《古书隐楼藏书》Vol. 2

These designations all rest upon this single point. Xuanzhu (Mysterious Pearl), shu mi (millet grain), muni (a borrowed name for the spiritual pearl in the heart), sheli (originally Buddhist relic bones, here a metaphor for the pure essential body), golden elixir (jindan), and taiji (supreme ultimate) are only provisional names and aliases; in truth none of them go beyond this empty-yet-luminous, subtly bright, awakened-and-knowing true nature.

Everyone, what is ding hui deng chi (balanced holding of concentration and wisdom, neither leaning to one side)? You must understand: from beginningless time this single spark of spiritual responsiveness has been bound by the three karmas you create (body, speech, and mind), stained by the six sense objects (form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and mental objects), blocked by the seven emotions, harmed by the six desires, fumigated by the three poisons (greed, hatred, and delusion), and again occupied by the ten demons. The spiritual responsiveness is stolen in secret; then you want to die yet dare not live shabbily on, want to live yet dare not cut it off in the present moment, and still less can you look upward to observe the Way of Heaven and practice the Way of Heaven (as in the Yinfu Jing).

Everyone, this single spark of spiritual responsiveness is a dharma treasure: it should only be reversed, not allowed to run forward. Running forward follows outer things in their flow; meeting conditions you move, you invite demon-beings, bring disaster upon yourself, go in and out within samsara, and drift and sink through the four modes of birth and the six paths (womb, egg, moisture, and transformation births; and the realms of gods, humans, asuras, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings). Those who have received the Zhongji precepts (a higher grade of Daoist precept ordination) must practice reversal. In reversal you no longer turn with all things and states; demon-beings and calamities dare not assail you, and you can leave the wheel of rebirth and transcend drifting and sinking.

What is running forward? In the affairs of the world—bearing sons and daughters, taking wives and concubines, being tied to father, son, and grandchildren, chasing fame and wealth, managing household and trade, buying fields and land, wearing brocade and embroidered finery, indulging lust, killing life, filling the mouth and belly—all of this merely gives the physical body (se shen, the fleshly form) a little comfort. Yet this physical body is only a skin-bag falsely combined from the four great elements earth, water, fire, and wind: through the union of father’s essence and mother’s blood in lustful intercourse, essence and blood respond to each other, blood gathers into a mass, consciousness enters and settles the fetus and establishes life—all of it the phantom formation of a body from yin and yang dual qi, ultimately impermanent, in the end returning again to dust.

Only the two matters of merit and transgression have nothing to do with the physical body (se shen). When blood congeals into a mass and spirit consciousness (shen shi) enters to give it awareness, when the fetus is settled and fate and life (xing ming) are established—all of that is a body fashioned by the interplay of Yin-Yang Qi; such a body is ultimately impermanent and in the end returns to dust. So merit and transgression really do not concern the physical body; what bears the bitter retribution is instead the Dharma body (fa shen)—the spiritual body that moves with cause and effect and receives karmic outcomes.

Alas! Everyone, if you do not believe this, consider the opposite view: the Dharma body was always inside the physical body; when the physical body dies, the Dharma body is emptied; when a person dies, Qi merges into emptiness and disperses—so what talk can there be of heaven, hell, hungry ghosts, animals, or the Dharma body receiving retribution?

Now I must ask you: if when a person dies Qi disperses and returns to void, why after their parents pass away do people still set out offerings at the Four Seasons and Eight Festivals (the four seasons and eight major seasonal nodes)? If after death this strand of ling qi were not taken by the yin si (officials of the underworld) to check one’s lifetime good and evil, debts and encroachments, killing and theft, and all such karmic wrongs, then that strand of ling qi would not come back to receive the sacrificial offerings of descendants in the world.

If it does not come to receive worldly offerings, the ancient Zhou Rites (Zhou li) and similar texts ought not to have invented so many sacrificial texts, vessels, rites, and ceremonies; the great sage Confucius ought not to have said “serve the dead as you serve the living, serve the departed as if they were still present,” and “when sacrificing, be as if they were present; when sacrificing to the spirits, be as if the spirits were present,” and that when one fasts, keeps pure, and wears full ceremonial dress to perform sacrifice, “they seem expansive, as if above one, as if at one’s left and right”; the Book of Poetry (Shi jing) ought not to say “the spirit’s arrival cannot be measured,” and again “King Wen is above, brilliant in heaven.”

Friends, since such sayings as “as if above,” “as if at one’s left and right,” and “King Wen is above” have been handed down, my heart already holds the sincere intent that ghosts and spirits will descend. Since my heart holds this sincerity, it is clear that in their day Duke of Zhou, Confucius, and those other great sages must have truly known the reality of ghosts and spirits before they established these sacrificial texts, vessels, rites, and ceremonies to hand down teaching, so that they might be transmitted for a thousand generations without end.

Would the sages really speak falsehoods and weave strange tales? Moreover, the gentry and scholar-officials who serve in office today receive from the court posthumous ennoblement and conferral of ranks through sealed edicts. If, after death, that strand of vital spirit has already dispersed and there is no awareness left, would these posthumous honors not be pointless? Who would then enjoy the golden seal and purple edict, receive favor, and ascend to heaven? If people say there are spirits and ghosts when they receive blessings but deny them when they suffer punishment, that is simply unclear thinking—the inner light of understanding has not yet opened.

There is a class of wicked and foolish people who crave only wine and sex, are bewitched by wealth and worldly energy, and never investigate the karmic roots left after death. They acknowledge only the blood and breath of this present body and instead recite: “Do not brood over what happens after death; for now, drain every cup while you live.” Yet they refuse to recite those two lines: “After the body dies, nothing of the ten thousand things can be taken along; in the underworld, only karmic deeds follow the self.”

Everyone should know that karma has three kinds. The first is unwholesome karma—all evil deeds that drag on without end, unfinished and inexhaustible, with cause and effect, fruit and retribution. Such people do not believe in spirits and ghosts, do not revere Heaven and Earth, do not fear the king’s law, are not loyal to the ruler, are not filial to parents, violate the Three Bonds (ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife), corrupt the Five Relationships (ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brothers, friends), slander sages and worthies, kill, steal, and commit sexual misconduct, act with cruelty and reckless abandon, and make their families live in fear while bullying neighbors. When such people die, they fall into hell and pass from one hell to another, suffering every kind of painful retribution. When reborn in the yang world (the human realm), they become animals; when animal retribution is exhausted, they return to human form—but with incomplete senses, dull and muddled, unable to understand human affairs, hated and despised by all, fit only to serve as lowly runners and menials.

Again one is reborn a beggar: the whole body festers with sores, reeking and filthy, lice swarming; clothes barely cover the body and meals never fill the belly. Hunger and cold press in with no one to hear the complaint, until suffering reaches its limit. After death the corpse is left in the wild to be gnawed by ants and dragged by dogs; the lone soul drifts and falls once more into hell.

The second kind of karma is wholesome karma. One is intelligent, upright, incorruptible, and fair; the six close kin are glad and neighbors live in harmony. One honors parents and spirits, reveres Heaven and Earth, respects the ruler, esteems teachers, and cherishes friends; one cultivates the self and loosens the grip of desire, does not take wealth casually, and does not lust at the sight of beauty; the five relationships stay in order and every affair is handled with rectitude and care. There are also bhikṣus in the mountains and aged Daoists in caves who, though content with simplicity and able to bear humiliation, have not yet stabilized their concentration (dingli, the power of a settled mind) nor completed their course (daoxing). When their lives end they are born again as human beings—becoming eminent officials, teachers held in honor, heirs to ready wealth and rank, or recipients of both fortune and long life—living in ease, splendor, and joy for a lifetime.

The third kind of karma is pure karma. One’s aspiration aims at the sages and worthies, and one’s heart longs to become an immortal or a buddha. In the mind one keeps good thoughts; with the mouth one speaks good words; with the body one performs good deeds. One associates with good people, walks on good ground, and holds good things in the hands. One is steady and dignified in conduct; the body does not move recklessly, and thoughts do not wander at random—one seeks only clarity and stillness of heart. With long, sustained practice, when the work goes deep, the Yuanshen (one’s innate primordial spirit) settles peacefully and abides constantly in the Crimson Chamber (the inner realm where the spirit of the heart dwells), the Yellow Court (the inner landscape at the body’s center), and within the Golden Gate and Jade Hall (pure, solemn inner palaces). At that moment every outer entanglement suddenly ceases; every kind of thought is emptied away, and one sees only true spiritual nature. Forgetting body, objects, realms, and clever scheming—this is called samadhi (ding). This is no small matter: it is the unobscured vital spirit of the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing). Above, one transcends the thirty-six heavens; below, one penetrates the seventy-two earths; one roams freely outside the three realms (desire, form, and formlessness) yet still operates within the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). The state within this samadhi is profoundly dark and silent, as if heaven and earth were turned back and returned to primordial chaos (hundun—the undivided state before heaven and earth), blending into a single qi. Then above is not heaven, below is not earth, and in between is not a person—nothing can be said and nothing can be conceived. Within that, divine light suddenly bursts forth and a wheel of wisdom arises: clear qi separates to become heaven, turbid qi separates to become earth, and harmonizing qi is shaped into the Dharmic body (the true body cultivated in practice). Wisdom fills the three realms; radiance illumines the supreme mystery (Tai Xuan). Not one thing escapes its trace; not one affair is unknown in coming and going. There is not a hair’s breadth of attachment, not a thread of obstruction, not a speck of dust. All dragons of heaven, ghosts, spirits, and demons submit and obey. The King of Hell dares not speak when he sees it; ox-headed guardians and yaksha demons clasp their fists, bow their heads, and yield.

If your name is not entered in the ledgers of life and your surname is not recorded in the registers of death, you may endure long in the world. Preaching the teaching to deliver people, one may fly with the spirit and shed the mortal form (feishen yuhua: the spirit ascends and the human shell is cast off to become an immortal), enter at last into clarity and emptiness (qingxu: a bright, vacuous immortal realm), attend upon Wuji (Wuji Tianzun, the primordial supreme), and forever leave the wheel of rebirth (samsara, the cycle of birth and death).

People of the Way, the secret of “passing the critical gate” (jiaoguan guodu: the turning from ordinary life toward sagehood, the decisive crossing of the gate of birth and death) lies solely in the movement and stillness of the true heart. Great stillness is called power of concentration (ding li); true concentration is called the light of wisdom (hui guang). Unless you first let the deluded mind die and settle the spirit and stabilize the breath (an shen ding qi), how can you attain great samadhi (da ding)? If you cannot often be clear and still, how can you enter concentration? If you cannot enter concentration, how can wisdom arise?

When the heart is empty, the spirit is settled; when the spirit is settled, light is born. If there is concentration without wisdom, that is called the yin spirit overpowering the yang spirit (the yin spirit tends toward dimness and heaviness; the yang spirit is luminous and able to transcend). You must bring forth wisdom within concentration. Wisdom is the Dharma-body (fashen: the body of true nature made manifest); concentration is the Buddha-ground (the pure abiding place formed in the state of samadhi).

Concentration is the home, precepts are the road, wisdom is the true host of life, and the myriad things, realms, and affairs of the world are all guests. Concentration and wisdom give birth to each other; you enter the gate of all subtleties (zhong miao men: the main opening to every fine transformation). Then the spiritual powers and wisdom of the true lord (the master of your own true nature) are fully nourished and light appears. You can respond to the ten thousand things and affairs without being bound by them; you can transform the ten thousand worldly realms without being confused by them; you can go beyond yin-yang and the cycle of birth and death.

People of the Way, you must first understand the two paths of sin and merit and the retribution of cause and effect, and practice the precepts item by item, not daring to violate them in the least. After long reflection, clarity and stillness come naturally. Only then do you move from stillness into contemplative concentration (guan ding: gazing within while entering samadhi). In concentration the original nature is round and bright, the light of wisdom shines, and spirit and qi suddenly awaken in insight. Then mountains, rivers, and the great earth do not lie outside this single body; the birth and death of the ten thousand things do not lie outside this single thought. From the moment the true lord’s spirit is clear and you have something firm to hold, you no longer fall into rebirth.

This passage says: The work of centeredness (zhong) is something a father cannot do for his son, nor a son for his father; spirits and ghosts likewise cannot know or do it for anyone—you must each handle and practice it yourselves. Friends, I have set up the heavenly ladder, yet I do not know who can climb it; I have launched the raft of the Dao (the Way), yet I do not know who will board it. Hear this humble Daoist recite a verse: “The river of desire, wide and boundless—no one comes to ferry across; the sea of suffering, vast and shoreless—rare is the bridge of method by which to cross. All of you, quickly uphold the three hundred precepts (Quanzhen precepts); with settled mind (ding) and discerning wisdom (hui), you can calmly escape the surging waves.”

Eleven: Secret practice and true cultivation (concealed refinement, nurturing true nature). Since you have already vowed to cultivate truth and wish to become Quanzhen daoists (Quanzhen school cultivators), you must recognize and thoroughly understand the two words “true” and “false,” and only then apply yourself in practice. All of you, quickly uphold the three hundred precepts; with ding and hui, escape the waves.

Friends, since you have vowed to cultivate the Dao and wish to learn how to live as a Quanzhen practitioner, you must first tell true from false clearly and see through them thoroughly—only then should you apply yourself in earnest. Doing your utmost to exchange the false for the true is what belongs to the path of cultivation.

Friends, I will first explain what is false, so that you may then cultivate what is true. This body of yours is also false: it is called the impermanent, illusory form. The six sense faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—will in the end decay; the six consciousnesses that arise with them will ultimately return to emptiness. While there is still one breath in the throat, a thousand uses can be made of it; when impermanence arrives, all affairs cease.

Have you not seen people in this world: nine feet tall, broad in the waist; face like the full moon, lips like touched vermilion; eyes like lacquer, skin like fine fat; bearing dignified, presence imposing; eloquent, clever in counsel; a thousand stratagems, ten thousand wiles; literate and wise, strong and martial; high officials and fierce generals, or skilled artists and talents; trading and haggling, striving for fame and gain; craving glory and rank, amassing wealth to raise the family. Before painted halls, a dozen golden hairpins—beauties beyond count—play music and dance; on jade steps, three thousand pearl-shod feet—guests and retainers beyond count—come and go in courtesy. Gold and silver outnumber the Northern Dipper; jewels rival the southern hills. They eat fine fare, wear brocade robes; each lifted chopstick is a hundred delicacies; they befriend bold heroes and observe ritual everywhere. When wives are only half past their prime, they cast aside the old for the new; concubines crowd the halls, yet forget that spirit withers and essence is drained. Estates run deep, ten thousand acres of good land laid as foundation; sons and daughters excel, yet holding first rank in office still seems too small. Day and night without rest, lost in lust; desire never satisfied, body weary and mind worn. When the pathogenic forces of heat, damp, wind, and cold strike, the yin and yang of the six pulses fall into disorder.

