CHAPTER IV: TRANSMISSION OF THE PRECIOUS DHARMA

C. DOCTRINE

9. The Period of Unsurpassable Special-Principle:  Salvation at The Supreme Level

9.1 The Unsurpassable Supreme Truth

9.2 What is the Supreme Construction?

9.3 What Are the Ten Titles Divided into the Three Dignities?

9.4 The Supreme Virtuous Merit Dignity

9.5 The Essential Nature: The Use

9.6 Wonderfully! The Gentle Saint! The Enlightened Buddha!

Regarding the Precious Product of Dharma Sutra, Great Bodhisattvas of the past have unanimously vowed to protect it, so there is a very remarkable lively wonder in it. That lively wonder is frequently prepared in advance to help Tao practitioners with good will and unwavering mind cultivate as they wish. The Dharma sutra also sticks with difficulties that are difficult for Tao practitioners to solve: Once acquiring the ‘Knowing and Seeing Buddha’, a Tao practitioner immediately interprets and mainly observes the Samadhi Dharma-subject, then goes to deep penetration to attain the Prajñà, thereby acquiring the Buddha's Knowledge and Sight. However, while not completing, still remaining an arising point, a practitioner hastily received the self to become a Buddha, immediately being caught into the Precept-Buddha’s Salvaged Nation. —T. V.

–The Precious Product appearing to the world, the True Sutra

C. DOCTRINE

The Buddha Path only has the Buddha Level (Buddhayana), not the Three Levels (Triyana) at all, which results from the different levels of perception and achievement in the Dharma practice. In this Period of Return, Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha Chief Supreme Maitreya Buddha divided the Buddha Level (Buddhayana) into two parts: The One Level (Ekayana) and the Supreme Level. The Lord, with His intention, brightly determined that the Patriarchs of Arahant rank reaching the Buddha Level (Buddhayana) ought to acquire fully the Supreme Rank True Enlightenment with the attestation from the appearing Buddha to become Bodhisattvas. When being attested as a Bodhisattva, only then will they have the right spirit of Dharma practice, practicing the Dharma at the Supreme Level.

For that reason, the Patriarchs of the Venerables’ and Arahants’ ranks, who are practicing the One Level (Ekayana), that is, the Buddha Level (Buddhayana), but not completing their practice with attestation, must wait one or many more lifetimes to be attested in order to enter the Bodhisattva constitution. Therefore, practicing in the Buddha Level (Buddhayana) does not mean all-round understanding. The Supreme Maitreya Buddha recommended the Patriarchs to continue their practice diligently, not to cling to the Buddha title to become the Precept-Buddha. That’s because the Lord witnessed many Tao practitioners in this Inferior-Life Period claiming themselves to be the Buddha, securely clinging to the Precept-Buddha—that is truly difficult to be relieved, wasting a lifetime of practice in the present and forever in the future.

9.1 The Unsurpassable Supreme Truth

A Tao practitioner, once having resolved the Six Taos, and recognized-to-salvage them thoroughly, becoming truly enlightened, will arrive at the full awareness: how they are evolving in which characteristics. Thus, at that time, the Truly Enlightened One can exhibit them to His faithful followers—from the practicing Bodhisattva to the no-regression Bodhisattva, with the mind of no-fear and with a thorough understanding from the limit to the limitless. Otherwise, those who are not in the rank of true Tao practitioners with true attestation will find it hard to understand this Precious Dharma, Unsurpassable Supreme Truth.

You all listen to this:

Once the Six Taos are effaced, there only remains the way of ANIMAL PRECEPT that constitutes the path to the Dharma Body – Salvaged Nation and to the complete Eight Masses of Nirvana.

Why? That’s because the animal precept is a precept of combining, training, and transforming into the living being precepts. The living being precepts are themselves the Dharma Body of the Buddha. The complete salvation of the Dharma Body will complete the Eight Masses of Nirvana. Those are the words of the Unsurpassable Supreme Truth exclusively reserved to the Bodhisattvas with comprehensive Eyes of the Constitution.

For the characteristics of the Six Taos, how they are evolving, I will show them to those who are still deficient, having not received the UNSURPASSABLE SUPREME TRUTH, as follows:

After thoroughly understanding of the Six Taos, one can know that the animal precept combines and transforms, forming mountains, rivers, continents, and the Three Thousand Great Thousand Worlds; it helps those, who are neither impregnated nor clinging to the FORM–SOUND–ODOR–TASTE, be smooth with all—reaching the True Enlightenment.

