Assembly, from ancient times to the present, sages, worthies, immortals, and buddhas have sat facing a wall for nine years only for the sake of the great matter and its causes and conditions; they left the world and subdued the mind only to pursue the question of birth and death. Have you not heard that life is a spark from a flint, a flash of lightning, a fallen flower drifting on the water? When impermanence arrives, not a moment can be kept; sins and blessings follow the person, and one receives retribution in the cycle of rebirth. Before your words are finished, the breath in your throat is cut off; before your speech ends, the spirit in your body has flown. Stark naked, where will you rest? In the vast darkness, where will you establish your life? With great blessings you come back to the human world; with evil karma you fall into Fengdu. When the reward of blessings is exhausted, you enter the cycle of rebirth again; when the retribution of karma ends, you are reborn as another kind of creature. Entangled by enmities for ten thousand kalpas, how hard to be freed; through a thousand lifetimes of sin and suffering, how can they be worn away? Generation after generation sunk in delusion, you live drunk and die dreaming; enmity repays enmity, and you wear horns and put on fur. Speaking of it is enough to make one weep and pity; telling of it is enough to make one worry and fear. Unless you make up your mind, grit your teeth, and awaken to what came before birth, rouse your spirit, and investigate what comes after death as though overturning heaven and earth! A resolute man raises his eyebrows straight up and holds in his hand the knife that kills; a great hero lets his vast, flood-like qi loose and cuts through his heart with the blade of the demon-subduing sword. You must certainly see through where your life stood before your parents gave birth to you, and investigate to the very bottom where you will rest after creation comes and I die. Awaken to the three bodies—past, future, and present; pursue to the end the three lifetimes—yesterday, tomorrow, and today. You must melt away all ten thousand concerns until there is only this one point of spiritual light; sweep away all ties until there remains only this bit of wise nature. Enter the mysterious pass, and when one aperture opens, a hundred apertures open; see the true source, and the three times become clear and one leaves the Three Realms. Liberated, one is untouched by the Five Phases; empty and limpid, the four elements return to emptiness. Entering the gateway to all subtleties and ascending the ground of the Three Treasures, one comes and goes freely, transforming without limit. Gently turning the heavenly workings, ghosts and spirits cannot fathom one’s wonders; loftily grasping the handle of the Dipper in reverse, yin and yang cannot govern one’s power. One roams freely in the all-pervading Brahma qi and attains one’s rank in clear, empty, boundless vastness, forever leaving the kalpas of dust and escaping the cage. The great matter of Complete Perfection is concluded; the causes and conditions of saving oneself are fulfilled. This realm of true emptiness is entered by setting to work within precepts and concentration, walking the great road layer by layer; it cannot be reached suddenly without cultivation. This body of the Law of wondrous existence is attained by finding the key within wisdom, carrying out the secret work stage by stage; how could it be accomplished without awakening?
Assembly! Have you not heard: “The Tao is transmitted by the sages, but cultivation lies with oneself; virtue is accumulated by people, but judgment rests with heaven”? And have you not heard: “Heaven divides creation out of the One; humanity establishes its order upon the mind”? Quickly put it into practice; let each of you strive, and you must press on. Those not yet awakened do not lose their good causes; those who awaken thoroughly return at last to the blue heavens; and even those not yet awakened will not fall into hell.
Assembly! It is like knocking on a door with a gold brick: though the door does not open, the gold brick is still there. In cultivating the Tao through the teaching of the precepts, though you have not yet awakened to the Tao, the teaching of the precepts remains, and you will certainly not sink into the underworld but will in the end be reborn in the world of the living. Your former causes will not be obscured and later fruits will come of themselves; you will only have turned over once, and you will still have a handhold in your grasp.
Assembly! To awaken to birth and death, do not look for death and birth outside your body; only when you awaken will you know the true origin within the mind. I have wagged my tongue with so many words, but they cannot serve as any method. If you embody it in your mind and go on in this way, you will find that principle for yourselves. Investigate life within death; awaken to death within life. This mechanism of death and birth is turned by each person; it is up to you, not up to me. Seek stillness in movement; find movement within stillness. The first signs of this stillness and movement depend on your own inner illumination; you can ask your own mind, but you cannot ask a master. Remember my words carefully, and you will never go wrong. If you do not follow what I say, you will go astray in the end. This lamp of mine that lights the dark road has guided hundreds of thousands of travelers who had lost their way. This raft of mine that ferries across suffering has carried over enough seafaring guests to fill the Ganges.
Assembly, do not give rise to doubt; once you recognize the truth, set out that very night.
Assembly:
Before birth, where was your homeland? After death, to which quarter will you return?
The body of the Law in the present should be awakened to early; do not let the bright years pass with empty hands.
Death and birth, birth and death—investigate them together; the great matter and its causes are no idle affair.
Before you die, first go and die; the spark of life is to be seen within death.
Not in the waters, not in the mountains, nor need you seek northwest or southeast.
Look, and it does not lie outside my body; it is only within this small square inch.
With precepts, concentration, and wisdom, enter the mysterious pass, and do not let the work fall into second or third place.
With a single mind directly awaken to birth and death, and walls of iron and bronze will not be hard to break.
Truly bitter, truly hard, like a boat moving over shallow shoals.
Then suddenly the river tide rises and the wind turns fair, and in a moment you fly past Nine Dragon Bay.