Throughout a lifetime of rushing and striving, the three souls (sanhun — the three souls said in Daoism to dwell in the human body) scatter and drift. Every illness arrives together; birth, aging, sickness, and suffering never cease. A thousand calamities cannot be shaken off, until only exhaustion and countless faults remain. Ginseng and fuling cannot cure it; crying to heaven and earth brings no answer. Endless agony cannot be told in full — when the breath stops, one falls into the yin jurisdiction (yinsi — the underworld tribunal). In life the face was dignified, yet before the body has even moved, others already cover their noses. Bearing himself with authority, he has barely closed his eyes when he lies face upward. Limbs are folded into the coffin; the likeness survives only in a portrait. Sons cannot die in his place; wives and concubines will not accompany him. While the dead man’s bones are not yet cold, the living already think ahead: brothers scramble to divide the estate; wives and concubines hurry to hide valuables and pack clothes. Those with sons wonder only how to get on from here; those without sons plan to marry again. Fewer guests and carriages at the door — truly “while the person lives, courtesy lives”; household servants begin to steal — as the saying goes, “when fortune fails, servants bully.” Who will mend the collapsed gate? Who knows when the family fortune collapses? An unfaithful wife, unfilial sons — each looks only to his own future. Who has ever died and come back to life? Who has gone and returned? Empty-handed in life, empty-handed in death. The physical body (se shen) enters the earth; reputation too turns to emptiness. Two roads, good and evil; retribution is clear.

Friends, are these phantoms of form and appearance not false? The forms may be false, yet that single spark of true spirit (zhen ling) — the mind that longed for wealth, rank, wives, children, glory, and salary — is by no means false. Where has that true spirit gone? Plainly into the underworld (ming zhong). Once there, can one again want wives and children, salary and glory? Friends, two kinds of cause — good and evil; two kinds of retribution — sin and blessing; two kinds of fruit — suffering and joy — follow the body like a shadow. How could the spiritual body (fa shen — the body that bears karmic fruit) suffer punishment and escape by a hair’s breadth?

Therefore everyone must regard the physical body lightly and value the body of true nature highly—using this temporary false body to cultivate true nature, preserving what is real and discarding what is false, in order to escape the sea of suffering. Yet without this physical body there would be no basis for cultivation; if that bit of spiritual body of true nature cannot be master of itself and falls into the turning of the six paths of rebirth (the cycle of birth and death through heaven, human, asura, animal, hungry ghost, and hell realms), all effort is wasted. Now that we have obtained a human body and entered the gate of the Way, we should be liberated from rebirth while our sight has not yet failed and we are still in this world, and earnestly cultivate truth.

How is it done? Sweep clean the dust at the gate of the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind), so that the five viscera and five qi are balanced and the master (mind-spirit, true nature) constantly dwells on the spirit platform (in the heart), and demon-thieves cannot intrude; and do many good deeds to uproot the roots of sin.

Within cultivation of truth there are again two paths—true and false, youwei and wuwei. The Diamond Sutra says: “All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dew and also like lightning.” The Scripture of Clarity and Stillness says: “The reason living beings do not obtain the true Way is that they have a deluded mind.” From this we know that clinging to conditioned methods in cultivation is not good. Yet some circulate essence and move qi, connect life and add oil, seeking to return to youth and eternal life without death, cultivating while attached to appearances; others raise lead and lower mercury, set the cauldron and fire refinement, ingest spirit elixirs, swallow talismans and consume qi. Though these are called borrowing the false to cultivate the true, they are all conditioned false methods—how can they see nature, establish life, and escape rebirth? To leave birth and death, one does not get out by such means in the end. So-called borrowing the false to cultivate the true must investigate the great matter of birth and death and clearly understand one genuine path in solid earnest.

Where is this path? It lies in the yielding and resisting of your own mind. When you yield, you are carried along by events; when you cultivate against the stream, you are truly master of yourself.

The human form-body—the flesh-and-blood frame—will die whether you cultivate or not; even if you lived a thousand years, you would still return to dust—what would be the point? Friends, what has form will decay; what has a beginning has an end; where there is contrivance there is change; what gathers disperses; what comes goes; what rises falls; what grows strong grows old. Since this body has been born, it must die.

The method of transcending birth and death that I speak of does not rest on this form-body. It only borrows it as a temporary lodging while you cultivate your own Fate Dharma-body—the body of dharma-nature that receives Heaven’s mandate. Outsiders to the Way do not understand this. They take the form-body for what is real, cling to appearances, and even hope to refine flesh and blood into something indestructible and undying—how utterly laughable!

The transcendence of birth and death I speak of is cultivated solely in that bit of true mind within you—in the thoughts that arise and the deeds you perform. When deluded thoughts do not stir, the Dharma-body is born; when the Dharma-body is still, the celestial mechanism moves; when the celestial mechanism moves, true light appears. Because that true light is not yet complete, we borrow this form-body to perform many good deeds. Good deeds may be genuine or hollow: if you cling to appearances they are hollow; if you do not cling to appearances they are genuine.

Consider the Tathāgata (Buddha): in giving, he did not cling to marks; in merit, he did not cling to marks; in teaching the Dharma, he did not cling to marks; in cultivating the Way, he did not cling to marks; in leaving the world, he did not cling to marks—therefore he could truly leave the world; because he could leave the world, he could transcend birth and death. The Scripture on Clarity and Stillness (Taishang Laojun’s Scripture on Constant Clarity and Stillness) says: “Supreme De does not [claim to be] De.” (The highest virtue does not hold to the name or mark of virtue.)

This is what it means not to cling. If you do a good deed and then boast of your merit, perform an act of kindness and then claim virtue for yourself, or sit in meditation contemplating the profound and then declare that you have attained the Dao—all of this, even when genuine, becomes bondage the moment this single thought fixates on form and appearance. That is not liberation; how then could you transcend birth and death? You would merely live a few years longer and receive some karmic reward—and when that reward is exhausted, you still cannot escape the turning of samsara.

Friends, I urge you to follow what the Supreme Old Lord (Taishang Laojun) taught: that path cannot lead you wrong. “Set the self aside, and the self is preserved; put the self last, and the self comes first”—only then can you die yet not perish: the form may pass away, but true nature is not extinguished.

Friends, set this physical body aside first. Do not tightly constrain yourself by agitating essence and qi (jing and qi), chasing the rise and fall of vital energy, the opening of acupoints and channels (guanqiao xuewei), and the circulation of blood and breath—seeking only to extend life and dispel illness. If you love these things alone, caring only that the form body (se shen, the flesh) stays strong and life stays pleasant, while you neglect true nature (xing zhen) year after year and never turn inward to tend it—then one day, when you are off guard, the petty envoys of death will come for you. At that moment you will not know where the body of true nature (fashen) is carried off by the waves, while the form body is still buried in the mud—a total emptiness in the end.

Please work quietly within. Do not fix your attention solely on cultivating the form body; cultivate the body of true nature where real birth and death are at stake. If you can secretly practice subduing the mind and cultivating patience (jiangxin naixing)—gathering in the restless heart and nourishing true nature—and early on see your nature (mingjian benxing), why worry that this “life” (ming) cannot stand firm?

Friends, I remind you: the form body is like a house; the body of true nature is the master who dwells in it. When the master possesses treasure, why fear the house will not be in order? But if the master falls ill, brings disaster upon himself, or is summoned away, who will live in that tidy house?

Go one step further so you may awaken: the form body is a rented dwelling, not one you own. When the master departs, it returns to earth—earth, water, fire, and wind each go back to the Four Great Elements (si da) that compose the flesh.

If you can cultivate unceasingly and with fine attention until you realize a true Dharma body that does not cling to outer appearances—a Dharma body being the formless, imageless real ground of being—why worry that the physical form will not find proper rest and support?

Friends, I have a few plain verses; listen:

The physical form has always been the house where the Dharma body dwells; once the inner is clear, the outer naturally shines. Only wish the master to cultivate both merit and wisdom—why worry that the house will not be splendid?

To practice Quanzhen (Complete Perfection), you must first remove what is false; the true method must treat the false as empty illusion. Without self-praise, without clinging to appearances, only through dual cultivation of nature and life can you transcend impermanence.

Here, “secret” or “close practice” means the paramita of patience under insult—bearing humiliation without the mind being shaken; here, “true” means the supreme truth within Wuwei (non-action). Simply still the deluded mind and seek liberation; let go of the illusory body, and the true body will appear of itself.

Those who crave life and fear death must still die in the end; how can one who clings to outer forms in cultivating truth ever obtain the true? In the past the Tathagata allowed his body to be cut apart; the Jade Emperor too was once one who practiced patient endurance. They forgot body and gave up life through three thousand kalpas; they renounced throne and withdrew to the mountains for eight hundred decades. If cultivators cling to this false skin-bag, though they pass through myriad kalpas and a thousand lives, they will never leave the dusty world.

There is no need to exhaust the mind—that is only wasted spirit; whatever has form must in the end return to the yin realm. If you lose the nature of suchness, in the vast bitter sea there is nowhere to seek it.

Alas, how pitiful: clinging to the false within the false, layer upon layer all false—studying Quanzhen in vain, where is the true to be found? The demons of birth, age, and sickness, together with the sorrow of fearing death—at death, how are they different from ordinary people in the world? They wear the yellow cap and feathered robe in vain; when have they ever understood the hinge of life and death? Running to the ends of the earth for food and clothing, when karmic offense weighs upon them, the person turns to mud.

If you do not see that offense and merit are originally empty, the wheel of birth and death will not stop; if you have not yet realized that false and true were always within yourself, on whom can you rely to open bright wisdom?

Friends, each of you reflect carefully: impermanence comes swiftly.

The secret practice (concealed cultivation) I speak of comprises three hundred items—the three hundred detailed precepts of the Middle Grand Precepts (the intermediate great precepts of Quanzhen Daoism, taken after the Initial Truth precepts and before ascending to celestial immortality). Apply them to the body and the body becomes upright; apply them to the mind and deluded thoughts fade and are forgotten. Turned inward they can make a sage; turned outward they can make a king. One can both leave the world and transcend the ordinary, attaining the fruit of clarity and emptiness (qingxu—luminous stillness), and also deliver people from the bitter sea, resolving the cycle of birth and death.

What matters most is the word “secret” (mi). Without secrecy, one cannot be fully authentic (quan zhen); without full authenticity, the mind is not clear; when the mind is not clear, true nature cannot appear.

Everyone—what is “secret”? The sage uses it to wash the inner heart and withdraw into a hidden place. Secret means vigilance pushed to the utmost; only when refinement is stored so deep it never shows is secrecy at its height.

Whoever is to receive the Middle Grand Precepts should treat the first through the hundredth precepts as a great spell for purifying the body (holding the precepts like a mantra to cleanse the physical form)—practice them with care, secrecy at the extreme: you must completely remove restlessness from the body until it is clear and still; remove all frivolity and replace it with steadiness. In the four dignified deportments of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down: when walking, walk the middle path; when sitting, do not sit off to one side of the seat; when standing, stand straight—no leaning on walls or pillars, no bracing against tables; when lying down, curl the body and lie on the side—no sleeping face up in heavy slumber or breathing audibly. Even if the breath at the nose makes the slightest sound, regulate it until it is even, and cultivate a respectful, courteous bearing—this is called outer solemnity (outer dignified deportment).

The hundredth through the two hundredth precepts are the great spell for purifying the mind. Ponder these precepts finely so they accord with the Dao; you must investigate them deeply and understand them in secret, thought after thought returning to true nature, every place matching the great Dao, not slackening on a single word—investigate again and again, awaken again and again. Observe things far off, verify yourself close at hand; constrain and cut away the wild, crooked, and perverse mind until the true heart is peaceful and settled.

From the two hundred forty-second precept through the three hundredth is the great divine spell for purifying mind and intent (a mantra of supreme sacred power)—not a trace may be leaked. The pivot and rationale of the messages exchanged within are all secretly stored in the Mysterious Capital Repository (the celestial treasury where the supreme Dao is kept in Daoism). It is so subtle that it cannot be seen or heard; it is called “rare and still” (xiyi)—hard to fathom, beyond reckoning, and not to be captured in names and forms. It can only be grasped through the spirit-mind, not transmitted in words. The supreme, utterly still and non-active wondrous Dao is fully contained therein.

Assembly, this is the work of secret cultivation and realizing the true Dao. Hear one more sentence and fix it in memory: the supreme Dao most dreads leakage. You came here to cultivate truth and leave birth-and-death behind—is that a small matter? If celestial secrets are not strictly guarded, they leak to those who ought not receive the Dao. Therefore Patriarch Ziyang (Zhang Boduan) three times transmitted to those he should not have transmitted to and three times suffered heavenly punishment—hence nothing may be leaked. How much more when one seeks to transcend the wheel of birth and death, leap out of this world, and become a true person indestructible through myriad kalpas—is that not what heaven and earth, ghosts and spirits dread and what Yin-Yang and creation resent? Moreover this whole way of going against the usual course and cultivating in reverse is incompatible with worldly law like ice and fire. One must be cautious and thorough; otherwise the six kin will not rejoice, the nine clans become enemies, wife and children turn cold, and friends withhold trust—all because one has not raised a fierce great vow and the mind of Dao has slackened.

Twelve. Repaying Kindness and Dispelling Calamity: this section is titled repaying grace and removing disaster.

Fellow practitioners: once you have left home for the Way, your aim is to transcend the dusty world. The old karma you bound up through countless lifetimes within worldly law, and the grievances and debts piled up generation after generation—all of this must be cleared through repentance, wiped out from this day forward so that it never arises again. Only then can you escape the misery of mutual repayment and settling scores for old wrongs. Even so, such talk still belongs to those on the lower paths of cultivation and to inferior karmic outcomes—people who merely flee their debts, fear death and cling to life, with small ambition and little capacity. Their minds have not yet cleared; their true nature has not yet shone forth. They care only for this life and give no thought to the next. I will now tell you a story about this kind of heterodox practice, so that you may know what it is like.

