Assembly, the expounding of the teaching and spreading of the Tao of which I spoke is not originally for myself, nor for the school; it is only for embodying the Tao, modeling oneself on heaven, and saving living beings. If the sages of the three teachings in those days had not done it for living beings, why would they have founded teachings and transmitted scriptures, opened up the provisional to reveal the real, condescended with skillful means, and exhausted their grandmotherly kindness?
Assembly, the Master of the Confucians was a great sage of utmost centrality and harmony. Why did he not stay in the state of Lu, sitting at ease in his heavenly truth and quietly cultivating the ultimate Tao? Why did he travel through the various states, his carriage wheels never stopping and his mat never having time to grow warm, running out of food between Chen and Cai, endangered by the people of Kuang, passing through Song in disguise, willingly enduring being driven about and not shrinking from hard journeys? When he saw that the Tao could not prevail, he wanted to float out to sea on a raft or live among the Nine Yi peoples; he edited the Six Classics, rushing about in weariness, never at ease for a single day.
Assembly, the sage was of great compassion and great mercy, pitying the multitude of living beings and saving them in many ways. He saw the living beings of the world drowning in sounds and sights and burning in goods and profit, not knowing the Great Tao and having lost the true source. So Confucius, and then Mencius, shouldered the heavy burden. Though their Tao did not prevail in their own day, from ancient times to the present all have looked up to and revered their Tao; they became the teachers of emperors for a hundred generations and the ancestors of letters for a thousand ages, and their teaching spread through the world, its bounty reaching without end.
Assembly, as for this Confucian teaching, had not Confucius and Mencius established the substance of the Tao in the Zhou dynasty, and Zhu Xi and the Cheng brothers expounded the Confucian lineage in the Song, how would it be what it is today?
As for the Buddha Shakyamuni of the Buddhist school: from the time he renounced his kingdom and left home, practicing austerities in the Snowy Mountains, subduing body and mind, until his practice was full and his merit complete, honored in the Three Realms and transcending beyond all images—why did he not sit at ease in meditation on Vulture Peak or remain upright in Thunderclap Monastery? Why did he not stay in the Land of Ultimate Bliss in clarity and stillness and non-action, liberated and free, but instead came back to the dusty lands and taught the Law for forty-nine years, until in the time of Emperor Ming of Han the golden man entered his dream and the white horse came from the west, and five thousand and forty-eight scrolls of the true scriptures of prajna, with grandmotherly earnestness, turned things over and over, tugging at vines and pulling at creepers? Assembly, the Buddha’s mind is quiescent and extinguished, yet only his compassionate heart is not extinguished. Why is his compassionate heart not extinguished? Only for the sake of saving living beings. That is why his teaching spread to the eastern land, his name is Tathagata, and his rank is realized as the World-Honored One; that he entered deeply into nirvana is owing to those forty-nine years of teaching the Law and the circulation of the writings of the three vehicles, and so today he has a perfect reward body. In our Taoist school, the Three Pure Ones and the Jade Emperor established the pole and opened heaven, vast beyond naming, lofty beyond fathoming. Since they have transcended above the Great Canopy and dwell upright amid the Brahma qi, why need they have spoken the scriptures of the Three Caverns and the five thousand secret wonders, dividing their bodies and transforming their qi, coming and going through the worlds, appearing in person to teach the Law, and saving people through the kalpas?
Assembly, the Heavenly Worthy and the Jade Emperor, with great compassion and great vows, take universal salvation as their heart; great sages of great mercy, they widely bestow skillful means and universally send forth divine light, illuminating the realm of the Law, so that the four kinds of birth and the six paths, all crawling, stirring creatures that bear spirit, alike share in their grace and all rely on their help. And the patriarchs and the multitude of Perfected, practicing merit and establishing virtue, with all kinds of spiritual powers, did it only to save living beings, that all might accomplish the Great Tao together. Therefore it is said: “May this merit extend universally to all, so that the myriad kinds of the ten directions may together ascend into emptiness and nothingness.”
