Assembly, those who receive the Precepts of the Central Ultimate must first have thoroughly and carefully practiced the subtle and wondrous conduct of the Ten Precepts of Initial Perfection; only then do they come forward to receive the three hundred great Precepts of the Central Ultimate.
Assembly, what is the difference between the Precepts of the Central Ultimate and the Precepts of Initial Perfection? With one precept there is nothing that is not guarded against; with one truth there is nothing that is not true. Why then, after Initial Perfection, is there the Central Ultimate, and after the Central Ultimate, the Celestial Immortals? Why are they divided into first and later?
Assembly, this principle is quite clear and easy to see. I will take this principle from empty space and tell it to you. Assembly, the Ten Precepts of Initial Perfection that you received teach you to restrain the physical body and not allow reckless movement or wild conduct. The three hundred great Precepts of the Central Ultimate teach you to subdue the illusory mind and not allow deluded fancies or wild thoughts. The wondrous Precepts of the Celestial Immortals teach you to liberate the true intention and not allow clinging or attachment.
Assembly, the Ten Precepts of Initial Perfection are coarse; the Precepts of the Central Ultimate are fine. The Precepts of Initial Perfection govern the six outer senses; the Precepts of the Central Ultimate sweep away the six inner dusts; the wondrous Precepts of the Celestial Immortals liberate the three bodies, dissolve the eight consciousnesses, and keep the nine hardships and ten demons from daring to intrude.
Assembly, the Precepts of Initial Perfection exist because you have awakened to your past wrongs and searched deeply into your old faults, and have reflected that a human life in the world has limited time and that birth and death are impermanent. Having left home to become a Taoist priest, you are called a follower of Complete Perfection. Think carefully: since leaving home until now, when have you ever perfected any truth? All year you have wasted your time and grown old just like laypeople. All day you climb mountains and wade rivers, rushing south and hurrying north; though you have paid homage at a few famous mountains and seen a few more rocks and trees than laypeople, in the end it is as bitter as laypeople’s trading and business. Eating in the wind and sleeping by the water—for what reason? When have you ever met an immortal? What oral instructions were transmitted to you? You are all laypeople carrying loads up and down, with mortal eyes and ordinary bodies; you recite a few pages of alchemical scriptures and memorize the scraps rigidly—this is called swallowing stones, without tasting anything at all. Thus you are no different from laypeople; how could you leave the world and transcend the ordinary? Today this mind that knows its faults is still your original face surviving. Why not change your usual false heart into a true heart, your usual false intentions into true intentions, and your usual false face into a true face? This is called revealing the true heart and making repentance. Beginning from today, the day you receive the precepts, you are called precept disciples of Initial Perfection. These precepts of Initial Perfection carry out the four dignified deportments and give the body a solemn appearance; they have nothing to do with the body of the Law and nothing to do with concentration and wisdom. It is only because you are so restless and agitated that you cannot become calm and still, so the ten precepts are used to subdue your body. If you can practice according to the precepts, this body will be settled and stable, and you may go on to receive the Precepts of the Central Ultimate.
Assembly, the Precepts of the Central Ultimate are the work of concentration, and differ from the Precepts of Initial Perfection. Initial Perfection is the word “precept”; the Central Ultimate is the word “concentration”; the Precepts of the Celestial Immortals are the word “wisdom.” In the beginning the Heavenly Worthy, pitying living beings, established these precepts, concentration, and wisdom—the work of subduing body, mind, and intention—which are the wondrous treasure of the Golden Elixir for leaving the world and transcending the dust. Apart from these precepts, concentration, and wisdom, there is no other method. The eighty-four thousand kinds of methods cannot go beyond these two words, concentration and wisdom. No matter what immortal arts you may have—ingesting divine elixirs, the golden liquor and the returned elixir, ascending to heaven in broad daylight, rising up with one’s whole household, spiritual powers and transformations, flying through the air or being released from the corpse, dying while seated or transforming while standing, entering a womb or seizing another’s dwelling—the light of concentration and wisdom stands lofty and unmoving, brilliantly bright. It illuminates all these spiritual powers and magical arts like a bright mirror set in the courtyard: whatever comes out or goes in cannot help but show its form. They remain within concentration and wisdom and cannot go beyond concentration and wisdom.
