白水老人慈悲叮嚀訓（成道卅週年紀念）

虛室生白 comes from the “In the Human World” chapter of the Zhuangzi (莊子·人間世): empty the room of the self, and light is born in the cleared space. The opening asks you to empty yourself of self-importance before receiving what follows — a teaching this long and demanding cannot enter a mind still full of itself.

This quotes the Tao Te Ching (道德經) directly: the highest good is like water, which benefits the ten thousand things and contends with none. 淵沖 extends the image to the picture of the Dao as a vessel hollow yet never emptied — spacious, inexhaustible, endlessly useful. This water-like beneficence is the standard against which every human failure named below is measured.

Old companions meet again — but is the vow you first made still alive? Heaven’s intention is not something to guess at from afar; it takes shape in the very people and circumstances set before you now.

Cultivating yourself and guiding others is work that will not wait. The closing line draws on the spirit of the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸): where another succeeds in a single try, put in a hundredfold effort and you too will surely arrive — the encouragement is toward sincerity and tireless diligence.

Even a divine being, on reaching the altar, bows low and kowtows before the Eternal Mother — what looks like ceremony is really the rule being set: if the highest still bows to the Source, how much more those who cultivate and serve. “Settle your breath and calm your heart” asks you to grow still before the heartfelt words can come; the closing “ha ha” loosens all stiffness so you can receive the teaching at ease.

The opening affirms your good fortune: to have heard the Dao and received it is a rare blessing.

This fortune came through the guidance of those who went before; having heard the Dao, do not let it slip — join hearts and let its light shine forth.

The undertone is the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸): the Dao is never distant — it is people who withdraw from it. The inversion is gentle but exact, and the real question follows from it: how few hold fast from beginning to end.

This is the teaching’s central diagnosis. A temple’s trials come not from the world outside but from “you are wrong, I am right” — the friction of wounded egos within the community.

The Dao itself cannot be destroyed by human hands; it is only misunderstanding that lays waste to one’s effort. What ego ruins is never the Dao but the community built to carry it.

To mistake the false for the true — to take face and wounded pride seriously — is like the gongs and drums of an opera stage: pounding loud in a spectacle that is finally empty.

The true Dao is something you apply in ordinary life — meeting one another with harmony, treating one another with courtesy, understanding one another through principle.

反諸己 is the Confucian discipline of self-examination — before blaming the situation or the other person, look at what you yourself did or failed to do. 改過遷善立德功 compresses the whole project of moral cultivation into one line: mend faults, move toward the good, build the merit of virtue.

There is no need to advertise who matters most; when each person quietly lives out the Dao in their own place, that itself is one with Heaven’s mandate.

Otherwise you merely hold a post while doing nothing — taking the keep without earning it — and how then will you render your account and face the Eternal Mother?

When the six senses are purified, whatever you see or hear leaves you unobstructed and at ease — this is the openness the Analects (論語) calls “the ear attuned” (耳順).

The Dao has always been meant for practical use: when the three actions of body, speech, and mind are kept pure, you hold fast to the original heart of the sacred covenant (合同).

Now that the bond is formed and you stand at the altar having taken up the charge of transmission, the call is to move forward together.

What is cultivated in the open is gained in the open — grasp this for yourself; whether your resolve holds from beginning to end will become perfectly plain.

To “act for Heaven in transforming others” (代天行化) is no honorary title but a responsibility that must be understood with complete clarity.

Do not despair of yourself or throw yourself away, and still less make light of Heaven’s mandate — to do so invites trouble without end.

To chase standing and empty fame before others only brings grief later on; whoever leads the many must in the end face the one barrier that lies beyond birth and death.

The hope is that all of you return from your acquired nature to your original nature, thought after thought an unbroken brightness — 緝熙, the ceaseless radiance named in the Book of Songs (詩經) — for that is joy that truly lasts.

The Pole Star image is from the Analects (2.1): one who governs by virtue is like the North Star, which stays in its place while the other stars turn toward it. Leadership here is not pushing or manipulating but becoming so settled that the community orients itself around that stability.

