Taking Refuge

After gaining some understanding in cultivation, remember not to tell anyone about it. Otherwise, people will label you mentally ill.

Because your perception is far too different from ordinary people's, those around you will be unable to understand it.

Not only would it fail to help them, it would also drag you into their troubles.

Continue refining yourself and cultivating your inner heart.

Once you had complete control over your thoughts, you would discover that you were vastly different from who you used to be. Only then would you be your true self.

You would no longer let thoughts pull your emotions around, nor would you let wild thoughts breed irritation.

Meet a ghost, kill a ghost. Meet a demon, slay a demon.

Whether ghosts or gods, they were unseen yet real existences. Ghosts and gods were a kind of adjective.

They described those unseen, untouchable forces in this world, like magnetic fields, Wi-Fi, signals, and so on.

Every time a person's mind stirred and a thought arose, brainwaves were produced and spread outward.

So you had to constantly train yourself in an upright heart and upright thoughts.

People often compared good energy to gods and bad energy to ghosts.

So-called ghost possession was actually when your own energy was weak and the energy of other wavelengths entered your body. Your thoughts became chaotic, and you could no longer control your actions.

Invoking deities was similar: it drew the energy of the god in your heart onto yourself, thereby granting you extraordinary abilities.

This technique of Invoking deities was like psychological suggestion. The more you imagined yourself as the god in your heart, the more you could block out your original self.

It was enough to understand the principle behind it. Do not blindly practice it.

If you truly wanted to practice, then worship the Buddha, imprint the Buddha's image upon your heart, learn the Buddha's goodness, and cherish all living beings. You would also gain great power.

Cultivation sounded simple when spoken of, but it was not easy to do, so you had to persist in deliberate practice over a long period.

When you could control your thoughts, you could control your emotions.

Whenever you felt afraid of something, directly replace the thought. Change it to: I am a god. This is what I specialize in. What the hell am I afraid of?

Then you would shatter your fear in an instant.

Any ghosts or demons would become food on your plate. They would hide when they saw you, afraid that you would eat and refine them, using them to practice your arts.

Some compared having too many stray thoughts to creditors from past grievances. In truth, it meant roughly the same thing—put plainly, there was a ghost making trouble in your heart.

Those thoughts you could not control, the ones that disturbed you and made you irritable, depressed, and miserable, were those creditors from past grievances.

Fucking wipe them out. Without the audacity of I am the greatest under heaven, what immortality were you cultivating?

All monsters, demons, ghosts, and freaks before Laozi were fucking nothing more than heads stuck on poles for sale, beneath mention.

With such courage, you could cultivate the will of vajra.

When nothing could affect your inner heart, and it reached a realm of unmoving suchness, that was the Immovable Vajra Realm.

And when altruism arose within you instinctively, you would enter the next realm: the Bodhisattva Realm.

The Bodhisattva Realm was divided into Great Bodhisattvas and Lesser Bodhisattvas. Lesser Bodhisattvas helped the living beings around them without seeking repayment, because those around them were also part of all living beings.

Great Bodhisattvas began to work for the benefit of all beings under heaven, using their own power to stir changes in the hearts of people across the world.

When you broke through these understandings and instinctively did what benefited all living beings, without resentment or seeking repayment, and could maintain it, that was what becoming a Buddha looked like.

Observe more children—their innocence, happiness, their lack of grudges and resentment, the way they forgot any worry after a little while.

Train yourself to understand everything while still being able to remain like a child. Then you would truly have skill.

Brother Jesus said to regard everyone as family, as elder brothers, elder sisters, younger brothers, and younger sisters. This too was a method, cultivating through the power of love.

When you could see everyone this way, you would give selflessly.

Saving all living beings, God loves the world, Dao benefits all things, serving the people wholeheartedly, and jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind—all meant the same thing: boundless great love and utter selflessness.

While cultivating, you had to cherish your own country, tolerate its shortcomings, and strive to make it better and better.

Cherish the kind people of other countries. As for the unkind ones, do not pay them any heed, and do not get entangled with them.

Should they invade Huaxia, let iron horses and golden spears thunder forth, let us don our armor; though they be far away, they must be punished. This was Buddha's wrath descends upon demons.

Cultivation required a compassionate heart, but at the same time, it also required Vajra wrath.

Those who had read Journey to the West should understand that Spirit Mountain also had the Victorious Fighting Buddha.

When Monkey Brother wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, the Tathagata also came out and fought Monkey Brother.

So when necessary, certain methods were still needed.

In cultivation, one hand held the scriptures to comprehend the Dao, while the other carried a sword to eliminate demons.

The so-called scriptures referred to the insights and realizations gained from all one had experienced along the way, while the sword for eliminating demons was the powerful will cultivated through practice.

Master Ji Gong once said, "Leaving the household while at home, staying at home while having left the household." It referred to the heart leaving the household, not where a person physically was.

What did it mean for the heart to leave the household? Opinions differed, and explanations abounded.

My personal understanding was that the human heart—that consciousness—moved from one place to another.

That was, it changed from its original habitual mode of thought into a mode of awareness.

It transformed from the perspective of ordinary human nature into oneness with self-awareness; that was to say, acquired nature and innate nature were combined and used together.

It was like two circles. Innate nature and acquired nature could each be compared to a circle, and where those two circles overlapped was where the human heart needed to go—the place where the heart left the household.

Cultivators often compared this place to taking refuge. Buddhism called it taking refuge in the Buddha, taking refuge in the Dharma, and taking refuge in the Sangha.

Daoism called it taking refuge in the Dao, taking refuge in the scriptures, and taking refuge in the master.

That was what it referred to.

First, take refuge in the Buddha; second, take refuge in the Dharma; third, take refuge in the Sangha. It could also be said as: first, take refuge in awakening, awakened and not deluded; second, take refuge in righteousness, righteous and not deviant; third, take refuge in purity, pure and unstained.

They all spoke of awareness that neither increased nor diminished, neither defiled nor pure, neither born nor extinguished.

It had another name: "Sarira."

Taking refuge in the Dao, taking refuge in the scriptures, taking refuge in the master—the Dao was the operating laws of all things. The scriptures were the journey of insights experienced by the heart. The master was one's original, innately self-knowing self, which could also be called the Primordial Spirit.

To put it plainly, taking refuge in the Three Treasures was the place between the two circles I mentioned. Placing your heart in that place was called taking refuge in the Three Treasures.

OO, do you see these two circles?

The first circle represented the acquired human heart, which was our thinking consciousness.

The second circle represented the innate heavenly heart, which was the subconscious.

You could also call them divine consciousness and the Primordial Spirit.

Set these two circles over each other, like the Daoist Yin-Yang Qiankun Circle. The place in the middle of those two circles was the destination of cultivation, the home of the heart.

After cultivating your heart to that place, you had taken refuge.

By doing this, one had truly crossed the threshold of cultivating immortality. It could also be called the admission ticket to the great path of longevity and immortality.

Only after reaching this step could one begin so-called immortal cultivation.