Assembly, the word “central” in Central Ultimate is the center of the Dipper Mother (Doumu) and the Celestial Pivot, lofty and unmoving; the word “ultimate” is the ultimate of the South Pole, which records birth, and the North Pole, which records death. The great mechanism of birth and death depends wholly on the handle of the Dipper silently turning within the numinous pivot. The two words “Central Ultimate” ride on the authority of heaven and earth and hold the handle of birth and death. This word “central” is the center that is neither inner nor outer, neither left nor right, neither front nor back, neither leaning nor inclining, neither excessive nor deficient; the center of “sincerely hold fast to the center” and “attain centrality and harmony”; the center of “much speech soon comes to its end; better to hold to the center”; the center of “the noble person walks the middle way”; the center of “standing in the center without leaning.” In heaven it is called the Celestial Pivot; on earth it is called the Earth Axis; in humans it is called the true mechanism. The one aperture of the mysterious pass, the mysterious pearl, the grain of millet, the mani jewel, the sarira relic, the Golden Elixir, the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji)—all these provisional names and alternative titles in fact do not go beyond this word “central,” which is simply movement and stillness. This word “central” is the wondrous, bright, true nature, empty, numinous, and unobscured, that I have said everyone possesses.
Assembly, what is holding concentration and wisdom in balance? Assembly, this spark of spiritual mechanism has, since beginningless time, been entangled by the three karmas you have created, stained by the six dusts, blocked by the seven emotions, encroached upon by the six desires, smoked by the three poisons, and tyrannized by the ten demons. Your spiritual mechanism has been secretly stolen, so that wanting to die you dare not cling to life, and wanting to live you dare not die. Above, you cannot observe the Tao of heaven. The spiritual mechanism is a treasure of the Law; it should only be turned in reverse and must not go with the current. Going with the current, it shifts with things and moves when it meets circumstances, attracting demons and gathering monsters, inviting harm and meeting disaster, going in and out of the cycle of rebirth, drifting through the four kinds of birth and the six paths. Those who receive the Precepts of the Central Ultimate must go in reverse. Going in reverse, one is not turned by any thing and not moved by any circumstance; demons, monsters, calamities, and disasters dare not intrude, the cycle of rebirth can be escaped, and drifting can be transcended. Now let me ask you, what is called going with the current? In worldly ways: begetting sons and bearing daughters, marrying wives and buying concubines, children and grandchildren, official rank and fame, wealth and honor, building up a household and earning property, buying fields and acquiring land, wearing brocade and silk, craving lust and seeking pleasure, killing living things and taking lives, filling the belly with tasty food—though these are pleasures, they all only serve the enjoyment of the physical body. This physical body is originally a skin bag, a false combination of earth, water, fire, and wind. Only because father and mother acted on desire, their essence and qi responded to each other, blood gathered and congealed into a clump, and consciousness entered it as its spirit, settling in the womb and establishing a life; so through the two qi a body was illusorily formed. In the end it is impermanent and returns wholly to the earth. Only merit and fault, these two things, have nothing to do with the physical body; on the contrary, it is the body of the Law that suffers for them.
Assembly, those who do not believe this say instead that the body of the Law was originally within the physical body, and once the physical body dies, the body of the Law is already empty; at death the spiritual qi returns to emptiness—so why talk about heaven and hell, or the body of the Law receiving retribution? Let me ask you: if the body of the Law is no more than a breath of qi, why do you perform sacrificial rites? If after death there is only a breath of qi, which has not been seized by the underworld to be examined for its sins and blessings, then this same breath of qi also would not come back to the world to enjoy offerings. If it does not come to enjoy them, then the Rites of Zhou and other books should not have set up so many sacrificial rites in vain; Confucius should not have said, “Serve the dead as you serve the living, serve the departed as you serve those who remain,” “sacrifice as if they were present; sacrifice to the spirits as if the spirits were present,” and “purified, bright, and in full dress to carry out the sacrifices—vast and overflowing, as if they were above, as if they were to the left and right.”