The two words “propriety” (禮) and “principle” (理) — have you genuinely carried them out? Lead by your own example, and do not muddle through in a fog.

How does one earn heartfelt respect? By meeting every matter with dignity; and when others are in anguish, by reaching in to lift them out of the pit of suffering.

When trouble comes again, still turn and seek the answer in yourself — for the sages before and the sages after, as the Mencius (孟子) says, measure by one and the same standard.

Take your place at the center and receive everyone with a heart that keeps the proper order of elder and younger, treating each as your own brother or sister.

Whether a person is quick-witted or slow to respond, bring them all across together to the far shore, and see every one of them safely aground.

開荒 — “opening the frontier” — recalls the original pioneering work through which the Dao first reached this soil, and the decades of hardship that followed it.

It was through Wen-Liang’s coming to America that the way opened, and the Wen-Hui family stood at the very front of that pioneering work.

A reflection on impermanence: time rushes past, decades vanish in a glance, and even a century is over in a flash.

Since life is short, live it fully; simply to be able to serve within the temple is itself a blessing.

A life given to the Dao is built 一點一滴, drop by drop — small, steady offerings accumulating into something deep and substantial; this too is Heaven’s grace reaching those with the affinity to receive it.

It took untold twists and hardships along the road to arrive at this day of hearts brimming with joy.

To take joy in the Dao without regret or resentment, and to keep forming good bonds with others, is the most precious thing of all.

One specific caution: do not mock or belittle others. It is the particular temptation that drives people away — they grow weary and quietly distance themselves.

Work together in harmony and offer your heartfelt effort; the line tells us that the enlightened ones, for the sake of all beings, have spent themselves in endless, painstaking care.

The human heart is hard to change and beings in their pain are hard to save; the work still rests on two disciplines — forbearance, and patience with what wearies you.

老安少懷眾享安 distills Confucian social ethics into a handful of characters — the elderly at peace, the young cared for, everyone at rest — the aspiration no single person can accomplish alone.

眾志成城 — “united will builds the wall”: one person’s strength is limited, and only shared resolve raises the wall. The idiom recurs through this teaching as its structural refrain.

There is gladness that this family could gather the many and draw their bond home to Tong De Temple.

Let everyone be reunited, the altar fire lit once more, and the song of the Dao raised again.

At parting there is no other instruction, only this: take good care of body and heart, and press well onward.

A word of affirmation to Han-Zhong: you can let go, and you can carry your original vow through to the very end.

Whatever people ask of you, in all its forms, you shoulder it and give it the full measure of your strength.

中流砥柱 — the pillar-rock that holds firm in the middle of a rushing current. To be such a pillar is not glamorous; it is to bear the pressure without a single word of complaint.

An-Kai, too, is here at the altar, learning from those who came before and giving of himself in service.

乾道 — the male path — has always had fewer practitioners; what is asked is to hold things up quietly and to act, as the Book of Changes (易經) puts it, with the tireless strength of one who never ceases to strengthen himself (自強不息).

Wherever there is help to give or work to be done, meet it with a smiling face, glad to take it up.

Widen the capacity of your heart and the Dao opens without limit; the road ahead then holds real promise.

Today at the altar high hopes are laid on these young ones, that together they will take up and carry the Dao.

Learn in a way that holds both the sacred and the ordinary together, just as the sages and worthies of old did.

The Udumbara (優曇) of Buddhist legend blooms once in three thousand years. Each lifetime is a flower of that rarity — unrepeatable — and the question is what you will do with the one bloom you are given.

The Dao is handed down 一代接一代, generation to generation; as the elder sages who came before grow ever more distant, the transmission now falls to those present.

頂坤乾 — to “hold up earth and heaven” — is the weight taken up when one receives the baton: the willing vow to carry the work forward.

Learn the forms of ritual and you can help save the many — whether your service is at the front of the altar or behind it.

Fall in with the running of the temple, even where the numbers are few.

