Heart Method of the Dragon Gate: Taking Refuge in the Three Treasures

The Three Treasures are the Tao, the scriptures, and the masters.

The Tao is by nature empty space, without form and without name; without the scriptures, the Tao cannot be made clear. The Tao lies within the scriptures, profound, deep, subtle, and wondrous; without a master, one cannot grasp their principles. If one does not take refuge in the Three Treasures, one is bound to fall into the cycle of rebirth and onto heterodox paths, confused and sunk in delusion.

All those cultivating perfection and studying the Tao, and who with utmost sincerity commit their lives to it, must think of this as an opportunity hard to meet. First, taking refuge in the supreme Treasure of the Tao, may all living beings constantly attend the Heavenly Worthy and seek release from the cycle of rebirth. Second, taking refuge in the supreme Treasure of the Scriptures, may all living beings, life after life and generation after generation, hear the orthodox teaching. Third, taking refuge in the supreme Treasure of the Masters, may all living beings study the highest vehicle and not fall into heterodox views.

These three refuges are the first step on the road of ascent and the first gate into virtue by which the sages and worthies of old brought people into the Tao. Becoming an immortal and attaining the Tao, becoming a sage and becoming a worthy—all without exception begin from these three refuges. Why is this? Because nature and life, birth and death, the great matter and its causes and conditions, are subtle, fine, and secret, hard to see or hear. As for the wondrous method of liberation of the one highest vehicle—unless a true master compassionately reveals and instructs, drawing out one’s spiritual faculties, how could one suddenly awaken to the orthodox lineage of the Great Vehicle and gradually enter the wondrous Tao of emptiness and nothingness, without falling into heterodox views and mistakenly entering side doors? Therefore, before you can understand the Tao, first take refuge in the scriptures; before you can understand the scriptures, first take refuge in the masters. If you can take refuge in the Treasure of the Masters, the Treasure of the Scriptures can be heard amid the unheard; if you can hear the Treasure of the Scriptures, the Treasure of the Tao can be seen amid the unseen. What in former days could be neither seen nor heard will one day suddenly become clear and connected—all through the power of taking refuge in the Treasure of the Masters. Then you will naturally awaken to the true texts, understand the orthodox teaching, transcend birth and death, and no longer fall into the cycle of rebirth.

But the method of taking refuge in the Three Treasures that I speak of requires taking refuge in the true Three Treasures. Why is this? The people of today regard these three refuges as ordinary, merely reciting and bowing before the sacred images morning and evening, without ever chewing through to what taking refuge is really for. That is why in the end they sink into heterodox methods and cannot escape the cycle of rebirth. How could they understand the Great Tao or escape birth and death!

As for the true Three Treasures: take refuge in your intention, so that thoughts neither arise nor cease, and the Treasure of the Tao can be understood; take refuge in your mind, so that its workings are free of hindrance, and the Treasure of the Scriptures can be awakened to; take refuge in your body, so that the eyes do not see, the ears do not hear, the nose does not smell, the tongue does not taste, the hands make no reckless movements, and the feet take no reckless steps; do not be stained by wanton lust and filth, practice austerities in person, toil your sinews and bones, starve your flesh, break down your limbs, and cast aside your bodily form—then the Treasure of the Masters can be moved to respond. Whoever can move a master’s compassion to transmit the scriptures and impart the Tao must first take refuge in his own body, mind, and intention as the true Three Treasures. So long as the ears and eyes of my body cannot forget what they see and hear, if they are not deluded by forms, they are attached to sounds. While sounds and forms remain, the body is not true. If it is not true, how can it move a master? If one can hold the body upright, nourish the spiritual root in the mind, and unite the intention with the true and constant, then every thought is empty space, limpid and in great stability—this is called taking refuge in the Three Treasures. When the body is free of wanton lust, the Treasure of the Masters can be moved; when the mind does not obscure its spirit, the Treasure of the Scriptures can be awakened to; when the intention is not divided, the Treasure of the Tao can be understood. When the body is firm, the essence is whole and the physique healthy; when the mind is numinous, the qi is clear and wisdom penetrating; when the intention is sincere, the spirit is concentrated and one’s nature appears. Once essence and qi are sufficient, the transformations of spirit and wisdom are mysterious, wondrous, and unfathomable—all of which comes from taking refuge in body, mind, and intention, one’s own Three Treasures; and from these the Tao, the scriptures, and the masters then emerge.

