CHAPTER IV: TRANSMISSION OF THE PRECIOUS DHARMA

C. DOCTRINE

4. The Suchness Truth Period: Salvation at The High Level (Mahayana)

4.4 There Are Three Ways of Detecting Dharma Precepts

The starting point is thought. Each thought is a Dharma precept. During sitting meditation, a practitioner is easier to detect the coming and going thoughts in the body. Therefore, in the beginning step, it must be practiced through sitting meditation. The cruel thoughts are the obscure ones; the healthy thoughts without thorns are the bright ones. An advanced step towards observing thoughts is called observing living beings, by which a practitioner can see more clearly the coming and going thoughts in the body.

Thoughts are unceasingly changing, called the generating birth and destruction. Therefore, every hour, every minute in a day, the thoughts come and go, forming numberless Dharma precepts. In the Dharma practice, once reaching the end of the birth and destruction in one’s thoughts, confused thoughts are no longer arising in one’s hearing and seeing, yet immortal thoughts are arising at the right places. When concentrating, observing to examine, that is the fixed thought. The fixed thought is used to observe and examine. If a Tao practitioner focuses on it to create supernatural power, they are subject to live  in unreality and under regulation of Dharma precepts. 

Deities, Fairies are all caught in these fixed thoughts, being fallen in Dharma precepts, unable to be free from it, unable to resolve the birth and death.

C. DOCTRINE

There are also the Three Realms of Devas becoming the Three Thousand Great Thousand Worlds, up to the worlds of Dragons and Humans. Eighteen Heaven Worlds manage the secular world. Each precept, each world is in general the world of thoughts. Because of each individual has their own different level of True Reward or retribution, resulting in distinct ideals, there are countless strata of individuals being born, not outside the Tathagata Constitution’s Precepts. —T. V.

Each living being is different from one another by many distinct levels, where each level is a precept, also called a world. Each world is constituted by thoughts. From the Heaven world to the secular one, up to all other worlds, each represents a framed precept. The difference in the noble and common, broadness and narrowness resulted in all kinds of rewards and retributions. Generating one's mind to practice for the complete liberation through knowing, seeing and solving will bring about the True Reward of the Buddha Body. True Reward or retribution, all are created and desired by the living beings themselves, it’s truly the Tathagata Dharma. The Tathagata Dharma without differentiation from all seeds is exactly the Tathagata Constitution. Each Constitution has its Dharma precept called the Tathagata Constitution’s Eyes or Tathagata Constitution’s Precept.

It is extremely difficult to achieve results without using the Tathagata Dharma for one’s daily Dharma practice, but only with emphasizing on the learning of the Buddhist Dharma and strictly following the sutra. How difficult the path of practice for seeking liberation from birth and death is!

The result of the Dharma practice is just what the practice is in the beginning. Need to leave the form, no longer generate thoughts and be enlightened by a Good-Intelligent-Awakened One to return to the suchness form—acquiring liberation through solving. The starting point is very significant because how the practitioner’s thought is, without the truly Enlightened One guiding them to follow the path of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, exactly how they will be satisfied at the end of their life.

The act is typical of a high or low class and each act is truly a Dharma precept. Every level has its own acts and conducts with its invariable characteristics.

Because of the good and bad acts, there are favorable and unfavorable Dharma precepts. There are many Tao practitioners trying to help living beings by their good acts, but they do not correct their own character, making others impregnated with their bad nature. For example, they worship the Buddha, admire the Buddha statue, and are on vegetarian diet, but in presence of a difficult matter they are unable to control their hot temper, making people around them feel discontented.

There are a lot of Tao practitioners preaching Dharma like a Buddha saying, but in presence of a situation they immediately intrigue to make profit for themselves and secretly do evil things to others. Once the theory and the act are opposite without any concern for correction, Dharma precepts will also be created; It will be difficult to reach enlightenment as long as there is the difference between nature and form, being not unified as one.

