sea of suffering and the river of craving and desire, rely on my teaching to save sentient beings, so that men and women of later generations all understand how to cultivate and revere the Dao, step out of the net of afflictions, cut off the root of doubt, ascend the mountain of liberation, and reach the realm of ease and carefree freedom, making body and mind pure and entering deeply into the methods of the Dao.

The scripture further explains that the “three karmas” (actions produced by body, speech, and mind), the “five poisons” (afflictions that delude the mind, such as greed, anger, and ignorance), the “eight practices,” and other methods of cultivation are all profound and hard to fathom; they are methods of utmost truth and utmost wonder. People of the future, as well as those now living in the human world or in the heavens, upon hearing this teaching, ought all to come to understanding through it. How much more so those who can go further, diligently exerting themselves and cultivating in accordance with these methods; one should know that such persons will surely attain the Dao.

Yet the souls of the dead in the hells remain confined in cold, gloomy prisons, long wandering in darkness and suffering pain as if blades of wind were cutting to the bone. Misery clings to them without a moment’s pause, and the cycle of rebirth does not cease. Among all people of future ages there will likewise be those who die. May everyone practice the methods of deliverance and rescue, and earnestly beseech the Honored One of the Dao to give instruction, so that people may receive the essential guidance, the living and the dead alike receive grace, and both life and death attain liberation.

The Celestial Worthy (Tianzun) replied: “The methods for raising up the souls of the dead and saving all beings are recorded throughout the many Jing (scriptures/classics) of the Three Caverns (Sandong, the classification of Daoist scriptures). I will now explain their essentials to you. Listen carefully and receive them, keep them firmly in mind, and spread them widely.

Those who cultivate the Dao (the Way) should establish De (Virtue/Power) and accomplish merit, refine Qi (vital energy), sit in stillness, and let go of distracting thoughts; practice the true Dao and cultivate in accordance with the Dao; expound the Jing and transmit the teachings; and also assist the state and rescue all beings. Only when one can cultivate in every respect does this count as the true work of cultivating the Dao. Even when merit is fully accomplished and cultivation perfected, one must first deliver the Nine Mysterious and Seven Ancestors (the ancestors of successive generations) and the departed souls of one’s parents, enabling them to ascend to heaven and be removed from the registers of ghosts, before one oneself can attain the Dao.

How much more so, then, for ordinary people in the world: if they are filial sons and daughters whose parents have died, or whose other relatives have passed away, and they fear that their souls may fall into the Three Evil Paths (hell, hungry ghosts, and animals), or enter hell and Luofeng (the legendary realm of the underworld), suffering all manner of hardship in dark and secluded places, they should, by means of merit, broadly cultivate fields of blessing (the accumulation of good deeds), deliver suffering departed souls, and dissolve knots of grievance.

Beyond these realms of the underworld, in the Palace of the Eastern Extremity, there is the Celestial Worthy Who Seeks the Sound and Saves from Suffering. Compassionate and benevolent, he has made a vast vow to rescue all beings universally, saving countless people across innumerable kalpas (extremely long spans of time). So long as one dedicates one’s merit to him, takes refuge in him with a single mind, concentrates on visualizing his form, and recites his name, he will come upon hearing the sound and bestow compassion in response to the thought. Whatever the suffering, rescue can be obtained. He is therefore honored as the Celestial Worthy Who Saves from Suffering. The scripture urges all beings to worship and recite his name diligently.

Moreover, among the methods spoken of in the Jing of the Three Caverns for relieving suffering and delivering the dead, the lighting of lamps is the most important. In the five directions and eight extremities, in the dark prisons of hell, and in places of deepest gloom where, through the long night, the sun, moon, and stars are never seen, departed souls are imprisoned and subjected to interrogation and punishment. One should make a lamp tree and light nine lamps, from the day a family member dies continuously until the seventh seventh (the forty-ninth day after death), keeping the flames unbroken so that they illuminate the Nine Darknesses. When the departed souls see the light, they can obtain liberation.

One may also use silk and colored cloth to make a precious banner for the passage of the Shen (spirit), forty-nine chi in length; or one may make seven small banners, hang them on tall poles, and let the wind set them flying, praying thereby for the elimination of sinful karma. One may also use paper, ink, and silk to copy this Jing and distribute the copies to those who cultivate, so that the scripture circulates and may be recited, and by this means deliver departed souls, pacify hell, and accumulate blessings and goodness for later generations.

If one widely gives treasures, clothing, and the possessions of a lifetime to those who suffer and have no one to rely on, relieving the poor, such merit is the same as what has been set forth above: the deceased can be removed from the registers of the underworld, the records of the earthly offices are cancelled, the spirit-soul can ascend, and rebirth follows one’s wish. These good deeds can also bring blessings to descendants and dispel calamity; the blessings and De are vast and hard to measure. Therefore one should listen with a concentrated mind, receive and practice these teachings, and transmit them to others, so that beings of the human world and of the heavenly realms all obtain salvation.”

At that time, the exalted worthies and supreme sages in the assembly, the perfected immortals of the Three Realms, the attendant spirits, the celestial soldiers and mounted officers, together with countless beings and the deities each discharging their own offices, all penetrated the Way of Wuwei (non-action) upon hearing this teaching and alike attained the fruit of the Dao. The innumerable souls undergoing punishment in the Hell of the Three Terraces likewise obtained meritorious virtue thereby and were at once liberated. The furnaces, charcoal fires, and seething cauldrons in the hells of the ten directions all grew cool, and the sinful souls no longer grieved or suffered. The celestial perfected of the Most High, the heavenly beings, dragons, ghosts and spirits, and all the other beings present in the assembly, upon hearing this scripture, rejoiced, believed and received it, reverently put it into practice, and, after paying their respects, withdrew.