The Cultivation Chapter
Xuefeng
“Cultivation” refers to recognition, exploration, and judgment, finding the correct methods and paths;
“Practice” refers to selection, restraint, and persistence, restraining one’s emotions and desires, adhering to what is right, and giving up what is wrong.
The journey of transcending time and space of Lifechanyuan is divided into three levels of self-cultivation: elementary, intermediate, and advanced.
Elementary Cultivation
The purpose is to cultivate cognition, by seeing through life, to discard illusions, return to simplicity and truth, develop human nature, sort out the chaos, find the way out of complexity, see the constant in the impermanent, and gradually transition from the muddled and chaotic ordinary life to the clear and distinct life of the virtuous, and thus achieve a state of individual health, wealth, and freedom.
The elementary stage of cultivation also needs to do your best to complete your duty, laying the foundation for the intermediate stage of cultivation, which is to be free from cares and worries.
Intermediate Cultivation
The purpose is to cultivate the heart, through calming the mind, stopping the mind, governing the mind, rectifying the mind, being humble, stabilizing the mind, purifying the mind, ending the worries of the heart, dispelling the heavy fog that shrouds the mind, making the mind transparent and clean, achieving the goal of transcending the secular, leaving the world, ending the worries of the heart, and being extraordinary, and laying the foundation for the advanced stage of cultivation, which is to cultivate nature.
Advanced Cultivation
The purpose is to cultivate nature, through unconventional thinking, wild imagination, doing the opposite, denying life, and thus achieving the goal of walking with angels (celestials and Buddhas) and entering the celestial realm.
“Nature” refers to the original characteristics of the gene structure of humans designed by the Greatest Creator, which is called the root of wisdom in Buddhism, and the spirit and spirituality in the language of celestials. This nature is absolutely pure, without impurities. If this spirituality can be maintained, people will not get sick or die, and can live forever. However, due to the imperfect “technology” of the angels when they created according to the Greatest Creator’s “blueprint”, a part of the impurities was mixed into human nature, leading to the imperfection of human beings. The less perfect human nature is, the more it develops towards the lower life space, and the more perfect human nature is, the more it develops towards the higher life space.
Cultivating nature is to gradually remove the impurities mixed in the original nature through cultivation and restore the original characteristics given by the Greatest Creator.
Before cultivation, I have excerpted some content from the “Bible”, “Quran”, “Diamond Sutra”, and “Tao Te Ching” to enlighten our wisdom and lay the psychological foundation for cultivation.
Clouds rise and rain falls without intention, clear wind and bright moon reveal the mystery;
Look at the hundred-foot tree reaching the sky, bit by bit, it grows upward; (referring to energy)
Calm your mind and think carefully, in an instant, you can travel a hundred thousand miles;
After ten years of cultivation without enlightenment, once enlightened, you reach the Jade Pool.
Excerpts from the “Bible”
God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. (Psalm 53:2)
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:6)
For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:8)
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. (Psalm 37:1-2)
Excerpts from the “Quran”
You see the mountains and think them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away. Such is the artistry of God, who disposes of all things in perfect order: for he is well acquainted with all that you do. (Surah 20, 27:88)
Whoever desires the harvest of the Hereafter - We increase for him in his harvest. And whoever desires the harvest of this world - We give him thereof, but there is not for him in the Hereafter any share. (Surah 25, 42:20)
On the Day when men will be like scattered moths, and the mountains will be like carded wool. Then he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) heavy, will be in a life of good pleasure and satisfaction. But he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) light, will have his home in a (bottomless) Pit. (Surah 30, 101:4-9)
O assembly of jinn and men! If you can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass! (Surah 27, 55:33)
Excerpts from the “Diamond Sutra”
What is called Buddha-dharma is not Buddha-dharma.
One should produce a pure mind, not dwelling on form, not dwelling on sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharma. One should produce a mind that does not dwell anywhere.
Leaving all phenomena is called all Buddhas.
The Tathagata’s attainment of the Dharma is neither real nor unreal.
The “Diamond Sutra” has inconceivable, immeasurable, boundless merits.
If one is despised by others, it is due to one’s past sins, which should lead to the evil path. Because one is despised in this life, the sins of the past life are eliminated, and one should attain Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi (the highest, most enlightened, and most wise).
All dharmas are Buddha-dharma.
If a person says that the Tathagata has a dharma to speak, he slanders the Buddha and cannot understand what I say.
By cultivating all good dharmas without self, person, sentient beings, or lifespan, one can attain the highest, most enlightened, and most wise.
If one sees me by form, seeks me by sound, this person practices the wrong path and cannot see the Tathagata.
(Translation) Those who have achieved the highest, most enlightened, and most wise cannot maintain the appearance of emptiness.
(Translation) To reach a state without a competitive heart, a fighting heart, this is the highest state of man, the Arhat beyond the highest state of the desire realm.
All conditioned dharmas are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dew drops and a lightning flash. Contemplate them thus.
Excerpts from the “Tao Te Ching”
Act without action, and there is nothing that is not governed.
Put others before yourself and you will be ahead, put others outside yourself and you will be preserved.
The form of formlessness, the image of nothingness, this is called haziness. Meet it and you will not see its head; follow it and you will not see its tail.
There are things mixed together, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, standing alone without change, circulating without fail, it can be regarded as the mother of the world. I do not know its name, so I call it Tao, and I name it as great.
Only those who do not contend, thus no one in the world can contend with them.
Although there are glorious views, they dwell in transcendence.
Good actions leave no trace, good words have no flaws, good calculations do not use counters, good closures have no key and cannot be opened, good knots have no rope and cannot be untied.
Those who act will fail, those who hold will lose.
Hold the great image, and the world will come.
The Tao is always non-active, yet there is nothing it does not do.
All things in the world are born of being, and being is born of non-being.
The bright Tao seems dim, the advancing Tao seems to retreat, the smooth Tao seems rugged.
The greatest straightness seems crooked, the greatest skill seems clumsy, the greatest eloquence seems tongue-tied. The greatest square has no corners, the greatest vessel is late in completion, the greatest sound has rare notes, the greatest image has no form, the Tao is hidden and has no name.
The great Tao is very level, but people like to take shortcuts.
Disaster is what fortune depends upon, fortune is where disaster subdues.
A tree as big as a man’s embrace grows from a tiny sprout. A tower nine stories high begins with a heap of earth. A journey of a thousand miles starts under one’s feet.
The way of heaven has no favorites, it is always with the good man.
The way of heaven benefits and does not harm; the way of the sage is to act but not to contend.
Above, it associates with the creator, and below, it associates with those who are outside life and death and have no beginning or end. - “Zhuangzi”
Words of Xuefeng
All non-active laws, there is no way to explain them,
Coming like thunder and lightning, leaving like a dream,
No emptiness, no reality, no sound, no silence, no boundaries, no limits, no moves, no postures,
Invisible, untouchable, powerful,
Cannot be stolen, cannot be hidden, unpredictable.
Everything is it, yet it is not everything,
Comply with it, everything goes smoothly, peace for ten thousand years;
Resist it, full of bumps, disaster extends to descendants!
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