Assembly, the Tao of wisdom and light that I spoke of last night—the Jade Pivot Scripture (Yushu Jing), with its words “hearing and seeing also vanish; there is no hearing and no seeing,” has already said everything about wondrous function and revealed spiritual power.
Assembly, the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of the Hidden Talisman (Yinfu Jing) says: “The deaf are good at seeing; the blind are good at hearing.” An immortal of old said: “Listening in stillness, one does not hear the sound of thunder; looking intently, one does not see the shape of Mount Tai.” The Doctrine of the Mean says: “How abundant is the virtue of ghosts and spirits! Look for them, and they are not seen; listen for them, and they are not heard.” The Zhuangzi (True Classic of Southern Florescence) says: “Without looking, without listening, embrace the spirit in stillness.” The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong Qi) says: “The ears, eyes, and mouth are three treasures; shut them and let nothing pass out. The Perfected one sinks into the deep abyss, floating and roaming, keeping to the compass within.” A scripture says: “All its wondrous words cannot be fully told.” Guanyin Bodhisattva says: “Through hearing, reflection, and practice, one enters samadhi.”
Assembly, the ear is the aperture through which essence leaks. It is not the essence of later heaven, of lust and desire, that leaks there, but the qi of prior heaven, of the Supreme One containing the true, the essence in which the true origin manifests and responds. If you listen inwardly and stop up your hearing, the essence will not fly off, and knowledge will arise. The eye is the aperture through which spirit leaks. It is not the spirit of later heaven, of thinking and worry, that leaks there, but the innate knowledge of prior heaven of wondrous, bright, numinous awareness, the primordial spirit of the dense mist of the Great Simplicity. If you look inwardly and turn your sight back, the spirit will not wander outward, and wisdom will arise. If you can keep the precepts and enter concentration, knowledge and wisdom arise. When knowledge and wisdom arise, water and fire intermingle. When water and fire intermingle, Kan and Li unite. When Kan and Li unite, heaven and earth are at peace. When heaven and earth are at peace, metal and wood join. When metal and wood join, the hun and po souls meet. When the hun and po souls meet, essence and qi are transformed. When essence and qi are transformed, spiritual powers appear. When spiritual powers appear, light radiates. When light radiates, merit is complete. When merit is complete, the body of the Law is accomplished. When the body of the Law is accomplished, the substance of the Tao is manifest. When the substance of the Tao is manifest, wondrous function operates. When wondrous function operates, living beings are saved. When living beings are saved, the power of one’s vows is fulfilled. When the power of one’s vows is fulfilled, the great matter is concluded. Only this one vehicle is the method; the other two are not true.
Assembly, from beginning to end, it does not go beyond the one word “sincerity.” The Doctrine of the Mean says: “Without sincerity, there is no thing.” This word “thing” is the one thing within the elusive and evasive, the one essence within the dim and dark. The I Ching (Book of Changes) says: “Essence and qi become things.” The “thing” in the phrase “things are investigated” in the Great Learning, the “be discerning and single-minded, hold fast to the center” of the Book of Documents, the saying of the Lotus Sutra, “Within there is a treasure, hidden in the mountain of form,” and “The sage cleanses his mind and withdraws into secrecy”—all of these are none other than this thing. First one withdraws and hides, and afterward it is seen. “If you can attain a mind in which there is not a single thing, then what lies before your eyes is the time before Fuxi.” Then why need spiritual powers and wondrous function, and why need wisdom and light?
Assembly, spiritual powers and wondrous function are the wondrous secret by which patriarchs who have already attained the Tao appear in person to teach the Law, saving living beings, gathering in the false and returning it to the true. In the light of great wisdom, they wisely extend golden arms to rescue living beings, bringing them out of suffering and vexation into clarity and stillness. They can enable short-lived beings to obtain long life; they can make living beings peaceful and happy, and the land clear and tranquil; they can prolong life and protect it, making living beings pure, good, upright, and correct, and removing the harm of goblins, the heterodox, and rebels; they can make living beings compassionate and humane, so that they do not kill living things or harm creatures; they can make living beings’ turns of calamity dissolve and their knots of enmity loosen; they can break through living beings’ darkness and reveal light; they can heal living beings’ hundred illnesses and dispel their chronic diseases; they can turn living beings from folly to wisdom; they can make living beings abandon the heterodox and return to the orthodox; they can make living beings lessen their desires and purify their minds; they can make living beings gather in their feelings and return to their nature; they can make living beings liberated and unobstructed; they can make living beings leave the ordinary and enter sagehood; they can make living beings dispel calamities and gather blessings; they can make living beings extinguish their sins and give rise to auspiciousness; they can make living beings leave suffering, leave the world, enter the Tao, ascend, and go beyond heaven itself. They can enable living beings to save all living beings universally, freeing them from their bodies of flesh into bodies of the King of the Law. That its whereabouts cannot be fathomed is called spiritual power; that its workings are not divulged is called wondrous function.