心甘情願 — willingness that is glad and wholehearted — is itself the great vow. Even where the members are few, that inner readiness is what counts.

Turn the gaze inward: can you take one step further, so that the true Dao shows itself more fully through you?

To have a Dao to carry out is a genuine honor; to unite the many and return together to the original nature is the mission entrusted to this generation.

To Bill in his illness: you set your heart on the Dao, and more than that you “received it anew” — you found this Dao-heart again after it had once been lost.

赤子心 — the child-like heart — is the ideal of innocence and simplicity untouched by worldly calculation. It is precisely this quality the trials of human affairs threaten, and precisely this quality worth keeping through them.

This whole-hearted sincerity toward Heaven is fully known to Heaven; you have become a living embodiment of the Dao, and everyone rejoices to have such a companion on the way.

Heaven will never fail you; and the wish is that your whole family cultivate as one, for there lies the truest joy.

Out of pure filial devotion you shouldered the work of cultivation from beginning to end (here “first and last” means bearing it through start to finish, not a sequence in time); and along the way of the heart and of practice, Heaven’s protection has walked beside you.

This is Heaven’s seal upon a whole life: at peace you cultivated and served through your years in this world, standing firm and walking the Dao to completion. The lotus seat spoken of is one Heaven brought into bloom for you long ago — not a height you must now strain to reach, but a place that has been waiting for you all along.

To hold the Dao and cultivate it together is a fine thing indeed; wherever you happen to be, the Dao can speak through you, and any place becomes an altar.

So long as you remain within the Dao, you can pass through calamity untouched; right and wrong, good and evil drift off of their own accord like flowing water, and need not weigh on your heart.

A heart that genuinely acts and is genuinely free of doubt can, the moment it speaks, loosen the knots of confusion in others.

Guide the many toward the Dao and shelter them well, in the hope of rising together to higher ground.

The affairs of the world are often not what you once knew them to be; a single careless step and you go astray.

君子三畏 — the noble person’s three reverences (Analects 16.8): reverence for Heaven’s decree, for great persons, and for the words of the sages. This interior posture is what preserves 太和, the supreme harmony named in the Book of Changes (易傳) that the Dao seeks to maintain.

The bodhisattva’s skillful means (方便) are beyond conceiving — yet it is the Tathāgata’s profound purpose (奧旨) that is the true merit: the deep intent beneath the skillful method, not the method admired for its own sake.

Though there is more to say, the strength of the human vessel (人兒) — the 三才 medium through whom these words are channeled — has its limits, and so the teaching pauses here, to be taken up again in the next round.

An encouragement to the younger generation: step into the ranks of those who cultivate and serve, and there put the true meaning to the proof.

First fix the foundation: the Dao is true, its principle is true, Heaven’s mandate is true — and this truth must show itself in people, taking shape as real deeds.

People differ in 根器 — spiritual capacity — as widely as sky from abyss; some change easily, others resist. Recognizing this difference is where patient guidance begins.

Some change at a single word; others are slower to respond and not yet whole in their understanding.

包容性 — tolerance and inclusion — is among the most practical of all the charges here: without patience for the slow, the blunt, and the not-yet-ready, no community can grow.

Ideals are meant to be made real, whether in sacred matters or in the everyday.

Every person carries within a share of Heaven’s bright mandate (天明命); it is only that it does not surface in everyone alike.

先覺覺後覺 is from the Mencius (5A.7): those who awaken first are bound to awaken those who have not — not because it is easy, but because that is the work Heaven has given them.

In leading people toward the good and drawing them onward, the aim is that they become willing in their hearts — glad, even, to come.

Only then is the merit whole; where instead there is mutual pique and stubborn insistence, it is spoiled.

Refine your inner fire in the composure of holding to the mean (從容中道); only a noble person who has learned to rise and reach through is fit to speak this way.

To take gladly to the work Heaven arranges is to spread the wings of an angel.

What rests on your shoulders is far more than yourself alone; ten thousand beings are waiting to be led home.

