《太上昇玄消災護命妙經》

Three Scriptures in One Scroll, Ying Twelve: These three scriptures are combined into a single scroll and placed in the "Ying Twelve" folder. The Taishang Shengxuan Xiaozai Huming Miaojing (Most High Wondrous Scripture of Ascending to the Profound, Eliminating Disasters, and Protecting Life): a wondrous scripture of Taishang (the supreme deity of Daoism) on ascending to the profound, eliminating disasters, and protecting life. The Sanguang Zhuling Zifu Yanshou Miaojing (Wondrous Scripture of the Three Lights Infusing Longevity, Augmenting Blessings, and Extending Life): a wondrous scripture on how the three lights of sun, moon, and stars infuse longevity, augment blessings, and extend life. The Taishang Changsheng Yanshou Ji Fude Jing (Most High Scripture of Long Life, Extended Years, and Accumulated Blessings and Virtue): the scripture spoken by Taishang on long life, extended years, and the accumulation of blessings and virtue. The Taishang Shengxuan Xiaozai Huming Miaojing: here the title of this scripture is again set forth.

At that time, Yuanshi Tianzun (one of the highest deities of Daoism) was in the Forest of Seven Treasures (a forest adorned with the seven treasures), within the Palace of Five Brightnesses, together with the countless holy assembly of the boundless; emitting boundless radiance, illuminating boundless worlds; observing the boundless sentient beings undergoing boundless affliction, tumbling through the world, in the cycle of birth and death, drifting on the river of desire, blown by the currents of the sea of craving, sunk and stalled in sound and form, deluded by existence and nonexistence; taking the empty as having emptiness and the formless as having form; grasping at existence and nonexistence within non-noneness, grasping at nonexistence and nonbeing within existence and being; from beginning to end benighted, unable to understand themselves, ultimately deluded.

The Tianzun said: You sentient beings grasp at existence from within nonbeing, grasp at nonexistence from within non-nonbeing; grasp at form from within the formless, grasp at emptiness from within the empty; take the non-existent as existent, the non-nonexistent as nonexistent; take the non-form as form, the non-empty as empty. Emptiness is just emptiness—emptiness has no fixed, unchanging emptiness; form is just form—form has no fixed, unchanging form; form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is form. If one can know that emptiness is not a fixed emptiness and that form is not a fixed form, this is called illumination; only then does one penetrate the wondrous sound, recognize the Dharma of no-emptiness, observe with unobstructed clarity, enter the gate of all wonders, naturally understand, depart far from all nets of doubt, not cling to views of emptiness, purify the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind), and cut off evil obstructions. I therefore proclaim for you this wondrous scripture, named "Protecting Life," to deliver sentient beings, to spread the teaching in the world, and to circulate it for reading and recitation. Then there will be flying divine kings, demons-subduing vajras, Dharma-protecting spirit youths, truth persons who save from suffering, and golden-essence fierce beasts, each with a hundred billion myriad multitudes, all guarding this scripture; wherever it is offered and upheld, they will support the weak and deliver all sentient beings far from all attachments. At that time, the Tianzun spoke a verse: Looking but not seeing me, listening but not hearing—far removed from all extremes, this is called the wondrous Dao. The Taishang Shengxuan Xiaozai Huming Miaojing.