There was a Daoist who left home midway through life, wandered widely to visit teachers, and met several companions with whom he vowed to build a hermitage on Laoshan in Shandong and cultivate there. Later, because of war, they all came down the mountain together and took solitary retreat for seated practice at the foot of Wangwu Mountain in Henan. Though the six of them lived together, their vows and methods differed; each pursued his own discipline. After a year, three left, and three remained. They renewed their vow to seek liberation from the cycle of birth and death together. Then one of the three passed away in sitting; the other two grew even more resolute. Next another passed away in sitting, until only one was left to cultivate in hardship alone. When he entered deep meditative absorption in seated practice, his spirit traveled to Tiantai Mountain and he suddenly met the companion who had passed away second. They were overjoyed to see each other. The one who had already passed away said: “We meet again by affinity, and I have something I must tell you. You should change the vow you made two years ago.”

When I first vowed to cultivate the Way, I intended to repent and clear karmic debts (the grievances and wrongs tied to past and present lives) in order to seek liberation. Who could have known that, not long ago, when my worldly lifespan had run its course, I arrived outside the Three Gates of Heaven (the portals to the upper realm in Daoist cosmology). The clerk in charge of examination and registration called out loudly: “This person’s roots of grievance remain; the ordained tribulations cannot be escaped. His name is not on the celestial roster, and there is no place for him on the Dan Terrace (where the ranks of immortals are enrolled). He may not go farther.” I was to proceed instead to the Triarchs’ General Assembly Hall at Yuntai Mountain (the chief yamen under the Three Officials).

Immediately a blast of fierce celestial wind and vast qi veiled the gates of heaven so that I could no longer see that realm; my body fell down into the palace of the Three Officials. When I met the Three Officials (Heaven, Earth, and Water), they consulted the registers and said: “You are merely one of small aspiration on the inferior path, taking side doors, yet you dream of transcendence. For now, considering your ignorance on the wrong road, the mountain god of Tongbai Palace on Tiantai Mountain lacks an administrator—you shall go there first as acting steward. When a vacancy opens in the yin bureaucracy (the offices of the underworld), you may then receive formal appointment.”

At once I begged for instruction so that I might continue cultivation in the yin realm. The Three Officials spoke gently and ordered: “When you sit in meditation on the cushion, your intention has not been purified, your mind has not been emptied, you have not seen through the physical form as empty and the nature-spirit (xingling) as real, nor have you awakened to how within emptiness there is still the not-empty. You only know that you must repent the grievances of a thousand lives and extinguish the grudges of successive generations, thinking that once you have left home, offenses and karmic debts will no longer arise—yet you have never deeply contemplated how, within the nature-spirit, grievances are truly extinguished and karmic debts truly repented. Who says that the grievances accumulated through kalpas and the grudges built over lifetime after lifetime can be cast off merely by speaking them once or thinking them once? You must still enter the gate, establish your resolve, study the supreme vehicle, become one of great root and great capacity, and take universal salvation of sentient beings as your heart.”

Those of superior capacity with a great spiritual root, when their worldly thoughts suddenly cease, heaven and earth become empty and illusory forms turn to ash; then self and other merge into one. Yet the karmic obstacles and heavy debts from past lives often cannot be resolved in that moment. Money owed to others, lives owed to others—how can these be taken lightly? Therefore the ancient Buddha King Alī (who in scripture cut off his own limbs to repay past sins) severed his body to pay off former transgressions, leaving not a thread or a hair of attachment, and only then attained the fruit of Śākyamuni. The Sixth Patriarch (Huineng of Chan) washed away buried karmic debts and bore even the smallest ones one by one, and only then attained the great mirror of the Western Heaven (Huineng’s honorific title).

Your aspiration is small and your root inferior; you are unwilling to repay karmic debts and only wish to escape suffering, holding the physical body (flesh-and-blood form) too real. You fear that enemies and creditors will come seeking you out—torture, beatings, killing, pain—and your whole mind is bent on this body’s long enjoyment. That sliver of fear, that unwillingness to repay, is an inferior root; it is the lower vehicle.

If the root of karmic debt is not emptied, you will be born again in later kalpas; if karmic ties remain, you will meet again in the next life. In name you leave home; in fact you flee suffering. Since suffering is not released, it winds kalpa after kalpa, generation after generation—all because at the start your vow was weak and your aspiration and capacity were not great enough. Leaving home in this life can only be called accumulating merit, not cultivating the Dao; you would normally enter samsara and be reborn into great blessed reward. Yet because you recited the hundred volumes of the Shangdi Fabao (Treasury of the August Lord) and intoned the Miluo Baohao (honorific titles of the Jade Emperor) for three years with sincere heart, your name was entered on the rolls and you were appointed Zhenyi Zhenren (Orthodox Unity perfected person, a Daoist divine title). You should formally receive a rank in the offices of the underworld (yinjian). Also, because in life as a zhaizhu (patron who sponsors scripture recitation and rites) you never delayed others’ ritual work and what you received from others you gave away in charity, merit should be added and your grade raised one step, registered for selection as deputy to the mountain gods of the dongtian (grotto-heavens, Daoist immortal realms). Go quickly to take up this charge, continue cultivation in the yin realm, and do not slacken.

Then I suddenly woke as if from a dream, regretting that my aspiration was not great enough, and understood: small causes yield small fruits; great vows yield great retribution. Now it is too late for regret. I was just about to enter your realm of pure spirit and awakening.

Only then did he understand: the smaller the cause planted, the smaller the fruit reaped; the greater the vow made, the greater the return. Regret came too late. He had wished to enter your realm of pure spirit and clear awakening—the state in samādhi where the mind is limpid and insight dawns—to tell you face to face. Each had to keep to his post, however, and dared not leave the mountain’s bounds to wander. You arrived at just the right moment. You should make a fresh vow: toward everyone bound to you by grievance or kinship, do not refuse to make repayment; with a mind that never retreats, the fruit of practice can be great. Let the slightest clinging or fear arise, and you will meet trials meant to make you flee; even if the work is already in hand, the rank attained cannot be great. With that, the figure vanished.

The Daoist came out of meditation and realized that he had formerly been on a lower, self-serving heterodox path—one that strayed from the Way—and that in the end he would still be only a mountain-bound ghost, trapped on one peak and unable to transcend. He hurriedly burned his grass hut, shouldered his meditation mat, gourd, and staff, and turned again to work at the root of the mind: enduring every humiliation, bearing every hardship, practicing every discipline; driving out stray thoughts, tempering body and spirit. He vowed: where there was a knot of enmity, he would not dodge even if axes and blades fell on his flesh, but would still accept and settle the account; where there was karmic debt from past lives, he would not refuse fire or water, but would repay according to the turns of fate. He treated this flesh-and-blood body as something that must in the end be exhausted, and held the life of the nature-heaven—the innate nature and true life— in pure, clear keeping. Without obstruction, unshaken and unafraid, naked, bright, round, and utterly bare, coming and going at ease. Blessings he did not grasp; suffering he did not refuse. Holding to this resolve, he passed many more years.

Then one day, in still meditation, he saw a Daoist come to pay respects and bow. Looking closely, it was the same companion who had first awakened him. The form was unchanged, but the face was full of shame; he did not dare raise his head. Asked why he had come, he said he had wrongly taken a deviant teaching in his lineage, had not understood the middle and the upright, and had often gathered spirit (Shen) and breath (Qi) in contemplation at the dantian (the energy center in the lower abdomen). Day after day the work went deep, until he had cultivated himself into a corpse-guarding ghost (shoushi gui)—one who clings only to the physical shell. His light was only a foot long and lit no more than his own body; outside that form all was still dark, and he could see nothing.

On this occasion, because the Daoist had entered deep stillness—his mind settled and unmoving—the light expanded, and he drew into his meditative realm a fellow practitioner who had already passed away. Before long, that companion vanished again. Through this encounter with one who had not yet died, the Daoist gained an even clearer understanding of the nature of mind and principle. Life itself resides within nature: each added measure of insight brings an added measure of light; each added measure of light brings an added measure of wisdom; each added measure of wisdom brings an added measure of merit and virtue; and with each added measure of merit and virtue, one’s rank in the fruit of cultivation rises a degree. Then he left stillness.

The Daoist examined himself: the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) were fully purified, the eight consciousnesses had dissolved, the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness) were empty, and the seven emotions had been cut off. The time had come at last to take final refuge in the Great Venerable of Eternal Purity and Stillness (Changqing Changjing Da Tianzun). Yet the ordinary body born of his parents and nurtured by heaven and earth had reached the limit of its allotted breath and years. The next day he went to the lay supporters who guarded the monastery outside the mountain gate and said, “Today I take leave of you all and go to my passing.” They asked, “Why so sudden?” He replied, “The karma of my body, speech, and mind is already cleared, but the four graces are not yet fully repaid, so I must be born once more to settle this one remaining thought.” Having spoken, he bowed toward the void to dedicate his merit, and when the bow was complete, he passed away seated in meditation.

From this the assembly understood: each person’s path may lean toward deviation or correctness, and vows may be great or small. At life’s end these three men turned back toward the source, and their stations in the fruit of practice differed in rank. Those with great aspiration are great persons; those with small aspiration are small persons. Where aspiration is not great, the heart cannot be broad; where the heart is not broad, capacity cannot be wide, and vows cannot extend universally. Narrow capacity, small vows, and shallow insight mean the Qi one nurtures cannot become vast and upright like Haoran.

If this breath of qi is not sufficiently vast, upright, and magnanimous, it can only fill this illusory physical shell and cannot fill the Great Void—the boundless expanse of emptiness. It cannot stand on a par with Heaven and Earth, connect with sun and moon, or penetrate all things. How then could it be called the Dao in its utmost greatness?

Friends: Human beings receive the shelter of Heaven and Earth, the illumination of sun and moon, the nurturing of parents, and the instruction of teachers and masters. These are the Four Graces. They are vast and boundless. If we cannot repay them, we remain trapped in the physical body, suffering the afflictions of the Five Aggregates (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness) and cannot attain liberation. Even if we cultivate both merit and wisdom together, that attainment cannot last.

Friends: Now that you have taken refuge in the Three Treasures (Dao, scriptures, and master), why has suffering not been released, and why have merit and wisdom not yet become lasting? Because karmic debts are tied to the roots of attachment in love for spouse and children, while merit and wisdom sink in the sea of desire for wealth, honor, ease, and glory. The ancient sages said: “The river of love has waves a thousand feet high; the sea of desire has breakers ten thousand layers deep.” Only when the water is dry and the waves stilled does the source of one’s original nature become clear.

Understand this: people in every age share this same source of nature. Among the four modes of birth—womb, egg, moisture, and transformation—who lacks awareness? Recognizing that all things and oneself arise from one source is repaying Heaven. That inexhaustible, vast, compassionate spirit that accepts defilement yet bears insult nourishes birds, aquatic creatures, beasts, and plants—what category is not sustained by it? To grasp this is to repay Earth.

On the ground of nature there is light; in the heaven of nature there is full clarity. Meeting those lost in darkness, one opens them with words of truth and points out the way from confusion. Meeting those sunk in dullness and drowning, one teaches the Dharma to save them and clears away obstacles. This is repaying the sun and repaying the moon.

Reverently following the master’s teaching, strictly observing the laws of the land, and honoring the court’s institutions; not overstepping one’s place, not violating morality, not departing from reason; keeping pure precepts and following the canon, praying for the sage’s longevity and safeguarding the imperial foundation, and transmitting the correct Way to posterity so that it flourishes—this is repaying the sovereign and repaying the teacher.

The body is received from one’s parents; hair and skin are kept free of defilement. Casting off selfish discrimination between self and others, one repents and delivers beings suffering in the netherworld. Remembering the toil of parents in past lives, one prays to untie multi-life karmic knots. Remembering the hardship of kin in this life, one uses prostration and ritual to repay faults born of affliction.

I only wish that, before this colored body (the physical body) is exhausted, there be no day when filial duty ceases. If one cannot deliver one’s parents [to liberation], one cannot ascend to perfection (dengzhen, attaining the Dao and becoming an immortal). One must also respectfully settle the toil of one’s kin in this life, and through ritual prostration repay the offenses committed through afflictions. May I spend this whole life with filial conduct that never ends; if my parents are not delivered, I myself cannot become true. Treat everyone’s parents as my own and serve them with filial piety; treat everyone’s young as my own body and cherish and protect them with compassion. Only when the seven ancestors (qixuan, seven generations) can rise and three generations can be uplifted is this truly repaying one’s parents.

Assembly, if this heart harbors the slightest obstruction, how can you behold the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing), the supreme Jade Emperor (Yuhuáng Dàdì), the Three Officers and Four Sages (the officers of Heaven, Earth, and Water and the four guardian holy perfected), the Five Elders and Seven Perfected (wufang wulao and seven perfected ones)? How can you repay Heaven, Earth, sun and moon, sovereign and teacher, and parents? You now habitually divide self and other and are accustomed to stirring up ignorance (wúmíng, dullness and anger). Your mind is narrow—not one thing can you endure; your measure is small—not one person can you accommodate. You do not examine how matters arose and you invert right and wrong. When honored you rejoice; when shamed you rage. Your resolve is not solid; your thoughts are not bright; your heart cannot embrace others, and your body is mostly given to ease and sloth. You treat small faults as unimportant and swell with pride at the least merit. How can you be said to repay Heaven, Earth, sovereign and teacher, and your lineage?

Assembly, to repay the grace of Heaven and Earth you must understand the Dao of Heaven and Earth, discern the heart of Heaven and Earth, penetrate the principle (lǐ) of Heaven and Earth, and reach the De (Virtue/Power) of Heaven and Earth. Even in a hidden chamber you do not deceive your heart; every vain desire you cut off entirely. When the light of wisdom shines forth, can you truly embrace every kind of defilement? To repay the grace of Heaven and Earth, you must clarify their Dao, embody their heart, penetrate their principle, and attain their De: no self-deception in the dark, every wandering emotion severed—only then, when wisdom’s light fills all, can you genuinely contain every stain. Within loss you willingly accept loss, without a thread of self-interest; within suffering you willingly bear suffering, cutting off every heart of shirking and clever shortcuts. When practice is solid, the realm becomes bright and unobstructed. When De is weighty and the Dao is high, ghosts and spirits admire and submit. Spirit and mind are clear, wisdom arises, the ten thousand things are moved, and human hearts turn toward you in trust. Upward you can resonate with the imperial throne (the seat of the Heavenly Emperor); downward you can command thunder (the spirit generals who govern wind and rain). In drought you pray for rain to moisten living beings; in flood you pray for clear skies to lift the water disaster. Demons and evil hide; harmful sprites (chīmèi) scatter and flee.