Press on with diligence and dig into the meaning of the Dao, and words will come “finished as they leave the mouth” (出口成章) — every sentence able to help make another whole.

Tian-Di, Hua-Fang, and Xun-Zheng — a rare bond indeed, held together in shared purity and reverence.

Here is the heart of it: one who cultivates the Dao is a temple in their own person, in whatever land they set foot.

Like an orchid in a secluded valley with no one to admire it, virtue’s fragrance is undiminished by the absence of an audience. Worth does not depend on being seen.

Blame neither Heaven nor Earth; take hold of every single chance to cultivate and to serve.

道在自身非外覓 — the Dao is within you; do not seek it outside. External pilgrimage, performance, and recognition are not the source; the source is interior.

Once you are an insider who has seen the real Dao, you are no longer like the outsider who comes only for the spectacle and the surface show.

Some genuinely understand the way in; others have merely come along for the excitement.

One who truly cultivates the highest Dao should understand this: when what is right stands before you, do not step aside — “in the face of what is right, yield to no one” (當仁不讓), as the Analects (論語) teaches.

If your heart is truly set on shouldering the responsibility, how could those before you ever leave you out?

Since you have come from so far, there must be a word of expectation to send you off with.

Every heart is different; only one who truly cultivates the Dao will draw out and offer a sincere one.

Holding to the Dao and living it out is not a performance for others; the clearer your honest self-knowledge (自知之明), the more the real benefit shows.

More than this, carry the true ideal into solid, concrete practice.

First a reflection on impermanence: circumstances turn over and over, their highs and lows arriving in an instant.

Only then do you feel how far from easy life is, and how rare it is to guard even a few childlike hearts through it.

This names the family’s Heaven-given calling: we are the ones entrusted with a mission — angels sent to guide and save all living beings.

Do not let private wishes cloud your original heart and so let Heaven’s appointed moment slip past.

If you feel your strength is not enough, ask whether it is the cultivation itself — the Dao-heart — that has been distracted and drawn off elsewhere.

Let the heart wander outward and it is like a flock scattering as you try to herd it — how can you keep them then? So, with patient and tender words, go once more to lead them across.

Start over and you are a hero again; every age, as the saying goes, brings forth its own gifted people (江山代有人才出).

Welcome the new and reform the old, and carry it through from beginning to end — trust that in time a grand design will unfold.

The whole address to this elder, Rong-Hua, is steeped in respect.

Age and a stooped frame are no excuse: the body may bend, but the will and aspiration need be no less than in one’s prime.

To have had the fortune of meeting a true teacher, and to be carried on the Vessel of Compassion back to your original nature, is a blessing beyond measure.

Do not be so retiring that you withhold your words of encouragement; step forward with energy and vigor, and proclaim on Heaven’s behalf.

南極夀星 — the Star of Longevity — stands so high it has never needed to be reborn into the post-heaven world, yet still takes up a walking staff and descends to the altar to speak from the heart. If a being of that stature makes the effort, what excuse remains?

And still it takes up the staff and comes down to the altar, spending every patient, loving word to guide others across.

You too can learn to act in this way, so that together we may usher in years of peace on earth.

The urgency here: if one does not guide others in this very life, then when will one be saved? The double sense of 渡 is deliberate — those who ferry others across are themselves ferried in the act of ferrying.

Nor are those forgotten who quietly arrange and manage everything, bearing every kind of hardship without a trace of weariness.

We cultivate the great Dao; the charge is to learn from the sages and worthies and make something real of it.

In this sacred work of guiding beings home to Heaven, how could you fail to sense the painstaking heart of the Teacher behind it?

Since we stand as disciples, and the Teacher carries the vow to save all beings, that vow is ours to take upon our shoulders.

Repay this grace until your last breath, and never treat it as a plaything or hold it lightly.

慧炬 — the torch of wisdom — is raised to illuminate the shadowy, unlit realm; the light is meant to be carried out into the dark, not kept to oneself.

切莫大道曲小見 — the great Dao must not be bent to fit narrow views. What is vast is diminished the moment it is cramped to the measure of a small opinion.