Now let me explain how to take refuge in body, mind, and intention.

Assembly! Each of you, listen attentively with utmost sincerity to the method I explain for taking refuge in the Three Treasures of body, mind, and intention, so that your darkness may be broken and your doubts removed.

Assembly! This body was formed through intercourse, from the father’s essence and the mother’s blood. Its temperament, face, and limbs grew in the womb: a lump of filth, a skin bag of the four elements, whose eyes see and ears hear, hands move and feet walk, mouth speaks and tongue tastes—by no means a lasting or good thing. Those who use it well become immortals and buddhas, sages and worthies; those who do not use it well become demons and monsters, ghosts and beasts. Turn it upward, and heaven can be ascended; turn it downward, and hell will be reached. Those who receive blessings treat it as an external thing; those who receive evil retribution take it as their true foundation. How much more so for you, the assembly: having already left home and wishing to transcend birth and death, you must resolve to take refuge in this body; only then is all well. Otherwise, the six senses are used outward, the three poisons arise within, and ten thousand calamities and a thousand disasters, nine demons and ten hardships, all arise from the body. How then could you undertake spiritual practice and enter the Tao?

To take refuge in it, there is only one method that can govern this body: you must uphold the precepts and subdue your unruly frame. Take the four dignified deportments as the chief thing, and in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, keep yourself restrained and dignified. Let the ears not listen to sounds and the eyes not look at forms, with a solemn and wondrous appearance, upright and compassionate, so that people rejoice to see you and are moved to reverence. When the precepts restrain it, the unruly body becomes a body of the Law, and one can take refuge in the Treasure of the Masters. Assembly! Now that this first method has been made clear, you must take refuge in the mind.

Assembly! The mind is different again from the body. It is dangerous, wicked, and changeable beyond measure, like the wind and like the sea: the sea is vast and deep, the wind howls in fury, and the waves and tides pile up and surge, hard to cross. Now, if you wish to take refuge in this mind, you must understand that this mind is by no means a lasting or good thing. Craving life and loving lust, breaking the law and meeting disaster; hungry ghosts and beasts, the crippled and the sick; flood and fire, blade and war, plague, locusts, and the sufferings of calamity; landslides and earthquakes, falling stars and eclipses of the sun, tidal waves and rivers bursting their banks, goblins, ghosts, and monsters—all are summoned from afar and set in motion by this mind. If you wish to practice without taking refuge in this mind yourself, how could you see through the mysterious workings and understand the orthodox teaching?

To govern this mind, you must keep the precepts and enter concentration. When the fire of ignorance flares up in the mind, its fierce flames scorch and burn, and nothing but water can quench them; concentration is that water, which properly governs the raging flames. It is like seawater driven by the wind, waves surging, while boats and merchants are alarmed and afraid; then suddenly the wind calms and the waves subside, the water no longer stirs, and they reach the shore safely. When the fire of the mind is blazing, the water of concentration secretly descends: it transforms fierce flames into a wind of wisdom, changes ignorance into innate knowledge of the good, turns bodily form into emptiness, makes calamity into auspiciousness, shifts the causes of misfortune into the fruits of blessing, resolves enmity and karmic debt into kinship, dissolves the turns of calamity into the mysterious wind, makes the fierce and evil worthy and good, the lustful and extravagant sincere and simple, and sorrow into joy; sickness is healed, famine becomes a bountiful harvest, ghosts and demons are destroyed, immortals and buddhas appear before one, the deluded awaken again, and the withered flourish once more—all by the power of concentration. When the mind is calm, the qi is settled; when the qi is settled, the mind is clear; and one can take refuge in the Treasure of the Scriptures. Assembly, having subdued the unruly mind with the power of concentration and understood the Treasure of the Scriptures, you must then take refuge in the intention. Its spiritual powers are unfathomable; now going, now coming, its transformations are manifold; it suddenly arises and suddenly vanishes; like a dragon or a tiger, it cannot be captured; like a shadow or the wind, it cannot be grasped. It has no form to be seen and no sound to be heard; the ears cannot hear it, the eyes cannot see it, the mouth cannot speak it, the nose cannot smell it, the tongue cannot taste it, the mind cannot know it; it is strange, illusory, cunning, and false, with a thousand schemes and ten thousand concerns. Those who use it well can become perfected and enter sagehood, govern the state and bring peace to the people; the Three Bonds and the Five Relationships all come from it, the three teachings and the nine schools all arise from it, loyalty, filial piety, chastity, and righteousness are all born of it, nature and life and the cycle of rebirth are all determined by it, and misfortune and fortune, auspiciousness and ill omen, disaster and blessing, calamity and fate all take it as the source of their retribution. Those who do not use it well drift in the river of desire and sink in the sea of suffering, never to come out.