Otherwise, having desire and lust, being immersed in the form-sound-odor-taste-touch-Dharma, wrongly following the desire-view to self-produce the satisfied dualistic forms, will being caught in Dharma precepts of being-born.

It is only because of desire, view, and thought that Tao practitioners of the Two-Levels (Dviyana), including Fairies and Deities, in the Three Thousand Great Thousand Worlds have fallen into the Fairies-Deities’ practice path. Human beings at the three evil paths, only because of lust, have been depraved in chaotic thoughts and greed, making lots of outrageous things. Tao practitioners with attainment—passing through Dharma precepts, thoroughly understanding, and recognizing-to-salvage the Six Taos without being entangled, taking the form-sound-odor-taste-touch-Dharma as the assisting means for the Tao— readily acquire the Tao Dharma as I previously said.

                     The Fifth Day of the First Month of the Lunar Year of the Snake

(February 22, 1977) At 11: 45 a.m.

                                THE ONE-ESSENCE PURE-KING

(Who is Himself the Incarnation of Lord Supreme Maitreya Buddha)

                                    SEALED ATTESTATION.

The animal precept is a precept that admits, combines, and immediately transforms. It is the very Buddha Dharma Body. Female combines, trains, and transforms into living beings. For example, a woman who gets married and gives birth to her children. Everyone realizes that Female does give births.

And what is about the male? I heard the Lord say the following:

A man living in a proper environment will produce by himself lice and head lice. When a man's body produced a male and a female, he accomplished his duty of birth by metamorphosis; Later, this male and female would continue to give births to their countless descendants...  Thus, the male also gives birth.

So do senseless things.

For example, fallen trees at a certain time will produce woodborers. So does rice: when it is stored for a while, it will also produce by itself rice-weevils. On the surface and in the heart of the earth, it also produces countless species, which can walk and stand in living activities... In the air, it also self-produces all kinds of bacteria…

Therefore, for the animal precept: the male, the female, and the non-perceptive, all can produce the perceptive. Therefrom, we can see that the animal precept combines and transforms, forming mountains, rivers, continents, and the Three Thousand Great Thousand Worlds.

Thus, the non-perceptive gives birth to the perceptive; the globe, the plants, the rivers, the mountains, the ocean, the cloud, the water, the animals, the organisms, and the emptiness, all are containing the seeds of every species. All of them are precisely the universe, the Tathagata-Buddha, the God, the Allah—depending on each region named for the universe. 

Hence the Tathagata or the universe is also the perceptive, also has the knowing — it is not that the universe is inanimate. Where there is a suitable combination there is a suitable metamorphosis, without suitable combination without metamorphosis. That is the natural law, no-beginning no-ending, and eternal constant. Therefore, when a piece of clay is molded into a kitchen god, a land deity, or a wealth deity…, and then continues to be worshiped, it will have a supernatural efficacy; that is because the UNIVERSE’s seeing nature and OUR seeing nature is in concord and that results in supernatural efficacy. There is no efficaciousness without faith, due to without suitable combination without metamorphosis. If a piece of clay or wood... shaped into a Buddha statue, a Tao practitioner then worships that Buddha statue with their believing, it will become efficacious supernaturally, also due to the suitable combination. This supernatural efficacy is depending on the practitioner’s character of generosity or petiteness, of goodness or evilness and on the case itself.

Because the universe has the knowing that is the perception, the Buddhas, who experienced and attained the Buddha Fruit, have taught human beings known how to recite the Buddhas’ Appellations so that they could maintain their rooted goodness, being in concord with and transformed as the rooted goodness; they therefore could live in peace, avoid suffering, and escape disasters. For a Tao practitioner who practices well, reciting the Dharma means reciting the hearing-seeing-knowing, correcting their character and bad habits to acquire afterward the Essence of Mind — knowing their mind well and dissolving it into the universe’s mind, that is the integration of oneself into the Tathagata to be together with the Tathagata to attain the Tathagata Buddha's knowledge.

Just like a small drop of seawater that is worth nothing in comparison with the immense ocean, but when added to the sea it is immediately and completely dissolved because they are the same substance. Analyzing a drop of seawater shows its content of calcium, sodium, and iron..., those are as same as those of the sea. It is at this point that a drop of seawater and the vast ocean can unite and sympathize with each other like the father and the son. We can draw a reliable conclusion by that fact: There can be a union and sympathy between a tiny human being and the immense universe. Like the Buddhas' love, compassion and heartiness toward living beings, once knowing that, the living beings soon clearly comprehend as the Saints, profoundly acquire as the Bodhisattvas, and completely accomplish as the Buddhas. That is also the animal precept combining and transforming. From that reason, The Founding Master has taught: All living beings have the Buddha nature.

