Assembly, the other day when this poor Taoist took the teaching seat, I urged you again and again to rouse great courage and make great vows, seeking only to understand early the great matter of birth and death and its causes and conditions, to leave the world and transcend the ordinary, to escape the cycle of rebirth forever and roam free beyond the kalpas. I told you not to make your aspirations small and learn the second-vehicle way of craving life and fearing death. Now today I speak instead of a heart method for preserving life and prolonging existence—is this not double-tongued and false speech that deludes living beings?
Assembly, the heart method of preserving life and prolonging existence I now speak of is not about clinging to the bodily frame or speaking only of essence and qi, teaching you to preserve your lifespan of later heaven and prolong this present floating life. The preserving of life I speak of teaches you to guard the destiny that heaven has bestowed on you, abiding in ease while awaiting it. It is what the Doctrine of the Mean calls “what heaven decrees is called nature,” what the Buddhists call wisdom-life, and what Taoists call the Star Lord of one’s Original Destiny. This word “life” means “one who dies but does not perish enjoys longevity”; it is what the Diamond Sutra means by “how to obtain long life—the indestructible vajra body”; it is “regarding early death and long life as not two, cultivating oneself while awaiting it”; it is the ultimate Tao of exhausting principle, fully realizing one’s nature, and establishing one’s destiny. This prolonging of existence is not warding off illness to extend one’s years or living forever without dying; it is the true nature that remains indestructible through ten thousand kalpas, the body of the Law that endures eternally, the substance of the Tao that transforms and nurtures all beings—no ordinary body.
Assembly, if I urged you to cultivate and nourish the physical body so as to live a few more years, even if you lived a thousand years, when your allotted span ran out you would come back again and scatter into the various realms of rebirth; you would only die a little later—how could that be the true Tao? What I now teach you is to make heaven and earth one and the myriad things equal. Though heaven and earth undergo destruction and change, my Law-nature undergoes no destruction or change. Though the myriad things all come to an end, my substance of the Tao has no end. Heaven, earth, and the myriad things all have their turns of calamity coming and going through the cosmic cycles of epoch, era, revolution, and generation, but my limpid, still, true constancy—empty, numinous, and unobscured—transcends outer appearances and is never destroyed or lost. This is the life that is preserved and the existence that is prolonged. It is the true mechanism of the flowing of heaven’s decree, giving life upon life without ceasing.
Assembly, all these words I have spoken to you only because I had no other choice. If there are clear-eyed people who see through the teaching given from the mysterious seat as silent and soundless, they have understood this news. The Great Tao is everywhere: what the eyes see, what the ears hear, ordinary daily life—everything is the Tao. Yet how is it that the common people use it daily without knowing it? As this poor Taoist sees it, it is fortunate that the common people use it daily without knowing it. If every one of the common people knew this Tao, this poor Taoist would never have gotten this teaching seat today! But the patriarchs of the three teachings have compassionate hearts for universal salvation, and the compassionate vow to benefit living beings compels me to wag my tongue before you. Now I tell you all, there is no second method; there is only one method. If there were two methods, it would not be the Great Vehicle. Assembly, this spark of spiritual nature in you is another name for wisdom-life; originally they are one thing. This spark of wisdom-life is a provisional name for the substance of the Tao; originally they come from one family. Because they come forth together but have different names, they contain three and embrace the One. This wisdom-life appears at every moment, yet you do not see its form; it lies hidden at every instant, yet you do not know where it is; it teaches the Law every day, yet you do not hear its voice. Are you not fools who look for fire while facing a lamp, and think of ice while looking at water?
Assembly, why do I teach you to preserve it? I only fear that this wisdom-life, being a numinous treasure, will see that you are not people seasoned in spiritual practice who have seen your nature, nor old Taoist masters who understand it, and will judge that you cannot use it. Even when you do use it, you cannot use it greatly. Then this spark of wisdom-life will take its leave of you all. Alas! Alas!
Assembly, when this wisdom-life departs, it is as if the Primordial Heavenly Worthy (Yuanshi Tianzun) had left his teaching seat, the Yellow Emperor had lost his black pearl, old Master Iron had lost his crutch, and Patriarch Elder Guo had lost his black donkey. You have a mouth but cannot speak; you grope at your nostrils in vain; you have a heart but no aperture, lacking in clarity; heaven is dim and earth is dark; you live as though walking with the dead, and you are already in the Avici Hell. Therefore, carrying out above the sacred intention of the Primordial Heavenly Worthy in teaching the Law, and reverently embodying the great virtue of the Lord on High who loves life, today I remind you of this matter: go quickly and investigate until you find the wondrous method of prolonging existence and preserving life. Assembly, have you not heard of the Wondrous Scripture of the Most High Cavern Mystery Numinous Treasure on Ascending to the Mystery, Dispelling Calamity, and Protecting Life? If you can turn the scripture, you can continue your wisdom-life without end, giving life upon life without ceasing. If you merely recite the scripture with your mouth, that is called chanting, not turning the scripture. One who chants is turned by the scripture; how can he turn the scripture?
