Scripture of the Primordial Manifestations and Transformations

Practicing the fast, offering sincerity, burning incense, chanting, performing the Way, reading the scriptures, making offerings, leaving the household life, repentance, making vows, bearing insults, and practicing patience—all of these serve to harmonize and govern the mind. Through them, one enters the Bodhimaṇḍa: the "place of practice" or sacred space where one attains enlightenment and separates from all grievances and karmic knots.

The reasons for these practices are as follows:

• Copying scriptures is done to broaden the gates of the Law and teach those who have not yet awakened.
• Creating sacred images is to focus the thoughts and contemplate returning to the Supreme One.
• Establishing temples is to gather the wise and virtuous to transform the foolish and deluded.
• Ordaining others is to select those with a devoted heart to follow the words of holy conduct.
• Giving alms is to abandon greed and stinginess to benefit the poor.
• Releasing captive lives is to arouse great compassion and pity for the ignorant referring here to animals or sentient beings trapped in the cycle of suffering.
• Keeping the fast is to wash the body and mind and restrain worldly desires.
• Offering sincerity is to cut off all evils and stop the root of sin.
• Burning incense is the wish to maintain a pure intention while making offerings to the Celestial Worthy.
• Chanting is to sever all worldly attachments and maintain an unbiased mind.
• Performing the Way original: 行道 (xingdao); refers to ritual circumambulation or movement is to circulate the breath and move the physical form to return to the Natural State.
• Reading scriptures is to refine one's study of the subtle truths and understand what was previously unheard.
• Making offerings is to reach both humans and gods and rouse a heart of respect.
• Leaving the household life is to universally depart from the gates of worldly affliction.
• Repentance is to change evil and restrain the emotions so as not to commit further wrongs.
• Making vows is to settle one's original mind and reach the Source of the Way.
• Bearing insults original: 含垢 (hangou); literally "containing the dirt" is to "harmonize one's light with the dust" A classic Daoist phrase from the Tao Te Ching meaning to blend into the world without showing off one's brilliance and not seek to be self-evident.
• Practicing patience is to constantly reside in a state of soft yielding rather than being rigid and strong.

All these various "expedient means" and doors of conduct are established with the desire to harmonize the rigid and stubborn mind. If the mind is soft and weak in the sense of being non-resistant and malleable, then delusions do not arise, and these various gates of practice may also be set aside. Then, the fruits of suffering are extinguished, one ascends to the source of Great Wisdom, and dwells eternally in a state of clear, absolute emptiness and silence.

The Exalted Lord Laozi bowed his head and praised these good words. He then asked the Celestial Worthy further: "I do not yet know the details of the Ten Directions, the Three Realms, and the five billion Heavens. Are they all of one kind, or are there differences? Do they exist eternally, or are they subject to destruction?"

The Celestial Worthy replied: "The Heavens are immeasurable. The origins of the breath Qi they receive are not different in essence, yet there are three types:

1. The first is the Transformation of the Dao-Energy, which encompasses all the heavens. It is named Daluo The "Great Mesh" or "Great Veil" Heaven, the highest level of Daoist cosmology. It covers all things, stands alone as the highest and unsurpassable, stretching to the very end of time without limit. It dwells eternally without tilting, and is never subject to decay or destruction.
2. The second is the One-Energy distributed into the Three Highest Heavens. Its scattered radiance and divided spirits form the positions of the Nine Heavens. Its energy produces the Three Energies, and the Thirty-Six Heavens support the Three Purities The three highest Daoist heavens/deities. These are collectively the Realm of the Way. Both emptiness and form are pure; far and near are equally luminous. Those who enter this realm are naturally pure in their cause and service. It is clearly empty and silent; they eternally sever the ties of habit. Without beginning or end, this realm exists forever and is indestructible.
3. The third is where the Transformation of the Way gradually thins. The pure energy continues its flow downward..."