Assembly, it is called attaining the Tao to save living beings, but you must understand the method by which one saves them.
Among you, the assembly, if there are those who make earnest vows to save living beings, they must first save themselves and then save others. That the tradition does not prevail today and the mysterious lineage is hidden and closed is precisely because this great malady has not been removed. Why does the Great Tao not prevail, and why is our school declining and thin?
Assembly, it is only because the Quanzhen of our school cannot save themselves yet want only to save others. These eight words are a great root of sin, the very case by which they ruin the teaching themselves. Assembly, it is only because they themselves are unwilling to follow the teaching and carry it out, yet want to urge others to follow the teaching and carry it out—who would believe and accept them? How can it be seen that the Quanzhen cannot save themselves?
Assembly, saving living beings means saving the living beings within oneself. What are the living beings within oneself?
Assembly, stray thoughts and deluded fancies are the living beings. A Quanzhen Taoist with a bellyful of stray thoughts has eighty-four thousand deluded fancies, and these are eighty-four thousand living beings. Within one day, through the twelve double hours, his body sits on the cushion while his mind flies about the world; no sooner is this deluded mind extinguished than that deluded thought arises again. Now greed, now anger, now clothes, now food; the seven emotions never rest, the six desires constantly pull, the three poisons linger and entangle, and the eight consciousnesses are turned upside down. When has he ever held a single thought still, or entered stillness for a single moment? Not only when sitting on his bench, but walking on the road there are deluded fancies, standing on the ground there are deluded fancies, lying in bed there are deluded fancies, and even when dozing and dreaming, in dreams there are still deluded fancies.
Assembly, thinking by day and dreaming by night, through the twelve double hours, when has he ever rested his mind for half a moment or held right thought for a single hour? If the mind does not rest, the self is not saved; if thoughts do not stop, the Tao is not understood. You must stop thoughts and rest the mind; only then will a spark of the heart of heaven appear. Assembly, once you have this heart, you may be called companions in the Tao. But you must first save yourselves; it will not be too late to go and save others afterward.
Assembly, how does one save oneself? First, one must be resolute and unyielding; second, one must be courageous and fierce; third, one must advance with refined diligence; fourth, one must relinquish and remove; fifth, one must give; sixth, one must be lofty and clear-sighted; seventh, one must be humble and yielding; eighth, one must be liberated; ninth, one must be natural. Assembly, you have the affinity; listen as I explain them one by one, but you must keep your will undivided and concentrate your spirit to hear and receive them.
Assembly, in the work of saving oneself, the first requirement is to be resolute and unyielding. The method of leaving the world and the ways of the world are originally opposites; one goes against the current and the other with it, and they do not fit like square and circle. The method of leaving the world requires working on the body of the Law, and so one must regard both the illusory world and the physical body as false. But in the ways of the world, the ties of attachment are deep and heavy, and people sink in sounds and sights. Those who seek fame drift with the waves on the sea of officialdom; those who seek profit settle their lives in the pit of fire. With wealth and honor in their hearts and profit and fame at their feet, the ears are accustomed to listening to sounds, the eyes to looking at forms, the tongue to tasting flavors, the mouth to speaking, the body to craving lust, the nose to smelling fragrances, the intention to scheming; each of the six senses has its old habits, and when the habits are deep, the abuses are firmly entrenched. Now, suddenly wishing to leave the world, one casts off beloved wife and favorite concubines and abruptly abandons high office and rich rank. But resoluteness is a method for subduing demons and can only be used temporarily. When there are demons, use it; when the demons retreat, there is no need to use it. So the second requirement is the work of courage and fierceness; only then can one save oneself.