Assembly, if they are “as if above,” then my mind has already, in visualization, seen the ghosts and spirits arriving. Since they can be visualized, the sages of that time must have known deeply the nature of ghosts and spirits, and only then laid down the sacrificial rites to teach a hundred generations. How could the sages tell lies and invent falsehoods? Or again, officials of the Confucian teaching receive patents of posthumous titles and additional ranks and nobility; if the breath of qi after death has no awareness, then these posthumous honors are superfluous—who would enjoy the golden seals and purple patents, the imperial favor that follows one to heaven? If one says there are ghosts and spirits when enjoying blessings but says there are none when suffering for sins, the mind is still not clear and the spiritual root not awakened. Treacherous and cunning people know only how to crave wine, women, wealth, and temper, not knowing the karmic root of death; they insist on reciting these two lines: “Do not think of the endless affairs after death; just drain a cup of wine while alive.” They never recite these two lines: “Of ten thousand things, none can be taken along; at the moment of departure only karma follows the body.”
Assembly, there are three kinds of karma. First, the word “karma” itself is not good: none of it is clarity and stillness or liberation; all of it bears fruit and retribution. One is still karma: eminent monks and eminent Taoists whose merit was not yet complete in ordinary times, who vow to be monks and Taoists again in the next life, living in seclusion in mountain forests and enjoying the blessings of purity. Two is good karma: members of the four assemblies who in ordinary times keep the fasts and turn toward goodness, intelligent and upright, not taking wealth improperly when they see it, loving beauty without lust, not disordering the five relationships, careful in all affairs, content with the plain, enduring shame and insult; or bhikshus in the mountains and old Taoists in caves whose power of concentration is not yet firm and whose practice of the Tao is not yet complete—in the next life they are reborn and enter the human world again as officials or lay practitioners, good men and faithful women, and enjoy great blessings in their persons. As for those who do not believe in ghosts and spirits, do not revere heaven and earth, do not fear the law of the realm, are not loyal to the sovereign, are not filial to their parents, do not keep the Three Bonds upright, ruin the five relationships, slander the sages and worthies, kill, steal, and commit sexual misconduct, and act recklessly and wantonly—naturally they are cast into hell, and when they have exhausted the endless, unremitting suffering there, they are later born into the human world in the bodies of beasts. When the retribution as beasts is over, they are born again with human bodies, but lacking the five organs of sense and with incomplete faculties, foolish and unaware of human affairs, hated by everyone and cast off by all, lowly servants. Then they become beggars, their clothes not covering their bodies, their food not filling their mouths, suffering hunger, cold, and misery, with a hundred illnesses gathered in their bodies. When they die they have no place for burial; dragged off by dogs and eaten by ants, they become countless lonely souls.
Assembly, if good and evil had no retribution, heaven and earth would surely be partial. What do those who disbelieve in cause and effect know of any breath of qi? They have all heard with their two ears the hearsay of the road: coming is a breath of qi, going is a breath of qi. So they say that after death there is only a breath of qi—what suffering for sins in the underworld is there? Better to enjoy ourselves in the world while we can. When there is wine, drink some; when there are clothes, wear some; when there is money, spend some. Today go whoring, tomorrow go gambling; sing in the morning and dance in the evening, with strings, flutes, and pipes—what fun! They themselves think they have awakened to the Tao of the breath of qi, and say instead: coming is empty, going is empty, and when you die you are just a gust of wind. Better, while this qi remains, to sing in the morning, dance in the evening, and drink a thousand cups. Life is qi, death is qi; better to enjoy yourself while alive. Revel all night and enjoy a whole lifetime; the pleasures cannot be taken along after death. I sigh at how quickly this kind of living being falls into delusion, worse than birds and beasts. Assembly, such people only know how to say this, and do not know the principle of this breath of qi at all. This breath of qi is of two kinds: one is clear and one is turbid. Those who are good in ordinary times, whose mouths speak good words, whose minds hold good thoughts, whose feet walk on good ground, whose hands use good things, whose eyes read good books, whose ears hear good words, whose noses receive good fragrances, whose tongues taste good flavors, and whose intentions give rise to good ideas—after death their spirit is clear and their qi fresh; theirs is a breath of clear qi. This clear qi naturally ascends to heaven and does not go down to hell. As for those who speak only lewd words, whose tongues taste poisonous flavors, whose ears listen to lascivious sounds, whose eyes look at beautiful women, a mass of cunning and a lump of treachery, who cheat people and harm things, kill living beings and take lives, crave wealth and care only for themselves, are infatuated with wives and doted on concubines, and bound by the karmic obstructions of sons and daughters—naturally these congeal into a breath of turbid qi. Their po soul returns to the underworld, and retribution for their enmities falls upon them, without a thread’s deviation or a hair’s error. As for those Buddhist monks and Taoist priests whose mouths are full of nonsense, who do not follow the teaching and precepts, do not keep the monastic rules, knowingly break the law, eat meat and love profit, and do not believe in cause and effect, saying of themselves, “There is no obstruction, no harm; I am originally in clarity and stillness; drinking wine and eating meat does not stain my original form,” and regard themselves as liberated in samadhi—know that such people will fall into the Unremitting Hell.