May blessings rise upward for the nation to stand firm as an impregnable fortress and for the sovereign to enjoy boundless longevity; may they extend downward so that all under heaven sing of great peace and the myriad people live in security and contentment. Only when one can accomplish this does one truly expound the lineage’s teaching and spread the Dao’s transforming influence. And how much more so for one’s parents, who carry a child for ten months and nurse for three years, enduring countless hardships with love too deep to repay: when their children grow up, what they hope for is support in old age and a household that brings honor. The ruler rises early and retires late, diligently governing affairs; the six ministries and nine departments each administer and proclaim instruction, rooting out wrongdoing and securing the people, restraining evil and honoring the virtuous. As a teacher, one is like one who makes the deaf hear and the blind see, taking heaven and earth as one’s model so that the three bonds are made clear and the five constants are made complete, good and evil can be distinguished, and the difference between human beings and beasts is thereby made manifest. Can such merit be called slight?

Yet you, at home, cannot filially support your parents; in public service you cannot plan or exert yourselves for the state. Your clothes depend on alms from a thousand households; your food depends on the tilling of ten thousand people—yet you merely drift with the tide, dazed all day long, idle and eating without working. You mutter recitations with your lips but do not cultivate virtue or keep the precepts and discipline. In every action you violate the rules; your spirit is dim and your mind scattered. When you ascend the altar to pray for the nation, the spirits and gods do not descend. When you expel evil and banish pestilence, disaster and illness are not cured. Talisman methods fail to work; prayer and ritual to avert calamity are set up in vain. Still worse, when rain and floods come, you revile the wind and curse the rain, resent heaven and hate earth, and act recklessly— even going so far as to defy your parents, offend your kin, break precepts, and flare up in anger at others.

Assembly! Look at oxen, horses, donkeys, mules, pigs, sheep, dogs, and swine: they too have the five senses and six faculties, yin and yang, male and female, and they too have perception and spiritual responsiveness. As for human beings today—we have gained nothing more than this one mouth that can still speak. Alas!

At that time the preceptor also spoke a verse: Cultivate concentration and wisdom together; keep precepts and discipline strict—then heaven and hell are naturally clear. When not a single thread of attachment remains, luminous clarity penetrates constantly; when the myriad entanglements are forgotten, the mind becomes clear and bright. Yet for us now, we have gained nothing more than this one mouth that can still speak. Alas!

At that time the Dharma master who transmitted the precepts spoke again in verse to instruct the assembly: cultivate concentration and wisdom together, and keep the precepts strict and pure—then the distinction between heaven and hell will become clear of itself. When body and mind are free of the slightest clinging, light will always shine through; when every kind of entanglement is forgotten, the heart becomes pure. Human lifespan is ordained by Heaven and is not easily changed; to escape birth and death, the will must be utterly sincere. Side paths and strange doctrines are many; I earnestly urge fellow practitioners to awaken to the correct Dharma and hold fast to what is true and upright. If the fourfold kindness (toward parents, teachers, the country, and all sentient beings) has not yet been repaid, one should feel shame in the heart; as long as the three karmas (of body, speech, and mind) remain, the work of the Way cannot be accomplished. To repay the fourfold kindness, one must first keep the precepts; to dissolve the three karmas, one must genuinely cultivate the Way. Keeping precepts naturally enables one to walk the right path; only by cultivating the Way to the end can one fully penetrate the fleeting nature of life. When life’s fleeting nature is penetrated and impermanence is seen through, and when the three karmas are emptied, then one may properly repay the fourfold kindness. Leaving the worldly life and household was meant to transcend the dust of the world, yet if greed, anger, and delusion still hold fast, it is hard to achieve true realization of the Way. Only when ordinary desires are exhausted does the heart become pure; when innate nature is bright and clear, one draws near to the Way. See through the form body (the physical body)—what is truly real? Look closely at the ten thousand things—what lasts forever? With not a thread of clinging, the three minds (of past, present, and future) are released; when the ten precepts are fully received and practiced, one may act in freedom.

Thirteen. Establishing Aspiration and Making Vows

Assembly: From ancient times, sages, immortals, and buddhas have seen through worldly affairs. All deliberate action and everything with form and appearance is empty and illusory; therefore they wished to leave the world, transcend the ordinary, awaken to birth and death, and be without obstruction—to release the three minds, fully receive the ten precepts, and act in freedom.

Everyone: From ancient times, sages, worthies, immortals, and buddhas have seen through worldly affairs and understood that all deliberate action and every visible form is empty and unreal. So they sought to transcend the mundane world, comprehend birth and death, withdrew into mountains and forests to cultivate, and even risked body and life to pursue the supreme Dao.

You only know the names of sages, worthies, immortals, and buddhas, but not their reality. You all wish to become like them, yet lack that kind of settled resolve. You all want to attain such fruition, but do not cultivate such causes and conduct. You always aim for such a station, yet refuse to make such vows. So you can speak the words but cannot live the life—because the mouth understands while the heart does not. The Dao stays obscure because people do not meet one who has clarified it; the Dao stays unpracticed because they do not find one who truly walks it.

Those who call themselves daoshi—how many truly grasp the subtle meaning of “daoshi”? Those who style themselves Quanzhen (Complete Perfection)—who actually fulfills Quanzhen in practice? No wonder the teaching declines and the patriarchs’ Dao scatters.

Now that you have taken refuge in the Three Treasures (Dao, scriptures, and master) and uphold the precepts, you may say you have met one who clarifies the Dao. But you must still follow these earnest words and do what sages, worthies, immortals, and buddhas did, before you can be called one who walks the Dao.

Before sages, worthies, immortals, and buddhas attained the Dao, they were ordinary people like you—not one extra eye or hand among them. Only because they could set their will, seek the path of leaving the world, and grasp the hinge of birth and death—that single thread of aspiration towered a hundredfold and spread ten thousandfold above the ordinary. The body was still that of a common person, but the mind already bore the substance of a sage. Sages do not merely talk of leaving the world; they truly hold it in the heart and actually do the work of leaving the world. That is why we say they already had the sage’s substance.

Sages do not merely pay lip service to leaving the world behind; they truly keep that aim in their hearts and earnestly live it out. That is why they are said to have great heroic power and to hold a vast compassionate mind. “Great man” and “teacher of heaven and humans” both describe people whose resolve from the start is extraordinary, so their deeds are never small either. They act with sweeping force—the sword of wisdom on the shoulder, brows raised like lightning; they stand in awesome majesty—the blade of precepts at the throat, eyes wide like thunder. Heterodox paths feel their hearts turn cold and flee; crooked influences tremble and wish to take refuge. Thus they ascend the nine-grade lotus throne and take the seat of the Dharma King. What they say, all who hear take for pure Dharma sound, so gods and humans are refreshed as if the finest teaching were poured over them. Subtle pure Qi and wondrous fragrance rise from their persons; all who see them gain liberation, and countless beings, like ghee flowing into a river, share the taste of the Dharma.

After attaining the Dao, when their great aim is fulfilled, they vow again: not to cling to marks of person, self, sentient beings, or lifespan; not content to save themselves alone, but only wishing to save others. They use the way they themselves crossed over to ferry all beings, yet they do not measure others by their own yardstick—they take the heart of the common people as their heart. “Common people” is another name for sentient beings; sentient beings are our own kind. So they rescue their kind with methods suited to their kind, and they are unwilling to complete the Dao unless they have saved sentient beings. The Scripture of Clarity and Stillness says: “Though it is called attaining the Dao, in truth nothing is obtained; it is called attaining the Dao only because one teaches and transforms sentient beings. Only one who understands this may transmit the sacred Dao.”

Everyone—sages, immortals, and buddhas—are no different from ordinary people. The difference lies entirely in public versus private. Sages are fair, upright, and open; they act for others, not for themselves. Ordinary people are partial, crooked, selfish, and false; they act for themselves, not for others. Sages are clear, bright, and still; ordinary people are turbid, dim, and restless.

The sage uses inner firmness to restrain himself and outer gentleness to win others’ trust; the ordinary person is weak and indulgent toward himself inwardly, yet harsh and blaming toward others outwardly. The sage constantly fears he may be wrong; the ordinary person only faults others’ mistakes. The more weight the sage bears, the more carefully he acts; the more danger the ordinary person faces, the more reckless and excessive he becomes. Before death arrives, the sage already understands what lies beyond death; with death before his eyes, the ordinary person still scrambles only for a livelihood. The sage cultivates the transcendent path—the way of liberation beyond the world—by tempering the mind through worldly duties: as a son, full filial piety; as a subject, full loyalty. The ordinary person understands neither the transcendent path nor even the ordinary rules of human conduct—how then could he know loyalty to the ruler or filial devotion to parents? Pitiable are these people lost in delusion: they know neither worldly nor transcendent law, drifting through life in drunken idleness, living in vain, born at dawn and dying at dusk, clinging to life and fearing death, born in confusion and dying in confusion, burying their true spiritual nature in the stinking skin-bag of the flesh, wandering and sinking through countless kalpas, unaware of their own inversion, turning over and over, changing face after face, never ceasing in the wheel of birth and death (samsara), not knowing when they will ever break free.

Friends, since you have already received the precepts, you have already broken through. Having broken through, you can leave suffering; leaving suffering, you can go beyond the world. Friends, to escape suffering you must first endure suffering; without enduring suffering, it is hard to escape it. You must act according to the real words of sages, immortals, and buddhas—not chase only their empty fame. You must raise the same will to endure hardship that sages, immortals, and buddhas had; only then can you leave this world behind.

You must establish the resolve to become a sage, an immortal, or a Buddha. Do not merely repeat their words in vain; cultivate the causes that sages, immortals, and Buddhas cultivated, and do not fix your heart on ready-made results. Plant such roots, and such fruit naturally follows; accumulate such De (virtue/power), and the Dao naturally comes to you; perform such deeds, and you naturally attain such rank. If conduct does not match what you say, and speech outruns reality, you remain an ordinary person who does not advance. Can the way of sages, immortals, and Buddhas be walked by people of such faint aspiration? People of the assembly, you must raise a great resolve and vow a great vow before you can transcend the world.

Then he spoke a verse (rhymed instruction for teaching): Disciples who have received precepts, listen sincerely to my words. Only by establishing resolve can you escape birth and death. First endure hardship and restrain body and mind; sweetness comes only after bitterness, like dying and coming back to life. Establish your own resolve to leave the dust; turn ordinary emotions back inward. Grasp the Dipper’s handle in reverse (the handle of the Northern Dipper—turning back the momentum of outward dissipation), stand firm and lofty, and abide on the unmoving empty void and the white jade platform (the pure, luminous ground of the mind). I do not wish to cultivate only deliberate, action-oriented practice and fall into heterodox paths, nor to cling only to Wuwei (non-action) and stray into alien teachings. I do not lean toward nothingness or toward being; I wish to rest in centrality and harmony; I cultivate awakened awareness within neither being nor non-being. Establish resolve not to be turned by circumstances; however perilous the situation, the mind does not scatter. When you can use the dharma of mind to transform circumstances, wisdom opens like the celestial gate, and light fills everything. Establish resolve not to drift with worldly affairs; once pulled by outer things, the true mechanism is released. When sovereign power is lost, you fall into the demon’s hands; rebirth is then at his command, and regret comes too late. Establish resolve not to be blocked by events or principles; if you cling and linger, you are bound by appearances. When principle is clear and affairs thoroughly understood, obstacles become empty; you are liberated in true emptiness, and illusions vanish. Establish resolve not to follow the ears in listening to sounds; within the ear faculty hear the root truth. Strictly guard against leaking through the ears and losing true nature; in forbearance, first seal the ears and do not heed sounds recklessly. Establish resolve not to follow the eyes in viewing forms; gather light inward and look within, giving rise to empty brightness. Guard the eyes so light does not scatter and leak into emptiness, and illusions can be dispelled.

Guard the essence (Jing); do not let it leak outward through the ears and thereby lose your true nature. To cultivate forbearance, first block the ears and do not listen to external sounds. Resolve not to chase forms and colors with the eyes; gather the light inward and look within, and a void whiteness (a state of pure, luminous clarity) will arise in the heart. The eyes must guard against letting light leak outward and unsettling the primordial spirit (Yuanshen); when the eyes do not gaze outward, the heart can become single-minded.

Resolve not to speak casually with the mouth. Those who accord with the Dao speak little and return to naturalness. Teaching the Dharma need not be voiced; silence is the ultimate way of teaching the Dharma. Neither speaking nor not speaking—breath and energy continue on their own, unbroken. Resolve not to let the tongue crave flavors. Killing for the sake of mouth and belly is abhorred by spirits and ghosts. The self-generated golden fluid and jade dew (saliva within practice), fragrant as sweet wine, flows unceasingly like divine water, as if sweet dew were seeping in.

Resolve not to let the nose sniff fragrances. When the human heart stirs with a thought, true constancy is damaged. Since liberation and receiving the heaven-sent fragrance, each uses their own heart-fragrance to offer to the highest. Resolve not to let the body move recklessly; constantly maintain dignified deportment and cut off laziness. Filial impiety and defilement ruin the spiritual root; the body of the Dao should be upright, solemn, and seated with reverence.

Resolve not to let the heart clash with outer things. Anger and irritation without cause are wholly groundless. Subdue your own heart, act in accord with principle, and harmonious qi will blend; spirit and mood will be refreshed. Resolve not to let thoughts change at will; sincerity and uprightness are maintained moment by moment. The heart has no second thought, intention no other aim; even in solitude, preserve sincerity and turn toward the single-minded vow.

Resolve not to be pulled by bonds of love and attachment. The ties of love and attachment are like ropes wound around the body. Love and attachment must be uprooted to the root and every sprout cut away before one can board the Dharma boat (the vessel that carries one across to liberation). Resolve not to follow reckless, base companions. Such people’s intentions cannot last; they make one retreat from the thought of the Dao and lose the true heart. How can one walk together with those who ruin the teaching?