If [one’s] Consciousness Constitution is not unified with [one’s] morality, how can one acquire the accomplishment? —T. V.                                                  

The Consciousness Constitution, containing the seeds of good and bad natures, belongs to nature while morality belongs to the Dharma form. When one’s form and one’s nature are unified, there is true acquisition in their Dharma practice. Otherwise, if one’s nature and one’s form were not unified, a Tao practitioner will still receive the retribution according to their habitual impregnated deeds. That is the reason behind the existence of Monster, Devil and Devil Buddha.

There are a lot of Tao practitioners who know well the Buddha Dharma. They are, however, attached to fearlessness and strengthening the hot-tempered acts and schemeful acts, which are harmful to their fellows and to the honest innocent believers following them in the Dharma practice, without the fear of bad consequences. The Fairy Buddhas also know well the Buddha Dharma, but they act nobly, avoiding the rudeness and the dirt, strengthening their attachment. They could not be free from the Dharma precept and thus, they have never attained the True Enlightenment as rightly as the Buddhas.

The act is a symbol of the most recent former life which is reborn in this life. —T. V.

Character and behavior are impregnated through accustomed acts in the career, friendship, and family. The truly successful Tao practitioner can clearly know former lives of living beings just by observing their gesture and language in the four periods of walking, standing, laying, and sitting.

Therefore, for the Good-Intelligent-Awakened One, He has two ways of guidance. One way is showing His faithful believers how to resolve their Dharma precepts, that is the essential thing. Another way is making the faithful believers around Him having adorably respect toward Him to create for them a Dharma precept of rooted goodness, so that they could receive the blessed rewards of Divine Humans, avoiding the destination of Hungry Ghosts, Animals, and Hell.

Those who know how to practice resolving thousands of Dharmas gradually, being patient in rooted goodness, not exploding suddenly, until one day when their effortful and virtuous deeds are sufficient, they will acquire the No-Birth Dharma of Patience. Therefrom, they could absorb thoroughly Dharma precepts, clearly understanding the No-Birth Dharma precept —it brings about true happiness to those who know how to practice the Dharma immeasurably peaceful.

Even the enlightened one, if they do not know well the Dharma precept, that means they do not know well Dharma precepts’ permanent characteristics, they still have not completed the three bodies perfectly.

There are countless species, each species with its special and fixed form different from the others and invariable for generations. For example, humans, whether they are in the East, West, South, or North, always have an invariable original form. For animals like cows, buffaloes, horses, …, each species is born with a fixed form, invariable through generations, which is called the eternal Dharma precept.

A Tao practitioner, who attains perfect harmony, liberating from the belts of Dharma precept is very rare. This practitioner has completely fulfilled, without omission, the Four Integration Dharmas, the Six Pāramitā, the Compassion-Will-Courage, and the Precept-Contemplation-Result. A lot of Tao practitioners consider these things to be very ordinary and familiar, but in reality, practicing these in well-knowledge is very difficult.

We believe by passionate error that the form is destructible. In fact, the Four Species remain intact through millions of years. The birth and then the death, the death and then the birth are succeeding each other eternally. Tao practitioners of High Level (Mahayana) must rely on Dharma precepts to practice, resolving Dharma precepts, liberating from the belt of Dharma precepts and understanding thoroughly Dharma precepts.

At the time of The Founding Master, the Lord still taught the belts of Dharma precepts to the Bodhisattva rank. But on the way of executing the Tao Dharma, the Lord only created a precept whenever a monk or a nun had made a mistake, to prevent them from repeating the mistake. Therefore, at the end of the Lord’s time, there were totally 250 precepts for the Buddhist monks and 348 precepts for the Buddhist nuns. Buddhist practitioners have to practice and keep these precepts to avoid falling into the three ways of evil, to receive the blessed reward of Divine-Humans; they must wait for the Bodhisattvas or Buddhas coming to life to teach them the belts of Dharma precepts.