星洲道院 • 世界紅卍字會新嘉坡總主會
The Origins and Founding of the Singapore Dao Yuan
and The World Red Swastika Society (Singapore Administration Centre)
Part Seven: The Dao Yuan's Founding Statement of Purpose
道院立世宗旨 - The Dao Yuan's Principles for Its Establishment in the World
The following is the formal statement of purpose (宗旨) of the Dao Yuan, preserved in the institutional records and serving as the doctrinal foundation for all its activities:
The establishment of our Dao Yuan in the world is grounded in faith in the natural Great Dao of The Most Holy One – taking seated cultivation of the self (meditation) and transformation charitable deed in ferrying of others, with inner and outer cultivation as the foundation, as the basic premise of the Dao’s transforming work, as the natural practical vessel for humanity – so that through the supremely impartial way, the people of the world may be awakened; and through the supremely correct principles, the ten thousand methods and hundred traditions may be harmonized.
The Most Holy One has transmitted the secret scriptures to inaugurate the new epoch. The Dao lineage governs the five teachings and presides over the ten thousand things. Drawing the six directions into one cell, He is the Ancestor of cultivation for the ten thousand peoples. When the auspicious cosmic cycle first opened – that was the moment when the foundation of the Dao was first established.
Tracing back to the founding of the Five Teachings: each arose in its own place and its own time, each destined to save people and to save the world – all aligned and moving as one of the Dao:
Buddhism – establishes its teaching through compassion.
Daoism – establishes its teaching through non-action.
Christianity – establishes its teaching through universal love.
Islam – establishes its teaching through truth and purity.
Whether venerated as The Most Holy One, or as the Perfectly Enlightened, or as the Dao Ancestor, or as the Saviour of the World, or as the Holy Sage of the Western Regions – their vast righteousness and their enduring incorruptibility are permanent and unfading. May our Dao’s spirit be magnified and proclaimed throughout the world; may the ten thousand blessings be bright and flourishing; may all people be universally embraced.
This founding purpose statement encodes the entire theological vision of the Dao Yuan: five religions, one source; inner cultivation and outer compassion inseparable; the Dao not as one religion among others but as the universal ground from which all genuine spiritual traditions arise. Every activity of the Singapore Dao Yuan – the seated meditation, the chanting od the Canon, the planchette sessions, the free clinics, the schools, the charitable relief – flows from this single statement of purpose.