Resolve not to be misled by blind teachers. When the six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) meet the six dusts (form, sound, scent, taste, touch, dharmas), the heart does not linger in them; only by not clinging to a single fixed method can one see the true pivot. Heterodox paths and side gates cannot deliver oneself. Resolve first to receive the precepts of initial truth (the ten precepts for entering Quanzhen); when the ten precepts are firmly kept, the heart is not corrupted. Subdue thoughts, observe the rules, and do not lose true nature; in walking, standing, sitting, and lying—the four dignified deportments—be diligent and never slack. Then go further and receive the middle ultimate precepts (a higher level of precepts), and in hidden, subtle work contemplate freedom. The color-body is liberated and the Dharma-body is accomplished; the three bodies (Dharma-body, reward-body, manifestation-body) are fully realized, transcending the kalpas. Resolve to repay kindness with a earnest heart. The four great kindnesses (Heaven and Earth, sovereign, parents, teachers) are profound and must be settled. To repay deep kindness with body and life makes filial sons and loyal ministers a joy to Heaven and Earth.

Vows for Cultivating the True Dao

Resolve to cultivate the true Dao: first cast off falsity; do not feign deafness or muteness, nor shirk or evade. Be sincere in heart and intent. The four great debts—to Heaven and Earth, to parents, to the sovereign, and to teachers—are profound; they must be repaid and settled. Only one who can repay these deep debts with body and life is a true filial child and loyal subject; Heaven and Earth will rejoice. Be utterly sincere, without the least deception; the slightest falsity will reduce one to the lot of donkeys, oxen, and horses.

Resolve to cut off killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, as well as wine, sex, wealth, anger, and greed, dullness, and rage. The karma created by the six desires, seven emotions, and three poisons must be severed forever, so that one no longer wanders in rebirth through loss of the true mind.

Resolve not to practice the middle or lower vehicles, for they still depend on merit and its rewards, and such rewards must eventually run out. Practice the Mahayana path of pure liberation; vow to attain the supreme vehicle. Resolve to cultivate with hardship, with a mind that never retreats, extinguishing a thousand errors and myriad sins. When innate nature is clear, wisdom and merit are boundless, virtue is lofty, and one may stand alongside Heaven and Earth.

Resolve to take refuge in precepts, concentration, and wisdom, and enter the supreme gate without obstruction. Light is vast and bright, nothing hidden; neither defiled nor pure, nothing to fear. This is the transcendent dharma of no birth and no death, neither decreasing nor increasing, without opposition and without substitution. Without form, without deliberate action, not falling into grades or ranks; the lord of the limitless, supreme and without peer. Transcend the three realms (desire, form, and formlessness), reach the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing), ride the Brahma Qi of Miro (the pure Qi of the Miro Pure Realm where Yuanshi Tianzun dwells) and ascend to the jeweled throne.

Resolve to take refuge in Yuanshi Tianzun; may the Three Treasures of Dao, scripture, and teacher witness this heart. This heart vows to escape the calamities of the dusty world, awaken to body and mind, and no longer follow the wheel of rebirth.

With resolute heart I vow: From now on, may we cast off deceit and fraud, entrust body and life to emptiness, and with mind fixed on suchness (the true, unchanging nature), see through the false and illusory. May we learn the supreme vehicle of the Dao, with mind unattached to any mark. The six roots pure, the six dusts all empty—reverently follow the Emperor’s scriptures (the Yuhuang lineage of classics) and first cut off obstructions. May emotional consciousness melt away and we enter the true lineage, not letting the supreme treasure (the true treasure of nature and life) drift into demonic paths. May heart and life be one with emptiness, not letting nature and life be cast adrift. May we understand birth and death and transcend the world; the dharma realm vast, the dharma body great. The dharma body complete, the dharma realm originally empty; the dharma realm’s emptiness vast and great—may the supreme treasure not turn with demonic paths.

Willing to treat heart and life alike as empty nothingness, and not to let nature and destiny be cast adrift in wandering exile. Willing to understand birth and death clearly and to transcend the world; the Dharmadhatu (realm on which all dharmas depend) is vast, and the Dharmakaya (the body-as-ultimate-reality united with the Way) is great. When the Dharmakaya is complete, the Dharmadhatu is emptiness; when the Dharmadhatu is truly empty, it is vast and without obstruction. Willing first to deliver oneself and leave birth and death behind, making no distinction between saving oneself and saving others. Only wishing to rescue all people everywhere, regarding every sentient being as oneself. Wishing for the mind to be firm and attain fulfillment, and to obtain the true pivot that can reverse course—the key in cultivation that turns the ordinary forward flow of birth and death around and restores the original source.

Even if blades and axes wound the body, one does not refuse; even if water and fire sweep one away or burn the heart, one does not weaken. The three calamities, eight hardships, and five sufferings—one wishes to bear them alone and never turn away. Even when vow-power is exhausted, resolve is not broken; every heavenly demon finds it hard to block the way. The cycles of Yangjiu and Bailiu (great calamities in ancient reckoning) are hard to escape; even if the body is ruined and form destroyed, the vow is not abandoned. Though stone crumble and seas run dry, this heart does not fail; aspiration is firm as diamond, and concentration and wisdom are unbreakable. Even if one sinks into Avici (the hell of unbroken suffering), one does not shirk the karma already fixed and does not retreat. Willing to take upon oneself, through forbearance and bitter effort to the full, the evil karmic conditions one has created. Willing to understand the nature of delusion from beginningless time, and to enter the non-outflow (freedom from the leaks of affliction) and abide always in pure, quiet meditation. Willing to give heart and liver to rescue the three woeful paths (hell, hungry ghosts, and animals), and to enter the great mirror that hides nothing. Willing to save sentient beings with thoughts of compassion, and to become a good physician healing the ills of the world. Willing to launch the boat of compassion on the sea of suffering, and to lead sentient beings out of the realm of illusion.

All things in heaven and earth are wholly real; the Primordial Ancestor Qi (yuan shi zu qi), the cosmic ancestor-breath of Daoist teaching, and all spirits; with the whole sincerity of sages, immortals, and buddhas, all urgently exhort the great assembly in every body to follow together the path of liberation and leave the dust of the mundane world.

O assembly: the bitter resolve you have made and the great vows you have uttered—now they are entrusted one by one, item by item. You lofty disciples who raise the Way’s teaching, you immortal sons and daughters who spread the lineage’s wind, you spirit children who continue the Way’s pulse, you Daoists who break through the heavenly pass (the inner gate in practice where one passes the orifices and leaves birth and death)—the Ten Islets and Three Isles (shizhou sandao), the immortal isles of the sea in Daoist lore, have all heard and all know. Each of you should reflect and early prepare a vow that can truly be fulfilled; only then is it truly worthwhile. Ha! If this body is not liberated in this very life, in which life will you wait to liberate this body?

Time flies like an arrow; sun and moon race like a weaver’s shuttle. From the day you left home until now, day after day you have delayed and wasted the months and years. Your hair is white as frost; your skin is wrinkled; your teeth are falling out; your tendons have stiffened; your flesh has slackened. Alas! When the bones grow weak, you cannot walk far; when blood is depleted, you have no strength to lift heavy things. When essence is exhausted and kidney qi declines, the eyes grow dim; when spirit is weary and the mind is restless, that bit of numinous awareness cannot stay steady. When hun scatters and po dominates, both ears fail to hear clearly; though the stomach may still be strong, the spleen has weakened, and appetite gradually fades.

You must understand: this body was always illusory. However strong it becomes, there will still be a day of death—only the timing differs. Deafness and dim sight, dry tongue and parched mouth, loose teeth and shaking gums, aching waist and bent back, gray hair, withered temples, stiff sinews and bones, numb hands and feet, shortness of breath, and a discouraged heart—all of these are the invitation sent by Yama, King of the Underworld, politely asking you to come soon. Do not cling only to affection for the wife at home, to petty business like making tofu, or to childish views; do not be as obsessed as livestock, seeing only the present and ignoring the next life. If, at this very hour today, ghosts come to summon you, you can only endure it and go with them. Having called yourself a Daoist and left the household life, can you still hide or escape? Why not see through this clearly and gain early release? Like making the decisive move in a chess game and then letting go and walking away—that is how a true man of spirit shows himself: firm in resolve, capable in practice, transcending the world to cultivate. Otherwise, with spirit weak and timid and the face slack and collapsed, the Four Elements—wind, fire, earth, and water—each scatter on their own; sight, hearing, and a lifetime’s cleverness scatter together; mumbling and drifting, you sink into hell. Alas! If you cultivate without setting resolve, you are like a puppet show: when the gongs and drums finish one act, see where you can go. Only with resolve can you transcend the world; without it…

Chattering and mumbling, drifting and floating, lingering and swaying—ultimately one sinks into the hells. Alas, everyone! If cultivation lacks established aspiration, it is like performing puppet theater: when the gongs and drums finish, where can you go? Only by establishing aspiration can one transcend the mundane world; without resolve, the path is endlessly difficult. Only by resolving to cultivate the true Dao—the orthodox path spoken of in Daoism—can one obtain extraordinary great spiritual powers.

Fourteen. Verification Through Actual Effects (Using Real Results to Test Cultivation)

Everyone, to cultivate the quiet, non-active (wuwei) wondrous Dao of ease and freedom, one must first have aspiration and truly embody that ease. If ease can be practiced successfully, the natural Way is already within it. If one cannot even achieve ease, how can one be natural? When one cannot even handle worldly affairs properly, how can one be at ease? The immortal masters said: “If you wish to cultivate the immortal path, first cultivate the human path. If the human path is not well cultivated, the immortal path remains far away.” The Confucians say: “First put your own household in order; only then can you govern the state.” Putting the household in order is like the human path; governing the state is like the immortal path—if the household cannot be governed, how can one govern the state? Buddhism says: “You must exhaust the ordinary mind; apart from this there is no other gate to sainthood.” This ordinary mind is the principle of the Three Bonds and Five Constants (the ways of ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, plus benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness). When these are fully fulfilled, the human path is complete; then cultivating immortality is not difficult. Even if one does not immediately become a sage, immortal, or buddha, it becomes much easier.

How, then, does one advance on the immortal path? Since entering the mysterious gate (the door of Daoism), learning to be a Daoist priest, taking a master and receiving oral instructions, many go straight to seated meditation and quieting the mind, assuming the human path of the mundane world is already exhausted and the immortal path soon within reach. They do not know that reverence toward the master is still far from complete, cannot distinguish whether the transmitted instructions are orthodox or heterodox, and yet rush to begin practice empty-handed. As soon as they start, they urgently demand verification. After two or three days of sitting with no visions or signs, they abandon it; they seek another master, hear two sentences, and sit again. This slight desire for the Way cannot last two or three days before they crave verification again—the mind cannot even hold a single thought. With such a confused mind and shallow wisdom, they lightly take a master, receive two phrases, and sit—yet the heart seeking the Way cannot endure two or three days before demanding effects, and cannot grasp the thoughts at all.

Those whose minds are confused and whose wisdom is shallow, whose cultivation is hollow and thin, whose thoughts churn endlessly so that the spirit finds no rest—they are no different from people lost in dreams. They may sit in meditation for twenty or thirty years and remain ordinary folk to the end, never knowing it even as death approaches. How pitiful to waste years in vain, like scooping for the moon in water or reaching for flowers in a mirror, treating immortality as something easily grasped. Where is there a ready-made immortal? Sadly, many are toyed with by blind teachers (masters who do not know the correct path) and deceived by heterodox ways; I will not dwell on that further. I urge you only to study again and again the chapter on “strict and pure observance of precepts” and matters such as resolving to repay kindness: first straighten your intentions and clear away afflictions and avidyā (ignorance and delusion). With single-minded devotion to the Dao, take refuge in the Three Treasures (Dao, Scripture, and Master), recite true scriptures, and live by the precepts. Sit in the assembly hall (where wandering monastics are received in the monastic community) for a hundred days: outwardly dignified, the physical body steady, affairs in good order, posture upright. Then perform obeisance, invoke a true master, and vow not to study the middle and lower two vehicles (the two lesser levels of teaching), but with wholehearted refuge to hear the supreme, utterly true Great Vehicle of pure liberation—the natural wondrous Dao—awaken to birth and death, and forever escape the wheel of rebirth. Only then may you receive the Ten Initial Precepts of True Beginners (the ten precepts for those newly entering the path). Why is it so, assembly? To study the Dao you must first transform your temperament; only after you have heard the Dao may you take your place on the meditation cushion, still the mind and halt wandering thoughts, cut off discursive thinking and forget desire, work on the ground of the heart, and wholly set aside worldly affairs. Then ponder deeply the three hundred great precepts of the middle grade (the intermediate set of three hundred major precepts) that you have received, until you penetrate and master them thoroughly and know that the great matter of this path lies only within your own person, not outside the mind. Contemplate in private, closely and earnestly, until practice is complete and you verify emptiness and naturalness; even when you have reached the top of the hundred-foot pole, you must still advance one step further. Do not call crooked straight, nor argue blindly from ignorance. Some, having just settled on one monastery or obtained a small hermitage and taken one or two disciples, grow content and proud, no longer keeping precepts, concentration, and wisdom (śīla, samādhi, prajñā—the three trainings) in mind.

These people do not follow the discipline and dignified bearing of a precept master or precept instructor. They do not live in harmony with fellow disciples. Illiterate and ignorant, with character still incomplete, they nevertheless put on airs and boast that they practice supreme methods. They carry a fan inscribed with a few lines of alchemical jargon; they hang a bag from their belt stuffed with alchemical texts. Their gourds are filled with herbs gathered here and there, which they sell to laypeople for silver, claiming the recipes were secretly transmitted by extraordinary masters from beyond the seas. Once the silver is in hand, they buy wine and meat. Their mouths run wild; they know nothing of pulse diagnosis or yin-yang, yet they pick up a few formulas at random and pretend to merit and virtue thereby. All day they chatter about heaven and earth and rush about only to find clothes and food. Thus they ruin the teaching of the Supreme Venerable (Taishang Laojun) and stain the name of Quanzhen (Complete Perfection). Such violators of precepts and destroyers of discipline are seeds of sin; when their evil is full, the heavenly office (Tiancao)—the authority above that judges reward and punishment—will hold them accountable, and they will fall forever into hell—a truly pitiable and painful fate.