Assembly, what is courage and fierceness? Work on the mind, cast aside all worldly affairs, empty the heart and fill the belly, and understand the great matter and its causes and conditions; only then can it be settled. If you mutter and mumble, delay and slack off, drift with the waves, do not labor diligently, waste your time, and muddle along all day, then though you dare not let lustful thoughts stir in your mind and you cut off desire and forget feelings, you still do not know the coming and going in this matter of birth and death and remain confused and unawakened. Before this body was born, where were you? After this body dies, where will you go? Without the work of courage and fierceness, investigating in the morning and awakening in the evening, how can you bore through these walls of bronze and iron? How can you penetrate the mysterious and wondrous mechanism? Would it not be a pity to waste the resolute heart with which you once swung the sword and the unyielding nature with which you removed demons? So I want you all, after resoluteness, to add courage and fierceness. Resoluteness subdues body and mind; courage and fierceness pursue birth and death. The great matter and its causes and conditions are taken in hand from here.
Assembly, the third requirement is the work of refined diligence. With courage and fierceness you investigate birth and death; but in this world, heaven, earth, the myriad things, and ordinary daily life—what place is not the ultimate Tao? What the eyes see and what the ears hear are all the wonders of the Tao. There is not a single thing that is not within the Tao, and not a single thing can go outside the Tao. Things have roots and branches, and roots and branches are the birth and death of things; affairs have ends and beginnings, and ends and beginnings are the birth and death of affairs. If you can apply your mind with refined diligence, then from the roots and branches, ends and beginnings of things, you must investigate the nature and life, birth and death, of yourself. If you can understand the roots and branches of things, you can understand the birth and death of the body; if you can understand the ends and beginnings of affairs, you can understand the rising and ceasing of the mind. Examine things and affairs closely, pursue them with painstaking resolve, from one thing to ten thousand things, from one affair to ten thousand affairs, until there is none whose mechanism of birth and death and principle of rising and ceasing you do not understand; then roots and branches, ends and beginnings, birth and death, rising and ceasing all become one thread, and only on reaching this point are you close to the Tao. Then investigate the subtle and wondrous with refinement and secretly awaken to the heavenly workings, so that this one true source of mine, empty, numinous, and unobscured, can respond to all things without being deluded and handle all affairs without being confused. If you are unwilling to be refined and diligent, and are lax and slack, you are abandoning yourself, content to be a lowly ghost with no aspiration to become a heavenly immortal. Even if you sit cross-legged for a hundred years and prolong your life for a thousand, you will come to an end in the end and fall into the cycle of rebirth again.
Assembly, after refined thought and advancing in the Tao, you must also apply the fourth work, relinquishing and removing. What is relinquishing and removing? Assembly, I want you to relinquish the old and take up the new, remove the coarse and enter the fine. This one true source, empty, numinous, and unobscured, is a numinous treasure, a mysterious pearl, changing in a thousand ways and transforming in ten thousand, with no fixed substance; touching things and meeting affairs, each has its mysterious wonder. Investigate and awaken layer by layer, and you can never exhaust its wonders. The more it moves, the more comes forth; take it without limit and use it without end. Those who awaken obtain it themselves; the benighted find it hard to practice. I fear that you will keep yesterday’s bits of awakening in your minds—that is failing to relinquish the old. If you use yesterday’s awakening to understand today’s things and affairs, your wisdom is not new and you cannot avoid being constrained and hindered. You do not realize that things and affairs are changing, impermanent things and affairs. You must use the constant, unchanging spiritual mechanism to turn the impermanent, changing things and affairs; then principle is clear and nature is seen. Relinquish the old and take up the new: layer by layer, “the more one bores into it, the harder it becomes”; step by step, “the more one looks up to it, the higher it rises”; “one sees it in front, and suddenly it is behind.” Without standing out alone, how could you enter deeply into the refined and subtle? If you stay coarse and shallow and do not