When a person can receive the Dao and transform others on Heaven’s behalf, is this not exactly what all the Buddhas look upon with gladness?

This bears witness to how precious the mandate granted by Heaven is; and so, calm and unhurried, let your very life demonstrate the Dao.

In daily life keep a reverent heart and be quick and diligent in your tasks — “diligent in affairs” (敏於事), as the Analects (論語) has it — for it does not befit the Dao to fall into idle joking and chatter.

溫良恭儉讓 — gentle, good, respectful, frugal, deferential — is the Confucian formula (Analects 1.10) for the person through whom the path opens wide.

When a doubt stirs in your heart, go and ask it while true worthies are still here before you.

In quiet hours press diligently into the study of the Dao’s meaning, whether you are long in the Dao or newly come.

The vision is a culture of learning (好學) so thoroughgoing that every word that comes forth is scripture — not utopian fantasy but the natural fruit of sustained, serious practice.

How it all turns out is left for each of you to see — with the hope that the generations to come will bring forth true worthies of their own.

There is no need to say much more: whoever can truly put it into practice is a true worthy.

The devotees who flew across a thousand, ten thousand miles from Taiwan — such sincerity and reverence deserves to be honored.

有心能夠感天人 — a sincere heart can move both Heaven and humanity; without sincerity, even the longest journey only wanders in vain.

Xiu-Mei broke new ground with a dedicated heart; Bao-Chen, too, did much to help it come about.

To help another person become whole (成全人) takes cooperation on many sides; how could it ever be done simply by one person’s strength alone?

You-Shan opens yet another gathering point, and Chen-Yi and Lin-Xing put their shoulders to the work as well.

收圓 — the great “ingathering” — identifies this gathering as part of Maitreya’s (彌勒) final work in the White Era. The stakes turn suddenly cosmic: not merely local temple activity but participation in the closing act of Heaven’s plan.

The work of universal deliverance calls for a wide and generous heart; you cannot weigh every small thing and box yourself in.

Some came to the Dao earlier and some later, but how you cultivate and serve rests on you alone.

To hold it fast in your breast and never let it slip — 拳拳服膺, in the words of the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) — is to walk in all directions and be gladly received wherever you go.

Do not fix your eyes on how smoothly things run just now; stay careful and reverent, and turn the principle over closely in your mind.

Cultivation is not undertaken to chase after blessings: the merit is yours to build, and the faults are yours to erase.

The threefold daily self-examination (三省) and the four “do-nots” — not to look, listen, speak, or move against propriety (四勿) — were all modeled by the sages before us; and beyond them, draw near to others and help make them whole.

Having received the decree and come to take part, one day you must render your account and stand before the gracious countenance of the Eternal Mother.

When that day comes, with what quality of heart will you counsel the many? With what attainment will you take your seat on that fragrant lotus?

One of true virtue nurtures it within, and it shows of itself without; the vow is to follow all the sages in saving both people and Heaven.

She has the heart to go home and guide others, yet fears her own strength is not yet enough to open the way.

Earnestly seek the elders’ help — while first driving your own sincere heart down into firm ground.

Before guiding others, put your own household in order — and that itself calls for painstaking care to perceive what lies beneath the surface.

To help others, understand what people truly need, and — as the dharma phrase “ceaselessly according with all beings” (恆順眾生) has it — meet them where they are and guide from there.

Even when it is the tempering fire of adversity, keep the whole heart set on rising through it.

Deal with others prizing harmony (和為貴) and ready to yield — like a peach tree planted and tended, which after a few years bears its fruit in its own time.

Genuine sincerity will in the end move both people and Heaven; the hope is that one day everyone will fall into step.

The core here is the virtue of standing at the center: “open your heart wide enough to hold all directions,” prizing an unbiased, centered poise as the model for others to follow.

When you can govern your own heart and give way with courtesy, your work will not dissolve into muddle.

A pointed question: is there among you a pillar strong enough to hold up the sky, one who in the days ahead can carry the responsibility?