Assembly, the Primordial Heavenly Worthy said plainly: “You living beings, since beginningless time, have let the mind be enslaved by the body and thoughts shift with circumstances. Only clinging to love and deluded feelings, never resting, you drift on the river of love and sink in the sea of desire, clinging to illusory form as real and obscuring your original light of wisdom. The Tao is originally formless, yet you cling to it as having form; the Tao is originally not empty, yet you cling to it as empty. Deluded by emptiness and form, confusing being and non-being, in the end you cannot understand for yourselves. How then can you escape the road of birth and death and end the karma of the cycle of rebirth? If there is one who knows emptiness as not empty and knows form as not form, who does not cling to heterodox views and leaves behind the net of doubts, then this person can bring the six senses to clarity and stillness and cut off obstructions. He is a leading figure of my school, and I shall teach the Law and entrust it to him. The scripture I teach is called Protecting Life. Let him go and universally save living beings, transmit the teaching in the world, and circulate it for recitation. And let the flying heavenly spirit-kings, the vajra warriors who destroy the heterodox, the spirit youths who protect the Law, the Perfected who save from suffering, and the golden-eyed fierce beasts, each ten billion strong, all guard this scripture, and teach him to leave behind all defilements and attachments.”
Assembly, what scripture and incantation did the Heavenly Worthy teach? It is the Scripture of Protecting Life. Since it protects life, tell me: does it protect the lifespan of the physical body, or the wisdom-life of the body of the Law?
Assembly, how could the physical body know emptiness as not empty, know form as not form, recognize the Law of no emptiness, see through without obstruction, and enter the gateway to all subtleties? That is why I told you plainly that the wondrous method taught in the scripture protects your wisdom-life. The Heavenly Worthy, in his compassion, feared only that you would take the physical body for the true body, and then, seeking nothing within not-nothing, something within not-something, form within not-form, and emptiness within not-emptiness, you would be driven by this physical body without rest, lose the true source, and lose the treasure of wisdom. Therefore he taught this scripture, teaching each of you to protect your spiritual root and cultivate the original foundation; when the root is established, the Tao is born.
Assembly, “the noble person attends to the root”—that is the precious saying on preserving life and prolonging existence; “the wise and discerning preserve themselves”—that is the true word on prolonging existence and preserving life. The noble person delights in heaven, and so preserves life; regarding early death and long life as not two, he can prolong existence, and his wisdom-life is long. When wisdom-life is long, it gives life upon life without ceasing, transforming, nurturing, and flowing through all, realizing the indestructible vajra body and accomplishing the true, constant, undefiled substance.
Assembly:
The scriptures and registers of the Three Caverns and Four Supplements, five thousand three hundred true texts,
are only for prolonging existence and preserving life, so that one may leave the kalpas and transcend the dust.
Clinging to forms is not preserving life; the unborn is precisely prolonging existence.
The nature of wisdom does not depart from wisdom-life; the light of wisdom is the lamp of wisdom.
If you wish the light of wisdom to shine constantly, the lamp needs oil to be bright.
If wisdom does not depart from stillness and concentration, the oil is constantly poured in and constantly full.
Knowledge is like the oil that preserves wisdom, radiating light to shine on all living beings.
Preserving wisdom and concealing its light is easily called by other names; prolonging existence is avoided and given a borrowed name.
Wealth and rank cannot be kept forever; form and emptiness both lie within the world.
Clinging to forms is not beyond the kalpas; only without clinging does one see true emptiness.
If you ask the wondrous method of preserving and prolonging, I hold it up in empty space to show you all.
Assembly, that four-line verse of the Primordial Heavenly Worthy has already said it all.
Assembly, “in use it cannot be seen”—then life can be preserved; “seen, it cannot be used”—then existence can be prolonged; “extinguish only the moving mind, not the illuminating mind”—then existence can be prolonged; “congeal only the empty mind, not the existing mind”—then life can be preserved. If you can prolong existence, wisdom-life will not be cut off, and the great medicine will be formed; if you can preserve life, the unborn can be realized, and the great elixir will be accomplished. “The mandate is not constant: goodness gains it, and lack of goodness loses it”; “receiving the mandate from heaven, attending to heaven’s bright decree; though Zhou is an old state, its mandate is new”—all of this is the principle of preserving and prolonging.
Assembly, how can one exhaust these wonders? Now I do not begrudge my most precious treasure; I empty my purse and turn out my bag and speak it plainly and clearly. Yet I fear that the five thousand of the Western Heaven would leave their seats and the ten thousand sages of Eastern Florescence would be startled and doubt. Tell me, then, what are these two lines?
Assembly:
Short life or long life, there is originally a destiny; birth coming and birth going, there is originally no birth.
Prolonging and preserving need no wondrous method; when the Law returns to no-law, the Law is accomplished.