Assembly, the master of these two qi, the clear and the turbid, lies only in precepts, concentration, and wisdom. Now I reveal these true words and proclaim them to the assembly; I have no choice—I want people to understand, and cannot care that I may suffer heaven’s punishment. Assembly, when observance of the precepts is firm, the body does not move recklessly, and the mind does not wander outward; when the mind does not wander outward, the primordial spirit is at peace, dwelling constantly within the Crimson Chamber, within the Yellow Court, in the Golden Gate and the Jade Terrace; all ties cease at once, all thoughts are empty, one sees only the true spirit, forgetting form and forgetting things, forgetting circumstances and forgetting workings—this is called concentration. This concentration is no small thing: it is the realm of the Three Pure Ones, empty, numinous, and unobscured. Above, it goes beyond the thirty-three heavens; below, beyond the seventy-two earths; one roams freely beyond the Three Realms and wanders at ease outside the Five Phases. This realm within concentration is dim and dark, obscure and silent; it turns heaven and earth around and returns them to chaos, merging into one qi. Above is not heaven, below is not earth, in the middle is not humanity; within what cannot be spoken, cannot be told, and is beyond conception, divine light suddenly shines forth, and a disk of wise nature wells up. The clear is divided off as heaven, the turbid as earth, and the qi of central harmony is ordered into the body of the Law. Its knowledge encompasses the Three Realms, radiant through the Great Mystery; nothing can escape its form and traces, there is no affair whose coming and going it does not know, without a hair of hindrance, without a thread of obstruction, without a speck of dust. All heavenly dragons, ghosts, spirits, goblins, and demons take refuge in it with their lives. King Yama, seeing it, dares not raise his voice; Ox-Head and the yakshas fold their hands and bow in submission. With no name in the register of life and no surname in the register of death, one can live long in the world, teaching the Law and saving people, and can let the spirit fly, ascending as a feathered immortal. At last one enters clear emptiness, pays homage above to the Primordial, and leaves the cycle of rebirth forever.
Assembly, the heavenly mechanism that has been handed across lies only between the movement and stillness of the true mind. Great stillness is called the power of concentration; true movement is called the light of wisdom. If you do not first kill the deluded mind, calm the spirit, and settle the qi, how can you reach great stillness? If you cannot be constantly clear and constantly still, how can you enter concentration? If you cannot enter concentration, how can wisdom arise? Assembly, when the mind is empty, the spirit is concentrated; when the spirit is concentrated, light arises. If there is concentration without wisdom, that is called yin overcoming the yang spirit. Wisdom must arise within concentration. Wisdom is the body of the Law; concentration is the buddha-land. Assembly, the precepts are the road, concentration is the home, wisdom is the master of the house, and all the things, circumstances, and affairs of the world are guests. If concentration and wisdom give rise to each other and one enters the gateway to all subtleties, then the master’s spiritual power and wisdom have been nourished and settled, and it manifests light, able to respond to all things and affairs without being bound by them; able to turn all the circumstances of the world without being deluded by them; able to go beyond yin and yang, birth and death, without being carried around in their cycle. Assembly, first you must understand this cause and effect of sin and blessing, practice according to the precepts, and after long investigation you will naturally become clear, still, and understanding. Then go on to contemplate in stillness and enter concentration. Within concentration the original nature is perfect and bright, the light of wisdom shines clearly, and spirit and qi suddenly awaken. Then mountains, rivers, and the great earth do not go beyond one body; the birth and death of the myriad things do not go beyond one thought. The master of your own house then has a firm grip and does not enter the cycle of rebirth. This work cannot be done by a father for his son, and cannot be known by spirits and ghosts; each of you must simply take care of it and practice it. Assembly, I have made the heavenly ladder firm, but I do not know who will climb it; I have poled out the precious raft, but I do not know who will board it.
The river of love is vast and there is no one to ferry across; the sea of suffering is boundless and there are few bridges of the Law.
Assembly, quickly keep the three hundred precepts; hold concentration and wisdom in balance and rise out of the waves.