新加坡道院開幕訓文全編
新加坡道院创立宪章
Part II - The Five Institutional Instructions: Detailed Transmission
The founding planchette sessions include detailed institutional instructions organised under five headings, with embedded notes and sub-instructions. A complete rendering of each instruction with its embedded qualifications and the deeper significance of each follows.
2.1. Instruction One - 同門修子，踴躍捐輸
渡人亦溥而宏大道無邊，慈悲化糾種種就不可思議功德矣。同門修子稱有餘美務須踴躍捐輸，勿有各色此積德致福矣。
The ferrying of people is also universal and vast - the boundless Great Dao, compassion transforming and regulating all kinds of affairs; the merit and virtue are inconceivable. Fellow disciples of the same (Stone) Gate who have surplus must leap forward to contribute generously, without hesitation of any kind. This is the accumulation of virtue leading to blessing.
The First Instruction is prefaced by a statement of cosmic scope that places the fundraising instruction within the fullest possible framework: 渡人亦溥而宏大道無邊 – ‘the ferrying of people is also universal and vast; the Great Dao is boundless.’ The act of giving within the community of the same (Stone) Gate (同門) is not an institutional financing exercise but a participation in the Dao’s own universal and boundless nourishment. The phrase 慈悲化糾 – ‘transforming and regulating compassion’ – establishes that financial generosity is itself an act of compassion that participates in the Dao’s work of 化 (transformation) and 糾 (correcting what is awry).
The Most Holy One also delivers the founding day’s assessment: 哈哈今日諸子蜀誠來參氣象雍穆是亦大好之機緣也各子風慈 – ‘Ha-ha! Today all disciples have come sincerely to participate; the atmosphere is dignified and harmonious – this is also a great and good karmic occasion; disciples of every wind of compassion…’ The opening laughter (哈哈) is characteristic of The Most Holy One’s planchette persona – a laughter of genuine joy and beneficent delight at the gathering of sincere cultivators, not irony or dismissal. It establishes the emotional register of the session: celebratory, warm, and deeply earnest.
2.2. Instruction Two - 多行慈業，拯救貧苦
The Second Instruction explicitly names the suffering of overseas Chinese sojourners (僑胞) in their historical specificity: the world fortune of 1936 had brought 否塞 (obstruction) – the euphemistic political language for the accumulated crises of depression, displacement, and impending war. The Most Holy One names their suffering directly:
難疑患難之中，兄異地流離，益堪悲愴，其有僑胞抱痛苦而不伸者，凡善事言之廢盡可。
In the midst of hardship and trial, those of our kind drift displaced in foreign lands - deeply pitiable. Those fellow sojourners who hold their pain without recourse - all such good works, stated in their fullness, must be done without omission.
The instruction also includes a significant qualifying clause often overlooked: 良好機會也 – ‘also a good opportunity.’ The crisis of the overseas Chinese community is not merely a problem requiring relief; it is simultaneously a spiritual opportunity – an occasion for the deepening of the community’s compassion practice. The suffering of others is the mirror in which the cultivator’s capacity for genuine compassion is tested and developed. The relief worker who goes to the displaced sojourner encounters not only another’s suffering but their own hidden reserves of genuine compassion.
2.3. Instruction Three - 破除階級，聯結感情
破除階級以聯結感情。為性我獨尊人非我是，人往往有我之見存于心，便以窮我才人窮我富此就犯了矜蔑。
Abolish class divisions in order to unite in genuine feeling. Whether it is the nature of 'I alone am supreme, others are not-I, others are right,' - people habitually hold the view of I in their hearts, whereby to see oneself as talented and others as poor, oneself as rich and others as impoverished - this is the violation of arrogance and contempt.