enter the deep and subtle, how can your limited light of wisdom respond to endless things and affairs? If you cannot respond to endless things and affairs, you cannot end birth and death that have no beginning. Unable to rise above the worldly ways and go beyond them, you remain foolishly in the dusty net as before. That is why I add the fifth work, giving. I want you to take yesterday’s bits of awakening, the wonders of the day before, the principles you have awakened to and the wonders you have attained, and either give them to living beings or put them away in the grain of millet; do not keep them, muddling my spiritual terrace and screening the mirror of wisdom. As it is said, the past mind cannot be grasped, the future mind cannot be grasped, and even this present mind cannot be grasped in the end. Within this ungraspable, find a wonder that is attained by oneself, and the light of wisdom will be perfect. Assembly, giving wealth is called cultivating blessings; giving the Law is called cultivating wisdom. The giving of wealth and goods comes to an end; the giving of the Law I speak of is inexhaustible. Giving wealth and goods can help people in worldly matters, provide food and clothing for the physical body, and serve as outward adornment. When the wealth is exhausted, one is left empty-handed as before, gaining only the empty name of a good person in life and the reward of a blessed rebirth after death, but one cannot leave the world and end birth and death. My giving of the Law can be practiced in worldly ways and can also be practiced in the method of leaving the world. Giving the treasure of the Law opens people’s deluded apertures, nourishes the wisdom of the body of the Law, and serves as inner adornment; it lifts up the spiritual root, saves those burning and drowning, rescues people from danger and disaster, brings people out of birth and death, proclaims and transforms on heaven’s behalf, blesses and protects the state and aids the people, wards off distress and dispels calamity, and penetrates heaven and earth. Though the world may decay, the Law does not decay; though people and things all die, the Law does not die. Its benefit is endless and its merit immeasurable. When I save myself and also save others, the sixth level, the work of being lofty and clear-sighted, lies within it.
Assembly, since you can give the wondrous Law to open the way and save living beings, you must be lofty and clear in insight and thorough in wisdom. All the things of heaven, earth, and the world possess this spiritual nature. If I take the Law as a fixed law, that is clinging to the Law. One who clings to the Law cannot teach the Law; that is seeing without loftiness. If I teach others with the method I myself use, and respond to things with a fixed principle, that is a dead method and a rigid mechanism, treating old and young, the wise and the foolish alike; that is understanding without clarity. You must not take my method as right nor others’ methods as wrong; bright, upright, and great, teach the Law according to the circumstances, act as the opportunity arises, patiently use skillful means, and condescend to save them. If one saves the round with the square, they cannot enter the Tao; if one saves the foolish with the wise, they cannot enter the mechanism. You must, before a fool, appear in the body of a fool and teach the method for fools, so that the fool understands thoroughly and walks fully the way a fool should walk, slowly coming along. If you teach the wondrous method of the perfected person to a fool, that is playing the lute to an ox or making music for a wooden puppet. If you teach the inferior methods of the middle and lower vehicles to a wise person, he will disdain them and need not hear them; that is just wagging your tongue. The perfect mechanism lies with me, blending freely with things, so that the worthy and the foolish awaken alike and the refined and the common are both served—only this is the clear-eyed person of high attainment, the perfectly flowing living method. If you can be like this, then the seventh level, the work of humility and yielding, lies within it.
Assembly, the clear-eyed person has great wisdom and an empty mind; within the frame of his eyes he sees heaven, earth, and all things as small, and within his heart he can turn the world, its mountains and rivers. Above he shakes the gate of heaven, below he rocks the axis of earth; he transcends the human world and his spirit enters emptiness and nothingness. How could there still be any living beings before him? Assembly, from ancient times to the present, bodhisattvas of the second vehicle and immortals of the lower vehicle have all caught this sickness. The sickness enters their vitals, and they never become aware of it. That is why it is called the inferior method of the small vehicle, side doors and outer paths, heterodox ways and demonic methods.