There is another sort: newly entered the gate of the Way, with small ambition and narrow vow, they only want to sit in meditation and loaf in comfort. They refuse to subdue the mind and tame qi, to cut attachment and sever emotion; they drag through mud and water, clinging to outer appearances, with obstruction in the heart. They constantly hope for quick results in practice, busying themselves with circulating qi and manipulating essence (the internal alchemy practice of guiding essence within the body). They remain dim about the mysterious aperture, taking the thief for the son, and long fail to awaken. They will not humbly seek verification or visit teachers for investigation; delusion piles up until it ripens, until nothing can save them—and they often harm body and life themselves, falling into the wheel of rebirth. They treat the limitless Dao as something inside the flesh-and-blood body, and mistake the discriminating spirit (the postnatal mind of thought and worry) for the original spirit (the innate, unconditioned spirit), letting it lead them around—how then can they escape birth and death?

Disciples, you must remember my words: sweep away heterodox paths and deviant methods as early as you can, and cast them off boldly. Temper body, mind, and intention within the innate nature endowed by Heaven. Do not crave immediate results; seek understanding only in the heart. Resolve to follow this single mind-path to the end—even against walls of bronze and iron you must break through, and a day of emergence will naturally come. When the fruit ripens and falls and the moment is ripe, the mind will suddenly awaken and you will penetrate heaven and earth.

If blessings are thin and affinity shallow, then accumulate merit and exert yourself with courage. If you do not awaken in this life, you will in the next; if not in the next life, then through a thousand lives and ten thousand ages you cannot ultimately avoid that one awakening. With this vow set, the mind bent on the Dao will not retreat through kalpa after kalpa—you are surely a sage of great compassion and great vow, and in the end you can attain the Dao.

Yet worldly fortune (hongfu) is easy to cultivate; pure, otherworldly fortune (qingfu) is hard. The path of leaving the world that you aspire to is the right path—not the heterodox way of visualization and furnace refining, chasing long life without death. People of that sort, for myriad generations, are merely corpse-guarding ghosts who cling to mountains and flesh.

This Wuji (limitless void) path of pure stillness does not rely on quick results, does not seek near-term achievement, and does not fix a term of three or nine years—it takes seeing the nature (mingjian zijia benxing) as the main aim. Signs change day by day and moment by moment: saliva in the mouth grows moist and fragrant, hands and feet grow solid, the crown of the head shows a round image, the brain opens the “heavenly gate” (tianding xuanguan), the belly steams like fire, and bones throughout the body crack and sound. Yet these are only middle and lower levels of practice; step by step, section by section, you must return into the body of the Dao.

Because the Dao is originally utmost emptiness and its substance originally utmost non-being, it is called Wuji. If practice loses its direction and takes what appears before you as the real gain, you fall into heterodox paths. Hence it is said: off by a hair’s breadth at the start, wrong by a thousand li at the end.

Those who cling to labels and fixate on images, who ask where to place the “furnace,” fail to see that the substance of utmost emptiness is from the start utmost non-being—hence it is called Wuji, the boundless, formless origin. When practice never returns to the root yet treats whatever appears in the moment as real attainment, that is a side path—a deviation from the Way—and “a hair’s breadth off, a thousand miles wrong.”

Whoever is trapped in names and marks, arbitrarily setting up furnace and cauldron—the vessels of refinement in the elixir path—raising lead at the zi hour and lowering mercury at the wu hour, advancing yang fire and retreating yin talisman, working by hexagrams and checking against the clock, yet not knowing how to return to the Great Dao’s root, is only practicing lower, small techniques. Qingjing wuwei—stillness and non-forcing—is the subtle way of natural return; it is utterly unlike those procedures.

As the Huangjing (Imperial Scripture) says: to set the mind and vow, to resolve to transcend the ordinary—that first thought is the jade maiden releasing incense. As soon as heart-incense is released, all beings in the four modes of birth and the six paths who catch the scent can receive deliverance. Releasing incense is the work; smelling it is the effect. Likewise when the Jade Emperor radiates light, all heavens and lands, all worlds of Wuji, are gathered into that radiance, like boundless mirrors holding one another— that is effect. Cutting through obstacles is the work; the seventeen lights and thirty kinds of merit are the effect. What the “Merit Chapter” and “Retribution Chapter” record are the effects of merit and fault upon the scripture reciter.

You were formerly light and impatient: mouth never still, full of idle talk; hands never still, busy with pointless tasks; feet never still, wandering without purpose; you could not sit straight, body askew; sleep was restless, turning again and again; eyes roamed everywhere, glancing this way and that; you moved like a gust of wind—nothing like someone on the Dao. Like an ox without a nose-ring, a horse without a bridle—you did not walk the straight path or keep to the middle way.

Now that you have received precepts (formally undertaking Daoist precepts), wearing the dao cloak and dao cap, holding the alms bowl and shod feet, you have dressed yourselves in the appearance of Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) daoists. You follow others to learn how to act, listening to what people say and watching what they do, and you turn your former rough, flustered manner into one that is composed and in accord with ritual propriety. That is the work of holding precepts. When your bearing changes and your outward appearance takes on a daoist’s demeanor, so that people feel respect at first sight, that is only the outer face of holding precepts.

If you can go further in maintaining refined practice, focusing your thoughts and aligning with the Dao, seeking only to illuminate the mind and see your nature (to discern the original mind and recognize your inherent nature), not greedily chasing proof of efficacy, worrying only that the work is not yet done and not worrying that efficacy will not come—when the great phase (inner alchemical firing process) ripens, you will naturally penetrate to the end in one awakening. If your practice is not strict, with divided thoughts and a wavering mind, stop-and-start effort and lingering doubt, sincerity is lacking and Shen (spirit) will not respond; when thoughts are not unified, Qi (vital energy) cannot gather. With Shen wandering outward and Qi floating and scattering without being collected, and intent that is not genuine—where would efficacy come from? Since you now have great aspiration and wish to escape samsara (the unceasing turning of birth and death), broaden your heart-mind, tighten your practice, and put efficacy last—that is the way.

It is like a good physician who uses medicine seeking balance and moderation; a mediocre physician doses medicine always chasing quick results, neglecting the root and only wanting early visible effects. Just as a little immediate effect appears, the original Qi is already harmed; the foundation cannot recover for a time, and many complications often arise—the patient does not even understand, and regret comes too late. If the assembly can truly day and night act according to the precepts and cultivate in accord with Keyi (liturgy), constantly raising the work and at every moment applying the mind to investigate—would you still fear having no efficacy? Even if the mind is already somewhat open and vision somewhat clear, you must still broaden your resolve, subdue the deluded mind, and draw near to persons of virtue—only then can you verify a higher realm. You must absolutely not cling to the view of self (fixating only on the individual self) and forget the view of others (other people and human relationships).

Do not cling to others' appearances (the mark of others) while forgetting your own clinging (the mark of self). When neither the mind of self nor the mind of others arises, the marks of self, others, sentient beings, and longevity are all emptied, and virtue and blessing naturally follow.

Everyone, cultivating the Dao depends entirely on this one point of mind: only when the heart is sincere and the intent is earnest do you draw near to the Dao. If you can release obsessive thoughts and keep the mind-ground empty and still, what practice would not take effect? The heart must be cool; thoughts must be like dead ash. When a single towering bean sprout bursts forth from that cold ash, that is the living pulse emerging in stillness. True fire and Qi (the pre-heaven single breath) can illuminate all things, like the sun shining in the sky.

Hold precepts and meritorious conduct with meticulous care; the signs of samadhi are known only to the light of wisdom within. A single grain of millet within the body can yet contain heaven and earth (in internal alchemy, millet stands for the true seed, the golden elixir)—tell that to others and you seem mad. Listen carefully to these words of the Dharma: with a coarse heart and floating qi, how could one become an immortal? Quickly follow the precepts in cultivating merit, with steadfast will and sincere heart, cutting off wandering intent. Sit in meditation hidden in the mountains, shut the mountain gate (gathering in outer distractions), and only then is the heart not coarse. When the four marks are all empty and the mind is again pure and still, when neither of the two minds arises, you merge and connect with the Dao.

Now this celestial secret is told to you: results depend only on the mind that applies effort. Diligent practice and bitter discipline bring many verifications; at every moment go deep with fine care. Inner stillness of the heart can only be examined by yourself—do not let others know even half a part. Do not cling to any realm on your own mind; that is the time of great awakening in the heart. A foolish cat guards its hole and stirs up ignorance (avidya), taking delusion for a womb and calling a rounded womb the birth of a holy infant. When will the Metal Lord (lead, true yang) mount the azure tiger, and in whose house will the Wood Mother (mercury, true yin) ride the white dragon? On the crown, the three flowers (jing, qi, shen) blaze with light; within the body, the five qi (qi of the five viscera) surge vigorously. Pity those who do not know this true message—the spirit platform (heart) is blocked and original nature does not flow.

I tell you: do not slander the humble gate of keeping precepts—precepts are the foundation of entering the Dao through wuwei (non-action). They are like a raft pushed up from the waves to cross the sea, or like a ladder to heaven raised in mid-air. Do not boast and become proud; do not slander others or argue over right and wrong.

If at that time you did not wish to receive it, that was your choice—why then stand in others’ way and invite suspicion? To praise with the mouth and rejoice in the heart—this is what it means to revive the Mysterious Gate and uphold the teaching. If slander arises, heaven’s punishment will follow; cause and effect has always been utterly real.

Alas! You refuse to be a good person, refuse to speak good words, refuse to cultivate the Great Dao, yet insist on cleverness and only become clumsy. Without practicing through precepts and concentration (ding), how can you receive the robe and bowl transmitted by the Supreme Venerable (the highest honored one in Daoism)? Without cultivating merit and wisdom together, how can body and mind be freed? Acting at random without understanding the principle—how can you open the crucial pivot? Without clearing obstacles and ignorance (obscured delusion), how can the heart’s capacity widen? Less wrongdoing is better than more; not speaking rashly is better than idle talk. The supreme correct Way is not the path of heterodox teachings—how can you lightly wag your tongue? Selling secret formulas for money everywhere—you should know for yourself whether sin or blessing weighs heavier. If you cling in delusion and do not awaken, there will be death without true life; reborn as pigs and sheep, you will be slaughtered according to karmic retribution. This cannot escape scrutiny in the realms of heaven and earth and of light and darkness; at the Five La and Three Primordials (fast days when heaven reviews merit and demerit, and the birthdays of the Three Officials), all will be checked.

Know that sun and moon, yin and yang, shine clearly—it is not a blur of darkness; such a person’s obsession is plainly seen, and everyone knows it—do not slander or criticize. Again and again in pity and compassionate counsel: take refuge early in the Three Thousand Great Precepts (the many precepts binding body, speech, and mind in Daoism). When the heart has no obstruction, right and wrong empty out; in sitting, lying, walking, and standing, practice can penetrate everywhere. The fire of karmic obstruction turns to hollow flame; at night a light reports that the hall of teaching glows red. From precepts, concentration, and wisdom, liberation is born; guard the precepts sincerely and personally go through each one. If you doubt that the precepts are a fraud passed on to deceive people, heaven will reject you and you will invite the retribution of having your tongue pulled out. One who learns the Dao, once awakened, no longer doubts or stagnates—like clouds swept clean by the wind into clarity; beyond the cycles of calamity, free and at ease, suddenly cutting through idle tangled vines.

In accordance with Keyi (liturgy), bow to the Celestial Worthy (the Daoist honorific for the supreme god): do not raise your voice, do not tilt your head; inner and outer aligned, spirit and mind without error—though still an ordinary body, the Dao is already accomplished. The Dao’s fulfillment is neither easy nor impossible; whether precepts are kept or broken rests entirely in your own heart. The vines of birth-and-death entanglement still bind you—you must rely on Keyi to worship the Celestial Worthy, not speak loudly, not turn your head aside.

Internal and external are originally one and the same shen (spirit), without the slightest loss or error; though the person may still wear an ordinary body, the Dao is already accomplished. Attaining the Dao is neither truly easy nor truly hard—whether precepts are kept or neglected depends entirely on one’s own mind. Human birth and death hinge on precepts and concentration (ding); having taken refuge, do not treat the precepts lightly as something pedantic and useless.

Fifteen. Preserving Life and Extending True Vitality (Preserving Heaven’s Mandate, Extending True Life)

Disciples: When this humble daoshi (Daoist priest, self-reference) lectured from the high seat in heaven, I repeatedly urged you to rouse a courageous heart and make great vows, seeking only to understand birth and death soon—do not sell your aspiration short and follow the lesser vehicle path (er cheng dao: in Buddhism the paths of shravaka and pratyekabuddha; here, the way that clings to one’s own birth and death with small ambition) of clinging to life and fearing death. Today I speak again of methods for preserving life and extending vitality—is that not self-contradictory, empty talk that misleads the crowd?

What I mean by preserving life and extending vitality is not attachment to this physical form alone, speaking only of jing (essence) and qi (vital energy) so that you merely keep your postnatal lifespan and prolong this floating life before your eyes. What is meant now by preserving life is “what Heaven mandates is called nature (xing)”: guard the mandate Heaven has given, and rest in plain, proper duty while awaiting it. This “what Heaven mandates is called nature” is what Buddhism calls the life of wisdom (huiming—life rooted in prajna), and what Daoism calls the natal star (ben ming xing—the star of one’s root fate). This “ming” (mandate/life) is longevity that does not perish at death—that is, though the body dies, true nature does not die. The Diamond Sutra asks: how does one obtain long life? One must obtain the indestructible vajra body. Heaven’s mandate is fundamentally undivided; cultivate body and mind to await it. What the Book of Changes calls “exhausting principle, fulfilling nature, and thereby reaching mandate” (qiong li jin xing yi zhi yu ming—investigating things to the limit, fully realizing one’s nature, and thus realizing this mandate) is the essential teaching of establishing mandate.