One who will not flinch from hardship, and who, when good arises, lends help so that all may hold one another up through the Dao.

Act with care and a sense of what is right, never chasing surface excitement at the cost of your own dignity.

The crucial line: every Buddha-child brought before you is one to be received without abandoning, without giving up — that alone is what is fitting.

Cherish the people and the matters right in front of you, rather than pouring your effort into outward display.

Ying-Ren is charged to help Demond become whole — to draw his heart genuinely into the open.

Su-Ping and her daughter are noted as heeding too; with so few hands, the labor is bound to be hard.

Yet you can hold things up, unafraid of the weariness, letting wind and rain beat straight into your face.

Through every kind of experience, you can still guard the Dao-heart and never let it retreat.

In whatever situation you find yourself, a person like this wins the praise of both Heaven and humanity.

A pointed, practical caution — unusual for a holy teaching: be careful and measured in speech, lest careless words invite trials, or even trouble with the law.

A Heaven-reaching aspiration must be planted here in the human world; and who could do better than to repay this grace by practicing all the more vigorously?

These few words are offered to you; may you not disdain such small counsel.

眾志成城 — united will builds the city wall. Asked whether the temple can expand, the answer is not a strategic plan but a principle, because it is the principle that endures.

Break through the hard barriers of people and circumstance, so that others gain confidence, make their vows together, and sail this Vessel of Compassion as one.

A principle laid bare: blessing is something you seek out yourself, not a free gift handed down by Heaven (福自己求非天賜); plant good causes and form good bonds, and good fruit will come of itself.

Let nothing leak away into disorder; hold to your first intention and, keeping steadily at it, arrive.

May these good vows all come to fruition — as dripping water bores through stone, as grains of sand rise into a pagoda.

Drawing on the image of raising a building: you need mortar well blended (三合土) and strong structural pillars to hold up a great edifice.

Do not be flippant or slack; idle neglect and reckless, self-willed action make arrival all but impossible.

Weld the many wills into a single block, know clearly what you are working toward, and only then can something great be brought about.

When your heart-nature and its capacity flow freely and unobstructed, no trial holds any fear.

The temple’s whole purpose is to guide people through the Dao; ask how many truly make the Dao their home.

Willing to bind great responsibility to your own life, and unafraid of any hardship or toil.

Offer your service well, with sincerity and reverence; Heaven will not fail you, and of itself will bring the lotus into bloom for you.

A question asked with great weight: with what will you guide the many home?

If you cannot set this down or release that, the heart forever tugged at, then you have not truly let go.

The pivot of the entire teaching: worldly feeling is unreal and human affairs shift without end; the sacred heart alone is the true road that rises and reaches through (聖心才是真上達).

借假修真 — use the false to cultivate the true. The phenomenal world and its difficult relationships are not obstacles to the Dao but the very material through which the Dao is cultivated.

We took up the mission to transform others in Heaven’s place — so do not lose yourself in the low hollows of the sea of suffering.

What “being of one kind” (同) means is sharing this single insight of the Dao-heart; and what is genuine has, by its nature, nothing to fear.

The one thing to fear is 虛飭面 — the empty adorning of surfaces: performing every outward form of the Dao with no inner substance, and crying “failure, failure” without ever seeing one’s own part in it.

禮者卑己而尊人 — propriety means humbling yourself and honoring others. Ritual is not ceremony but an inner orientation toward others; without that orientation, the forms are hollow.

Do not let down the earnest counsel of the elders here; hold yourself in respect and care, and your virtue will show of itself.

An encouragement to carry yourself with great grace (行大雅): since speech is the voice of the heart, let your conduct too be free, upright, and unencumbered.

Learn from the Teacher, who walked through all the world guiding and saving the lost children bound to the Dao by karmic affinity.

Because the time is limited, the words cannot go on; so each of you take care, and set out afresh.

The teaching’s simplest and final request: learn from this example — heard the Dao, never let it go, and fulfilled the mission. The vow taken long ago is now the model held before you, and the same vow awaits your choice.