Assembly, the spiritual power of my gate of precepts, concentration, and wisdom is the spiritual that is not spiritual: turning the six consciousnesses into the six penetrations, penetrating heaven and earth, ghosts and spirits, people and things—this is called spiritual power. The wondrous function of my gate of precepts, concentration, and wisdom is the wonder without wonder: setting one mechanism in motion to display ten thousand transformations—transforming heavenly demons, transforming earthly baleful spirits, transforming fierce ghosts, transforming heterodox gods, transforming evil people, transforming monsters—this is called wondrous function. How can the spiritual power of my gate of precepts, concentration, and wisdom be seen?
Assembly, in the light of concentration and wisdom, the One Qi of prior heaven appears as a perfect and bright auspicious form. Above, it reaches the heavenly palaces, paying homage to the ancestral qi above the Three Pure Ones; below, it reaches the underworld, rescuing sinful souls beneath the Nine Springs. When one teaches the Law, the heavenly dragons submit and ten thousand spirits stand guard, folding their hands in salute and wishing to hear the orthodox teaching. And by refining spirit to return to emptiness, the dragon spirits are saved. By compassionate relief, King Yama sighs in praise and the bureau judges comply, pardoning sins so that souls may be reborn, and they wish to hear the orthodox teaching. And by leaving the ghostly state to realize immortality, the ghost kings are saved. With a heart of great compassion, one wishes only to save oneself and save others, wishing that all people alike reach the ultimate Tao; then with the medicine of the Law one universally rescues living beings, so that all crawling, stirring creatures that bear life are universally liberated. Even earth, wood, tiles, and rubble are moved. The feelings of all things are wholly penetrated. One works spiritual power without anyone knowing or sensing it, and heaven, earth, and the myriad things are within one’s body; one releases wondrous function spontaneously and naturally, and the great earth, mountains, and rivers return within one’s Law. Then the heavenly demons revere and submit, wishing only to welcome one respectfully; the earthly baleful spirits are alarmed and beg for instruction. Fierce ghosts, hearing words of compassion, are reborn on the human path and forever cease their thoughts of vengeance. Heterodox gods, receiving the treasure of the scriptures, secretly take up cultivating immortality and forever renounce blood sacrifices. When one subdues by virtue rather than by force, evil people wish to become good people; when one moves by sincerity rather than controlling by arts, heterodox gods wish to become orthodox gods. Grasping the handle of the Dipper in reverse, one moves yin and yang and ghosts and spirits cannot fathom it; turning the workings of creation backward, one transcends the world and heaven and earth do not know it. One manifests a divine, bright, firm body of the Law, yet it has no form to be seen; one teaches the wondrous Law of the one highest vehicle, yet it has no sound to be heard. Empty space is my realm of the Law, and I am the body of the Law of empty space. Undifferentiated and whole, one is one body with heaven and earth; upright and great, one is one mind with immortals and buddhas. Released, a mustard seed holds Mount Sumeru; hidden, Mount Sumeru lies in a mustard seed. One becomes the great parent of living beings and the great master of the Law for heavenly beings and humans. Is this not the spiritual power of clarity and stillness and of liberation, the wondrous function of non-action and naturalness?
Assembly, when one does not cling to forms, penetrating wisdom is vast; when one follows the heavenly workings, wondrous function is inexhaustible. It lies only in not going against the Tao and virtue in ordinary daily life. Then why abandon the precepts to study talismanic methods, cast aside the jade disc to look at worthless jade-like stone, content to be a person without wisdom rather than study the Tao of the highest vehicle?
Assembly:
The assembly, confused, hardly awaken; side doors and outer paths walk heterodox roads.
Spiritual powers attached to forms belong to the second vehicle; wondrous function that lingers in form is not the proper work.
Sound, image, and substance are all in harmony with the Tao; emptiness and form, shape and name, cannot be dwelt in.
Dwell neither in forms nor in emptiness; this is how the divine immortals are saved.
To display spiritual powers and exercise wondrous function without dwelling in true, constant, great stillness and concentration—
Acting at will without hearing or seeing, it all returns to emptiness in the end and can hardly respond for long.
No need to cling to forms or to visualization; with wondrous function and spiritual powers, the mind is like a mirror.
If you unite the precepts with the true and constant, then even spiritual powers—why need you heed them?