What is meant by extending is not curing illness and prolonging years, nor immortality without death, but the true nature that does not decay through myriad kalpas, the dharma body (fashen—the true body beyond flesh) that endures from antiquity, and the embodied form that nurtures all beings—not this flesh of ordinary people. If you only cultivate this skin-bag, you may live a few years more at best and die a little later; that is never the true Dao. The preserving and cultivating I point to now is unity with Heaven and Earth and sameness with the ten thousand things. Though Heaven and Earth change, my original nature does not change; though the ten thousand things reach their limit, my Dao-body does not reach its limit. Heaven, Earth, and the ten thousand things all pass through kalpic cycles through yuan, hui, yun, and shi (the four layers by which ancients divided cosmic time and fortune)—yet this clear, constant, empty, and unfailing nature, transcendent beyond form, knows neither ruin nor change. The life to preserve and the vitality to extend are precisely this.

This is what is meant by the Dao flowing as Heaven’s principle: amid the unceasing generation of the myriad things, there are still cycles of kalpa (great cosmic periods of formation and dissolution) coming and going, and yuan, hui, yun, and shi (cosmic time units from largest to smallest) shifting; yet this clear, ever-present, empty-and-luminous, never-dimmed original mind stands beyond all form—without ruin, sinking, or change. The life to be preserved and the existence to be extended are precisely this: the ever-flowing, ever-renewing Dao of Heaven’s principle. Every passage here is spoken from the heart only when there is no other choice. If a clear-eyed person penetrates this, they know that discourse from the mysterious seat was silent from the start—they already grasp the message within. The Great Dao has no boundary; it embraces heaven and earth, leaves nothing out, is present at every moment, in every thing, wrapping all. In daily life, Dao is everywhere: in what the eyes see and ears hear, in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, in breath and food, in advance and retreat, in dress and meals, in sun and rain, cold and heat—everywhere is Dao. Yet you are veiled by outer things and bound by temperament (wubiqiju—things obscure, qi constrains); in the midst of ordinary use you do not know it. In emptiness there is originally clear, bright responsiveness; once you fall before form, shadow, and sound, step by step you lose the way. Now, relying on the compassionate heart of the patriarchs of the three teachings—Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist—to save all beings, and on the vow to benefit the multitude, I cannot but speak a few words more to you all. Therefore I universally tell all beings: apart from this there is no second Dharma; if there were a second Dharma, it would not be the path of great-vehicle right awakening (complete enlightenment). This bit of spiritual nature in you is another name for Huiming (the true life formed by wisdom)—originally one substance; Huiming is in turn a provisional name for the body of the Dao, all from one family. Only because one source has different labels do the three names all apply while you still hold to unity. Huiming appears at every moment—you cannot see its form; it hides at every instant—you do not know where it is; it speaks Dharma every day—you cannot hear its voice. Is this not searching for fire while holding a lamp, or searching for an ox while riding an ox? Everyone, why teach you to preserve it? For fear you do not recognize this Hui—it is Lingbao (the luminous treasure). I know you well: day after day it speaks Dharma, yet you do not hear.

Are you not like fools who hunt for fire while holding a lamp, or search for the ox while already riding on its back? Disciples, why do I teach you to guard this bit of innate wisdom? Because I fear you will fail to recognize it: this wisdom is precisely the Lingbao—the supreme treasure within spirit. I know well how often you turn against it. You are not yet seasoned practitioners who have seen your nature, nor old Daoists who thoroughly know the mind; even when you catch a glimpse, you do not know how to use it, and when you occasionally do use it, you never apply it where it matters most.

Once this wisdom-life—the spiritual life that could go on without end—is lost, it is like Yuanshi Tianzun leaving his dharma seat, the Yellow Emperor (Xuanyuan) losing his dark pearl, Iron-Crutch Laozu misplacing his crutch, or Master Tongxuan Zhang Guo losing his green donkey: you have a mouth but cannot speak, you only grope at your nose in vain; you have a heart but the passages do not connect, you lack nimbleness, and you can only fade away in the dark.

Today I inherit the sacred intent of Yuanshi Tianzun’s teaching and look up to the great virtue of Patriarch Qiu (Qiu Chuji) in cherishing life; I speak this clarifying word to you like ghee, so that you will hurry to penetrate the subtle principle of preserving life and extending years. Have you never heard the Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Scripture for Dispelling Calamities and Protecting Life? If you can turn that scripture in the mind and awaken through it, you can make the wisdom-life continue without limit, unceasingly alive. If you only recite it by rote, that is merely offering worship—not turning and awakening. Those who only worship forget even as they chant and never taste the true flavor.

Does the scripture not say: since beginningless time, living beings have had their minds enslaved by the body; thoughts follow outer conditions and drift, they only crave love and attachment and never stop, adrift on the river of desire, sunk in the sea of craving, clinging to illusory forms and obscuring their original face. The Dao is originally formless, yet they treat it as if it had form; the Dao is originally not empty, yet they cling to it as empty. They invert and confuse themselves among form and emptiness, being and non-being, and in the end cannot understand on their own.

How can one leave the path of birth and death and escape the karma of samsara (the cycle of birth and death)? If someone understands that emptiness is not merely emptiness and form is not merely form, does not cling to views of emptiness, and stays far from all doubt and outflow (the tainted attachment of the mind leaking outward), that person can make the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) pure and still and cut off obstructions. This is the aim of our school and what should be taught and transmitted. This scripture is called Guardian of Life; it enables people to rely on this method to save all beings, to spread the teaching in the world, circulate it, and recite it. Those who can recite and transmit it have flying heavenly spirit-kings (spirit-kings who fly to protect the scripture), vajra who break evil (dharma-protectors who dispel wrong and obstruction), dharma-protecting spirit children (spirit children who guard the true teaching), true persons who relieve suffering (immortals who deliver beings from distress), and golden-eyed fierce beasts (dharma-protecting spirit beasts with golden eyes)—each in countless myriads—to guard this scripture, so that all may each keep far from such defilement.

O assembly! How could the form body (the flesh-and-blood body) know emptiness that is not merely empty, form that is not merely form, recognize the empty dharma with nothing to grasp, see through without obstruction, and enter the gate of manifold wonder? Therefore I first explain to you the subtle meaning in the scripture and protect the wisdom-life of the assembly (the true life sustained by wisdom). The patriarchs in compassion feared that disciples would take the form body for the true body; what is sought is not to cling to nothing in the midst of nothing, not to cling to form in the midst of form, not to cling to being in the midst of being, not to cling to emptiness in the midst of emptiness. If one is driven by this fleshly, illusory form body, there will be no rest from turmoil, the true lineage will be lost, and the treasure of wisdom will be forfeited.

Therefore this scripture asks each of you to guard the spirit root (innate spiritual nature) and cultivate the primordial root (the root of nature and life); when the root is firm, the Dao arises from it. The noble person delights in following Heaven and so can preserve life; not distinguishing early death from long life—this is extending life. The noble person serves Heaven and so the wisdom-life is long-lasting; when the wisdom-life is long-lasting, one can ceaselessly generate and transform and flow forth, realize the vajra indestructible body (the dharma body firm and unbreakable), and accomplish the true and constant, non-outflowing (without tainted loss) dharma body.

O assembly, the scriptures and registers of the Three Caverns and Four Repositories (the divisions of Daoist canonical literature) and the five thousand three hundred true writings—all point only to extending life and preserving life; only thus can one transcend calamity and leave the dusty world. Clinging to appearances is not preserving life; true emptiness (the true nature that does not fall into empty or existent) is what extends life. Wisdom-nature does not part from wisdom-life; wisdom-light is the lamp of wisdom.

For the light of wisdom to shine constantly, the life-essence of wisdom—the vital true source that inner alchemists distinguish from the span of the physical body—must be settled and enduring; only then can one leave the kalpa and transcend the dusty world. Clinging to outer appearances is not preserving life; true emptiness is what extends life. Wisdom-nature cannot be separated from the life of wisdom; the light of wisdom is the lamp of wisdom. For that light to shine always, the life of wisdom must rest in quiet stability and long endure; when it can abide without leaving stillness, the lamp’s flame naturally stays bright. When awakening reaches the real, it is like a lamp always lit—able to illumine oneself and also to deliver beings with skill. This light is not actually a visible light; this clarity is not a clarity that can be named. It is what was originally in the life-essence; only when wisdom opens is it provisionally called light. Form and emptiness are birth and death in the world; emptiness and form are what preserve life and extend it. To extend life is to go beyond the kalpa; once beyond the kalpa, what death or what name remains to speak of? Sentient beings drift and sink life after life, kalpa after kalpa, only because they have lost wisdom. The lamp and light of wisdom shine everywhere—hasten to awaken to the root reason for holding precepts. Here we try to pick out the wondrous method of preserving life and extending it, and explain it to you all in stillness and emptiness.

O disciples, O disciples! The scripture says: Use it and you do not see it—then life can be preserved; see it and you cannot use it—then life can be extended. Only extinguish the active mind (the mind of restless discrimination), not the illuminating mind (the mind of aware shining)—then life can be extended; only extinguish the clinging mind (the mind that fixates and stops), and stabilize empty mind—then life can be preserved. When life can be extended, the life of wisdom is unbroken and the great medicine (what inner alchemy refines) can be perfected; when life can be preserved, one can realize non-birth and the great elixir can be refined. Life is not eternally fixed: act in accord with the Way and you receive it; act wrongly and you lose it. Humans receive mandate from Heaven—they must reflect on and examine Heaven’s clear mandate; Zhou was an old state, yet its mandate was renewed. These are the real principles of preserving and extending life—the great Way of establishing life.

Disciples, if you can awaken here and fully obtain this wondrous point, I now do not spare the supreme treasure—I pour out all I hold and point directly at the hidden pivot. There are four lines in a gatha—everyone examine them closely: “Short life and long life—each originally has its allotted span; coming to birth and passing away—in origin there is no birth. To extend life and preserve life, you need not seek another method; when method returns to no-method—that is the citadel of the Dharma King (the supreme realm where no fixed method binds).”

Biyuan Tan Sutra, fascicle 2, section sixteen: Expounding the Teaching and Vastly Opening the Way.

Disciples, what this humble priest (a Daoist’s modest self-reference) spoke from the teaching seat yesterday was this: although the body of the Way is essentially wuwei (non-action) and the Dharma body (the true body revealed through cultivation) is what is real, you must understand that the body of the Way is not apart from the ordinary body, and the Dharma body is within the physical body (the flesh form). The physical body becomes firm because its outer appearance is adorned by the merit of deliberate, “active” practice; the Dharma body becomes pure because its inner atmosphere is adorned by the merit of wuwei. When both inner and outer are pure and both aspects are understood, the spirit is liberated, one enters the supreme, indestructible void, and great light and great perfection appear—nothing surpasses this. Myriad spirits come to pay homage; one can command thunder and lightning; the three realms (desire, form, and formlessness) guard; the Five Emperors (the lords of the five directions) welcome; wisdom becomes clear and penetrating. And this is not achieved by relying on deliberate practice and habituation alone.

Disciples, guard the jing (essence) and nourish the qi (vital energy), and the qi will settle while the jing will congeal. Still the firing and draw the breath inward (xi huo hui feng—adjusting the inner alchemical “fire” and breath in neidan), and jing transforms into qi, steaming the four great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind—the constituents of the body) so that the myriad spirits harmonize. When the true fire produces no smoke or flame, the qi is clear; when the spirit water does not leak outward, the shen (spirit) is still. Clear qi can transform into shen; still shen can merge with emptiness. When emptiness reaches its extreme and stillness is solid, the original true nature is restored; then the nine returns and seven reversals (jing, qi, and shen layer by layer returning to the source) complete, and one returns to the mandate and to the root. Returning to the root, nature and life are established and true nature abides constantly. When true nature abides, the body of the Way is manifest; when the body of the Way is manifest, the Dharma body appears.

Disciples, this is cultivating the body of the Way as wuwei within deliberate practice, and cultivating the useful Dharma body in what seems useless. The physical body has a life span; the Dharma body has a wisdom life (a life not bound to the flesh’s birth and death, forged by one’s own cultivation). Life span is ordained by Heaven, not by oneself—hence the physical body undergoes cyclic birth and death and the turns of kalpa-fate. Wisdom life is decided by oneself, not by Heaven—hence the Dharma body has provisional power and ease, and liberation meets no obstruction. Disciples, the physical body’s years are limited; fixed karma is hard to escape. When Heaven decrees death, one must die.

The wisdom-life of the Dharma Body—the true essence that is neither born nor destroyed—has no end; its spiritual powers are vast. Only by eternally realizing the unborn state does one attain true longevity.

Everyone, even if the physical body endures ten thousand years, that can only be called a demon, not the Dao. The Dharma Body comes and goes yet is always present. To hear the Dao in the morning and die at night is no loss—this is the supreme sage’s true word. The Dharma Body dies yet is not extinguished, hence it is called long life; the physical body, once dead, dies again and again, hence it is impermanent. If you awaken to the Dharma Body, you can turn short-lived, impermanent beings into the long-lived; if you cling to the form of the physical body, you will instead draw measureless long life into rebirth.

The whole secret in one phrase: see through the physical body, let ten thousand cares empty out, cultivate sincerely and purely, not stained by a speck of dust, and do not let the Dharma Body be wrapped up by the physical body. You need only see through the physical body and deliver the Dharma Body—is that not the great turning of the wheel of the Dao and the flourishing of the Dao’s course? What is taught now—clarifying filial piety and spreading the Great Dao—depends entirely on the constant turning of that wheel. To make the patriarchs’ Dao shine again, if one does not point out sentient beings’ Dharma Body, who will shelter and protect them?

If teaching is not spread, the Dao is not clear; if the Dao is not clear, the method cannot be practiced; if the method cannot be practiced, the Dao cannot be spread. The supreme sage said: “People can spread the Dao; it is not the Dao that spreads people.” As long as each of you recognizes the person who spreads the Dao, practices the method that spreads it, and explains the pivot by which the Dao is made manifest, why worry that the lineage of the Dao will not rise or the ancestral tradition decline?

In youth I studied little and read narrowly; I did not master Confucianism or Buddhism, but simply and earnestly visited Daoist learning, wandering outside the worldly realm for decades, striving to reach the root source. What I investigated was my own innate knowing; what I questioned was only original wisdom-nature. After long inward inquiry, innate knowing stood alone on the cinnabar platform (the place of inner refinement in the heart); after deep inward questioning, wisdom-nature gave forth light in the empty chamber (the open, luminous mind). When the inner self has a master, there is no harm in receiving guests; when the inner self has a true aim, one must therefore expound the teaching and spread the Dao.

