In Taoism, Patriarch Wang Chongyang founded the method of Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) and brought seven Perfected to salvation—Qiu, Liu, Tan, Ma, Hao, Wang, and Sun. Of these, only Qiu Chuji, Perfected Changchun, carried on the method and made it flourish, continuing the lineage and expounding it.
The founding emperor of the Yuan sent his carriage to welcome him and asked about the Tao; Qiu replied only with these words: “To govern a state, nothing is better than loving the people; for nurturing life, nothing is better than having few desires.” The emperor’s heart was greatly pleased, and ministers and officials all revered him. By imperial decree a place of practice was built, and the master was invited to expound the teaching. Thereupon the precepts of the Mysterious Gate, following the liturgical rules of the great canon, were proclaimed far and wide, and the true wind spread throughout the world. From then on heterodox teachings hid their tracks, and the side doors drew back. The orthodox teaching was like the sun at midday, and the ultimate Tao was like wind bending the grass; clarity and stillness were widely proclaimed for the benefit of all living beings, and those cultivating perfection who attained deliverance were beyond counting.
In the four hundred years since, it has declined and failed to revive. Heterodox teachings and outside paths fill the world, corrupting people’s minds and ruining our school; they act as poison and as demons, and their sin is grave indeed. Were they subjected to the law of the realm, they could hardly escape execution by blade and axe; it is better to bind them with the statutes of heaven, and so wash away the sin of their benighted delusion. Therefore Precept Master Kunyang, pitying the ignorant, opened the precepts, so that the multitude might forsake darkness and turn to light, enter directly upon the road of clear emptiness, give up the heterodox and return to the orthodox, and go straight through the gate of the central and upright. This is rarely met in ten thousand generations and seldom found in many lifetimes. Fearing, moreover, that those of poor roots and shallow wisdom could not awaken suddenly but must cultivate gradually, and that they could not understand the wondrous canons and true scriptures, he spoke in plain words and direct speech, which alone could enter the spiritual terrace, turn the deluded mind around, and draw out the nature of wisdom. The merit of this is beyond conception. If there are people with the affinity and the resolve who through this realize true emptiness, and through this transcend the kalpas of suffering, will that not show that the family tradition of Perfected Changchun still survives and the heart method of Patriarch Wang Chongyang is still transmitted? Why worry that the Great Tao will not prevail or that the true wind will not revive!
Let the assembly hear, reflect, and practice, and so enter the ground of truth!
Respectfully written as an afterword by the disciples Shao Shoushan and Zhan Shouchun on the first day of early winter in the second year of the Kangxi era, the guimao year (1663)