It is by leaving their ego and possession that living beings could profoundly empathize with the Tathagata or the universe; only then can they recognize that the universe is wonderfully lively — it is an unthinkable immense treasure. Clearly, the universe and we ourself are “two-but-one.” The one, which is also the two, likes the shape and the shadow. Once thoroughly understanding the birth and death, the death and birth, there is no more birth and death at all. Without birth and death, that is immortality. Being immortal, One has the sovereignty to know the time when He returns to the world by His own will, just like changing His dirty clothes for a wash. Though coming back to the secular world, the Bodhisattva does not lose His past effortful and virtuous merits. The old way was profoundly attained and all things are now thoroughly returned to Him by the universe without any omission. How wonderful the animal precept is. Everywhere, from the past through the present to the future is ceaselessly admitted and transformed by the animal precept.

Just like a word or an act in the past, present or future is stored intact in the warehouse of the Tathagata Constitution until a time at the appropriate condition it will reappear. Therefore, a Meditation Master looking at the evolution of Dharma natures can realistically know former lives in the past of a person, and also know exactly where they will go to after death without any error.

The Bodhisattva rank with miraculous observation resolves without impregnation, does not cling to the form-hearing-odor-taste, being smooth and profoundly acquiring the animal precept, thereby attaining the True Enlightenment. After completely resolving the Six Taos, there only remains the way of animal precept, combining to become the Buddha's Dharma Body, which is also precisely the Salvaged Nation, the complete accomplishment of the Eight Masses of Nirvana. Therefore, the Bodhisattva relies on the evolution of the animal precept to penetrate thoroughly Dharma precepts. Whereas the living beings, not acquiring the truth, not being attested by the Buddhas, still sinking into desire and lust, they should practice for resolution, accomplishing the moral conduct of the Gentle Saints before continuing their practice for the enlightenment of Buddha. Living beings as well as Tao practitioners of the Two-Levels (Dviyana) should not go in their own way to the formless. Otherwise, they will be depraved in the chaotic thoughts, greed, and sexual desire, which are really disastrous in animal precepts, being close to hell.

In 1990, the Lord manifested His cerebrovascular disease. The Lord allowed the Devadatta descendants to beat and drive away the true Buddhist disciples who were around Him, attending to serving Him. The intensity of the violence was growing more and more. Every time the Central group came to take care of the Lord, they were kicked out by the Devadatta descendants with hatred. Tao practitioners just realized that: the form and the formless are very difficult to overcome; they have to concentrate, endure, and carefully observe, having to harmonize Dharma precepts to know when the proper time for nursing is and when they have to keep themselves away. If they felt it difficult, fearful and leaving away, that was exterminating the Dharma; otherwise, not coming in the right time and undergoing the kicking out that was generating the Dharma. It must be in high self-consciousness in order acquire the No-Birth. That was really confidential, really too difficult. Later, answering a true Buddhist disciple’s question of how come the Lord brought about such a chaos, He said: 

Without that, how can I brightly affirm those belonging to the rooted evil of the Devadatta descendants, and those of rooted good who will afterward be enlightened and succeed to be the Patriarchs. Immediately then, the Lord delivered these two verses.

The situation is now really exposed.

The Orient is now clear, needless to say. —T. V.

After miraculous application of His sickness to give an examination, the Lord immediately ordinated the Bodhisattvas and Gentle Saints to continue practicing the Dharma and afterward become the succeeding Patriarchs. The Devadatta descendants were then disposed to return to their place of rooted evil with their fellows of the same nature-seeds to receive what they deserved fairly. That was the third examination.

Finally, the Lord concluded that: In the Supreme Level, there is only one who has attained the Supreme Rank True Enlightenment to be enlightened in the flow of the Bodhisattva executing Mahasattva, and later, to become a Buddha succeeding and diffusing the True Dharma. There is only one, not two. And the Lord taught: I have not enough time to instruct two Bodhisattvas.

All true Buddhist disciples of the outer circle knew nothing about it and only very few true disciples of the inner circle were aware of the Lord’s miraculous application of the formless to save the living being natures completely; most of them did not recognize the Lord’s discreet ordainment either. We could see by that there is a great distance, millions of miles, between the Bodhisattvas and the Arahants. The Bodhisattva rank said a word, that made the Arahants of the inner circle spend a whole life to meditate on, but still not understanding it.

Only the sensible Tao practitioners, even to a slight movement and act, a simple word, could understand somewhat the Buddha's miraculous applications and comprehend the Buddha's intention. How difficult it is!