Fellow practitioners, my literary skill is dull, and I feel deeply ashamed when I compare myself to the Sanyao Han—the comprehensive canon of Daoist scriptures divided into the Three Caverns of Dongzhen, Dongxuan, and Dongshen. In youth I did read scriptures on internal alchemy (Neidan), yet I had no way to copy down the precious formulas of true immortals. By nature I am careless and lazy, fond of quiet and ease; I often investigate the root of essential nature and lifespan (xingming), and enter deeply into xiyi—the silent, formless realm of mystery and emptiness. I set aside ten thousand affairs and simply guard the primordial true origin (zhenyuan). What leisure had I to read Confucian books or study alchemical classics? So to this day I still do not excel at writing; my speech is clumsy and blunt. I can only speak a few unrevealed hints of these supreme true words and most secret mysteries in coarse, plain language for you to hear.

Yet the Dao cannot be fully exhausted by words—why must one open the mouth to preach? The classics are not found in rote learning—why must one hold court to expound scripture? The teaching honors wuwei (non-action)—why stir up unnecessary trouble? This Dao is everyone’s share; for an instant it cannot be left. Whether lay or ordained, one may awaken and investigate; there is no need to leave the world, take vows, and wander everywhere seeking teachers and companions. It is only because the matter of birth and death will not leave the heart that one seeks food as if starving, running east and west until the ends of the earth, searching for a method of fuming gui—returning life to its root and source. Fortunately Yuqing, Shangqing, and Taiqing—the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing) and the lineages they transmitted—bestowed scriptures and preached the law, established the teaching and opened altars, spread the Dao and passed down the robe and bowl (yibo), so that schools continue to this day. Among Confucians, Master Zhou, the two Masters Cheng, Master Zhang, and Master Zhu received and transmitted the secrets in the classics and clarified the essentials of the mind-method. There are also the Diamond Sutra, Surangama Sutra, and Heart Sutra—the true purport of Buddhism, teaching the profound way to still body and mind and leave desire behind. What the three teachings share lies only on the path of xingming—cultivating nature and nurturing life; all are mind-methods of compassion that deliver from calamity and relieve suffering. Today I unworthily stand in the lineage of Patriarch Qiu (Qiu Chuji, founder of the Longmen branch of Quanzhen), and merely follow the customs of our gate in proclaiming these precious teachings and passing on and clarifying what I have received.

Fellow practitioners of the Way: I am an ordinary person, without supernatural powers (shen-tong, extraordinary spiritual abilities). I know only how to apply myself in daily life and use that to help others understand the teaching. What I do is simply to be someone in the Daoist community who upholds the precepts. I am not like those who peddle secret formulas, go everywhere begging for donations, idle about, eating and dressing without earning it, yet never grasp the great matter of life and death. So I have simply roused my own spirit, for the sake of universal salvation (pu-du, broadly delivering sentient beings). Upward, to revive the spirit of the teaching; downward, to benefit living beings. From the first, it is for sentient beings—not for myself.

Our Longmen (Longmen lineage of Quanzhen Daoism) has, since Patriarch Qiu (Qiu Chuji) in the Yuan dynasty, raised the mysterious teaching and spread its instruction. Four hundred years have passed; rarely do we see truly accomplished persons, and it is hard to meet those with genuine aspiration. Now I, a humble latecomer in this Daoist lineage, did not expect that for thirty years I would single-mindedly keep the precepts, observe the law, and travel widely seeking the true Way. Heaven fulfilled my vow: at Wangwu (Wangwu Mountain) I met my master; at Jiugong I received the Dao—more than twenty years ago. The season of the Dao has opened; we also rejoice in the prosperity of this dynasty. Officials and gentry delight in doing good; scholars and merchants are willing to give alms. Those of like mind and karmic affinity are meeting the moment when they may take refuge and practice. Therefore we established precept-transmission altars in the capital. Eight years through cold and heat—the teaching has moved thousands who sincerely sought the Way. Monastics and laypeople, all who had affinity, without exception took refuge in precept and samadhi (jie-ding, holding precepts and settling the mind in concentration), entering directly into the subtle Way of clarity and emptiness. I rely on nothing but this single spark of clear mind, sincerely and silently applied, which moved heaven’s grace and brought such an encounter. To mount the dharma seat in this way is barely justified—I am only presumptuously acting as precept master (the master who transmits precepts). As for vigorously expounding the mysterious gate (Daoism) and broadly spreading the dharma field—that remains my deepest lifelong wish.

Do not believe slanderous or harmful talk. Do not cling to the meditation cushion (pu-tuan), throat closed and teeth clenched, putting on the appearance of cultivation until the years slip by and only yourself is harmed. People like this say “constant response, constant stillness” (chang ying chang jing)—but what are they actually responding to? They say “great compassion, great vow” (da bei da yuan)—but what are they actually vowing?

Someone challenges us: You keep saying you want to save all beings—save them from what? If you cannot even care for your own nature and life (xingming), how can you care for others? What is the point of reciting precepts and scriptures? And when you speak of great compassion and great vows (dabei dayuan), what exactly is that vow? If your own nature and life are hard to preserve, how can you look after others?

Listen carefully: Precepts and scriptures come from the Daoist Canon (Daozang—the collected classics of Daoism). They are transmitted according to liturgy (keyi) and the conferral of precepts; this is not empty talk. It is only to clarify the teaching and deliver sentient beings, so that those who are lost may not slander the Way. I urge fellow practitioners to broaden their hearts, endure insult while cultivating truth, and spread the teaching. Only when concentration (ding—focused, undistracted mind) and wisdom (hui—discerning insight) are cultivated together does merit and virtue run deep enough to deliver all beings and leave the sea of suffering. Those who receive precepts must first cut off obstructive burdens; once obstruction one is removed, the mind-ground naturally brightens. Do not worry that your innate wisdom lacks light; guard against its blaze becoming too strong. By reining in sharp edges you preserve your life; your life of wisdom (huiming—the spiritual life gained through inner cultivation, as opposed to the physical body) then endures. Do not fixate on prolonging years; leave behind illusory bodily form. Hold to pure unity, nurture simplicity, and learn wuwei (non-action—acting in accord with the Dao without forced striving); then the life of wisdom extends and you return to the vast Dao. If you only stare at the physical body (se shen) and do not know that when the flesh dies, whose “long life” is left? If you refuse to save others and only seek your own release, how will any immortal master come to save you?

Ready-made clothes and food at ease—who prepared this mouth and this body? Rice piled like hills, fields stacked like mountains—how could you ever consume it all? Even a drop of water you should not take can swell into a flood of retribution and make you wail in Avici (the deepest hell). Some cheat their way to support, seeking only their own comfort—warm clothes, full meals, never thirst; they sweet-talk people into believing they have already achieved the Way and that when they ascend they will take you along. Outer supporters (waihu—lay devotees who protect the community from outside) hear this and give more eagerly, blindly hoping to pan gold from the water. How many ordinary people truly awaken on their own? In what year and month will they really ascend? One who is truly awakened in wisdom feels no jealousy: in stillness they take wuwei as the way to save themselves first; in activity they spread the Dao and deliver fellow practitioners. Ten thousand words boil down to this one awakening; only with that awakening can we speak of universal deliverance—and the heart of universal deliverance must be sincere and firm. Then the Dao flourishes, the teaching is clarified, the patriarchs’ style is upheld, and the person is liberated in true emptiness, with mind-nature returned to peace.

Seventeen. Jidu rensheng: rescuing and delivering human life.

Fellow disciples: I speak of these matters, propagate teaching, and exalt the Great Dao not for my own sake, nor for the sake of the religious community itself, but only to comprehend and embody the Great Dao, emulate Heaven, and thereby save and deliver sentient beings. In former times the sages of the three teachings—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism—if not for the sake of living beings, why would they have established teachings, transmitted scriptures, set up altars to expound the true principle, provided convenience for people everywhere, and poured out a heart of compassion?

What Confucianism honors is the Most Sage First Teacher Confucius. His virtue accorded with Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate); he gathered the Great Dao in one person—neither obstinate nor arbitrary, without a selfish self, and without bias toward others. He edited the Book of Documents and put music in order, praised and elucidated the Book of Changes and upheld ritual, promoted the teaching of the Spring and Autumn Annals everywhere, and spread filial piety and righteousness in every place. The Great Dao passed to Zengzi and Mencius, who bore the heavy responsibility and became teachers for Confucians through the ages and guides for the people. Had not Zengzi and Mencius received and transmitted it in the Zhou dynasty, and Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi clarified its aim in the Song, how could there be the situation we have today?

Buddhism begins with Shakyamuni Buddha in the West. He practiced austerities in the snow mountains, renounced his throne and left his household, subdued body and mind until merit was complete; the five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness) were all empty and the six sense faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) were pure and still. He manifested countless wondrous signs and taught throughout the ten directions. In the time of Emperor Ming of Han, the emperor dreamed of a golden man; a white horse bore scriptures from the west, bringing the five thousand forty-eight fascicles of the Diamond Prajñā Sūtra, and the teaching flowed into the eastern lands. He is called the Tathāgata; the Dharma line passed to the Sixth Patriarch; people revere the golden immortals in the temples (an honorific for the Buddha) and take great compassion of the Mahāyāna as supreme. Had the Buddha not transmitted the scriptures, how today could everyone revere the golden-bodied arhats?

The Dao was established in its supreme norm by the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing: Jade Pure, Upper Pure, and Great Pure)—so vast it cannot be described, so lofty it cannot be measured. The scriptures are subtle and hidden, handed down through successive sages. They appeared in the world to teach the Dharma, tempered mind-nature through long kalpas of hardship, lifted people from the sea of suffering, and saved the world in every dynasty. This was transmitted by the Three Officials (Heaven, Earth, and Water Officials) and the five-pole ritual altars were opened. Pure Yang Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) holds the position of master who harmonizes the three teachings, commands the Five Thunders (the thunder deities of Daoist thunder ritual), and everywhere manifests numinous traces and opens the profound principle in every place.

Pure Yang Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) embraced the Three Teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism), held command over the Five Thunders (the thunder department’s authority in Daoism to protect and deliver beings), and everywhere manifested numinous traces and opened the gate of mystery. Great in compassion and mercy, great in benevolence and filial piety, he set aside fame and office and devoted himself only to keeping the Dao lineage’s flame alive.

The lineage passed to Patriarch Qiu (Qiu Chuji). Patriarch Qiu labored at cultivation and kept a heart of humaneness and virtue; at the imperial court he received the elixir writ; he founded the school, transmitted the precepts, and at Longmen (Longmen lineage) established its pure regulations. He endured every hardship and vowed to deliver others; he was honored as the True Lord of Eternal Spring (Changchun Zhenjun) and was repeatedly ennobled as the Mingying Celestial Worthy (Mingying Tianzun). His light filled the dharma realm, and all beings shared in vast grace. He piled up merit and virtue and displayed manifold spiritual powers—all so that beings might be saved and reach the Great Dao together.

Friends: to deliver others, you must earnestly deliver yourself first; only then do you deliver others. Today the teaching languishes and the school’s gate seems hidden—because this deep sickness has not been cut off. Why does the Great Dao not prevail? Why is the teaching so thin? Because Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) itself has committed the root offense summed up in eight words: “unable to save oneself, yet only wanting to save others”—and by that has spoiled Quanzhen’s own teaching.

Those who spread the teaching do not live by it themselves, yet urge others to do so first—who will trust them? How do we know Quanzhen fails at saving oneself? “Delivering sentient beings” means delivering the sentient beings that are yours. What are your sentient beings? Wandering thoughts and idle imaginings—the sentient beings in your own original mind. A Quanzhen practitioner who harbors eighty-four thousand wandering thoughts and idle imaginings has, in effect, eighty-four thousand sentient beings within. Through the twelve double-hours of the day, the body sits on the round meditation cushion while the heart roams the world: one wandering mind just dies away and another idle thought rises. The seven emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, aversion, and desire) never rest; the six desires (those stirred by eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) hold you back; the three poisons (greed, hatred, and delusion) bind you; the eight consciousnesses (the mind’s modes of knowing) turn upside down. Like clouds blotting the sun, now east, now west; like wild waves driven by wind, now west, now east. Day and night, when was there a single moment of stillness? Year on year, month on month—not one thought could stay settled.

Cultivation is not only sitting in stillness on a meditation cushion. Whether you are walking the road or even asleep, in which moment can you set aside the deluded mind and hold to right mindfulness? If the heart never rests, you cannot cross over yourself; if thoughts are not single-pointed, the Great Dao cannot be made clear. Therefore within the Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) school, one must stop idle thoughts and let the heart settle, so that the heart of heaven (tianxin) appears and the light of wisdom shines forth. Fellow practitioners, only when Quanzhen disciples can do this do they truly share the same path and purpose. First you must deliver yourself; only then is it not too late to guide others. What counts as delivering yourself? You need ferocity, courage, diligence, renunciation, giving, lofty wisdom, humility, liberation, and naturalness. You must keep the mind from scattering, gather the spirit, and clarify your thinking. Those among you who have the affinity, listen as I explain one by one these nine essentials of cultivation.

What is ferocity? The way of leaving the world for practice is inherently opposed to worldly conduct: what ascends and what descends differ, and square and round do not match. The world-renouncing path works on the Dharma body—the body cultivated in practice, as opposed to the flesh-and-blood physical body. First see through all worldly appearances and fantasies about the body as unreal: cut the emotional bonds to children and spouse, release attachment to fame, wealth, fine food, splendid dress, carriages and horses, and with one resolve leap free of delusion, illness, and suffering. Keep your aspiration pure and unstirred, and steadfastly guard the spirit treasure—the inner clear true nature. This is called ferocity; it is also named the demon-subduing pestle and the platform for slaying demons.

What is courage? If you are hesitant and indecisive, wandering thoughts come and go, and the point you should hold slips away, then clarity flickers on and off. The heart cannot stay as bright as an autumn moon, nor the spirit blaze and return like the morning sun. Procrastination and slackness make you drift with the waves; lightness and scatter make you change from hour to hour—you cannot suddenly broaden the chest and clear the eyes at once. You must apply effort on the heart and cast off entirely self, family, and worldly affairs.

Through strenuous cultivation on the Way, one can drive back evil spirits and demonic obstacles. People, faced with impermanence and the swift turning of birth and death, stay dull and fail to look into it deeply. Once you break through the iron wall and copper barrier—those gates that seem impossible to pass—you realize that this very breakthrough is what people call heaven and hell.