Assembly, such a person thinks that having reached this point he has completed the Tao, not knowing that the Tao has no fixed substance and its spiritual transformations are unfathomable—how could you measure and fix it, grasp and hold it? How can something limited presumptuously claim to be supreme? Have you not heard that the Most High did not dare to be first in the world? He did not put himself ahead for blessings, did not boast of his merit, and did not display his Tao. He advanced by taking retreat as the principle, and was high by taking the low as the foundation. “He treats his own person as outside himself and yet his person is preserved; he puts himself last and yet finds himself first.” Everyone else strives to be first; I alone draw back. “Superior virtue does not hold itself as virtue”; “the superior person does not contend.” “Look, and you do not see me”; he does not make himself great, does not exalt himself, does not force himself. “The more he does for others, the more he has; the more he gives to others, the more he possesses.” “I do not know its name; forced to name it, I call it the Tao.”
Assembly, the higher and clearer the ground you reach, the more you practice the work of humility and retreat. Humble, yielding, humane, and gentle, you preserve generosity. On the one hand you universally practice compassion and wisdom; on the other you keep your brilliance stored away. “The sharp instruments of the state must not be shown to the people.” I do not go and subdue others; others naturally submit to me. At this point the eighth stage, the work of liberation, again lies within it. One who clings to it cannot be called the Tao and its virtue. Free and easy, not entangled by the Law; stark naked, not burdened by things. Perfectly round, establishing the teaching according to each place; brilliantly shining, saving people through the kalpas. Entering the gateway to all subtleties, one becomes the mother of living beings. Compassion can love things, but does not take loving things as compassion; goodness can help people, but does not take helping people as goodness. The wondrous Law can save living beings, but does not take saving living beings as the wondrous Law; the ultimate Tao can leave the world, but does not take leaving the world as the ultimate Tao. Able to leave the world, one can also enter the world. Able to escape suffering, one can also bear suffering. Above, one can transcend the heavenly palaces, yet does not take the heavenly palaces as a place of pleasure; below, one can universally rescue those in hell, yet does not take hell as a place of torment. Meeting suffering, one rescues living beings from suffering; meeting joy, one shares joy with living beings. Amid joy, one points out to living beings the causes of their suffering; amid suffering, one points out to them the fruits of joy. In heaven, one saves heavenly dragons, ghosts, and spirits, so that ghosts and spirits may hear true enlightenment and realize immortal attainment; on earth, one saves the souls of those with sinful karma, so that the spirits of the dead may hear true enlightenment and be reborn in the human realm; in the human world, one saves all good men and faithful women, so that all may cultivate the Great Tao of non-action in ordinary daily life, not letting the four assemblies enter lower-vehicle outer paths, playing with essence and souls, falling to demons and clinging to the heterodox, the evil realm of the asuras. Within this liberation is the ninth level, being natural—so of itself. The wonder of naturalness is neither nothing nor something, neither form nor emptiness: I am one body with empty space, and empty space is not different from me. Entering metal and stone does not hinder my body of the Law; entering water and fire does not harm my nature of wisdom. The three bodies are realized and perfection appears; having saved oneself, one then saves others, benefiting heavenly beings and humans with merit immeasurably high and virtue that subdues ghosts and spirits. How then could living beings fail to believe and accept, and come taking refuge, or fail to revere, and come to seek salvation? If one can follow these nine things in responding to the ten directions, why worry that the tradition will not flourish or that living beings will not be saved?
Assembly:
If you wish to practice the work and save the people of the world, you must first save yourself and become truly Quanzhen.
With one heart roused to effort, you leave suffering; only by practicing the nine things do you leave the dust.
A resolute and unyielding man must be courageous and fierce; with refined thought advance in the Tao, and do not dawdle.
Relinquish and remove ingrained habits, grinding away dust and grime; give subtle words to break through darkness and dimness.
With lofty and clear insight one can teach the Law; humane, gentle, humble, and yielding, one is good at cultivating oneself.
When the ordinary mind is liberated, the work is complete; one’s own natural Tao and virtue prevail.
If you can hold firm to your resolve, why worry that what has declined will not be renewed?
Naturally you will move the heavenly spirits to help you, universally saving living beings and expounding the teaching of the school.