Assembly! If you wish to cultivate the Great Tao without taking refuge in this intention, you will find it hard to be settled. If you wish to take refuge in the intention, the light of wisdom must shine brightly, with clear understanding and awakening: before a single thought stirs, the water of concentration is pure and clear; when a single thought has sprouted, the spiritual light is not obscured. The mechanism turns on its pivot; the stars move with the Dipper. To hold the power over life and death, first make this intention sincere; to grasp the handle of the cycle of rebirth, first make this intention sincere. To escape the suffering of birth and death and be freed from the hardship of rebirth, you must take refuge in the treasure of intention in your own mind. A single thought pure and true can reach heaven above and move the hidden world below. Ghosts and spirits lose their color, sun and moon lose their brightness, creation loses its power, yin and yang lose their workings, demons hide their tracks, and the world is truly empty. Within and beyond the Three Realms, the intention alone is supreme. Released, it exists; gathered in, it is not. Roaming freely in every direction—all of it is this intention. Above, paying homage to the Primordial Heavenly Worthy (Yuanshi Tianzun), it is ancestral qi; in the middle, returning to the Heavenly Worthy of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao Tianzun), it is Brahma qi; below, relying on Lord Lao the Most High (Taishang Laojun), it is true qi. Dispersed, it is vast, flood-like qi; gathered, it is primordial qi. Compassion, kindness, and benevolence are yang qi; wrath and punishment are yin qi; greed, anger, impatience, and violence are blood qi; lust, killing, stealing, and lying are heterodox qi; clinging and obstruction are demonic qi; ferocity and benightedness are goblin qi; calamity, enmity, and suffering are resentful qi. All of this is because, when you do not take refuge in the Treasure of the Masters with your body, you become unrestrained, fierce, and overbearing; when you do not take refuge in the Treasure of the Scriptures with your mind, you become confused and benighted; when you do not take refuge in the Treasure of the Tao with your intention, you become biased and not upright. Not upright, you lose the center; losing the center, the light of wisdom does not arise, the power of concentration is not firm, and the observance of precepts is not strict; the spirit cannot be concentrated, the qi cannot be gathered, the essence cannot circulate, the intention cannot be sincere, the mind cannot be clear, and the body cannot be cultivated.

Assembly! I now plainly point the Great Tao directly at the human mind. Hurry to subdue body, mind, and intention and transform them into the true body of the Three Treasures; then take refuge in the Treasures of the Tao, the Scriptures, and the Masters to seek to transcend the world. Do not delay! If there are those who can follow the gate of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, practicing with faith and without doubt, know that such a person will certainly attain the Tao. If they do not practice accordingly, know that such a person’s sins are deep and blessings thin; he cannot understand the Tao, and ghosts and spirits will not allow him to hear the supreme, perfectly true Tao of clarity and stillness and of liberation. Be careful not to rebuke him in anger; rather feel compassion and pity, and patiently, by skillful means, lead him into the Tao. This is what is called a disciple who takes refuge in the Three Treasures.