The為性我獨尊人非我是 – the full articulation of the ego-view. It is not merely the habit of comparing oneself favourably to others, but the deeper ontological error of treating the self as the absolute reference point – 獨尊 (supreme alone) – from which all others are measured as deficient. This is the Buddhist ātma-dṛṣṭi (我見) stated in its most penetrating form: not merely selfishness but the fundamental misidentification of the constructed social self as the ultimate reality.
2.4. Instruction Four - 偏急四字，保養喉舌 (The Most Detailed Instruction)
The Fourth Instruction is the longest and most detailed of the five, containing four distinct sub-instructions embedded within it:
矜操偏急，四字之病，須知此四字在吾經中先列出以為戒無論，四字全即稍犯其一字已足為修道之魔兇，且行慈之障兇。
Conceit， Prejudice，Hastiness and Impetuosity - the four-character disease. Know that these four characters are listed first in my Canon as Commandments. Regardless: whether all four are violated or merely one slightly, even one is sufficient to be a demon obstructing cultivation of the Dao and a barrier obstructing the practice of compassion.
Sub-Instruction 2.4.1 – The Altar as Sacred Space, Not a Place of Power
場毋視道場為勢利之場，毋視道場為爭辨心之場。
The Dao Sanctuary: do not regard the Dao sanctuary as a place of power and advantage; do not regard the Dao sanctuary as a place of contentious heart.
This sub-instruction reveals a danger The Most Holy One anticipated at the very founding moment: the tendency for the institution to become an arena of social competition and status-seeking – 勢利之場 (a field of power and advantage). The Dao sanctuary must not become a venue for the same social hierarchies and rivalries that the institution exists to transcend. The 爭辨心之場 – ‘place of contentious heart’ – warns against the Dao Yuan becoming a forum for doctrinal argument and theological disputation that divides rather than unifies.
Sub-Instruction 2.4.2 – The Danger of 結黨 (Faction-Formation)
日水火時時冰炭暗中，枳蠻各結黨接訐問相虛處中辦得何。
Day and night, at all times - water and fire, ice and charcoal in the darkness: various factions forming, mutual denunciations and accusations, engaging in empty contests within - what can be accomplished by this?
The Most Holy One names the specific institutional pathology of faction-formation (結黨 – forming cliques) and mutual denunciation (接訐 – exchanging accusations) as the darkness of water-and-fire, ice-and-charcoal – incompatible opposites generating constant friction. The rhetorical question 辦得何 (‘what can be accomplished by this?’) is unanswerable: nothing of worth can grow from a community perpetually divided against itself. This warning becomes even more pointed when we recall that the Most Holy One delivers it at the institution’s founding – before any factions have yet formed. The warning is prophylactic, building into the charter a permanent reminder of the danger most likely to compromise the community’s integrity.
Sub-Instruction 2.4.3 – Speech Regulation and the Planchette Conduit
制問事以保養篆靈。篆才係老人喉舌最關重要者。古不靈因無以為言，喉舌不清更無以成理，此應保養者一。舌不靈固無以為言喉舌不清情更無以成理此應保養者一。
Regulate the questioning of affairs in order to nourish the Spirit-Writing conduit. The conduit is what I consider most crucial - the tongue-and-throat. When the spiritual conduit is not clear, there is no means for words to emerge; when the tongue-and-throat is impure, there is no means for principle to be achieved - this is the first thing to be nurtured.
This sub-instruction reveals the spirit-writing practice itself. The 篆靈 (planchette conduit, also rendered as spirit-writing conduit) is identified with the 喉舌 (tongue-and-throat) of the attending community. This is not merely a physiological claim about the medium’s vocal apparatus but an ontological statement: the quality of the community’s speech – its truthfulness, its clarity, its freedom from the partiality and impetuosity named in the outer instruction – directly determines the clarity of the channel through which The Most Holy One’s instruction flows.
A community characterised by faction-speech, denunciatory speech, or impure speech creates 靈 (spiritual) static that disrupts the planchette conduit at its source. This is why the instruction encompasses both the social pathology of faction and the cultivation of speech: they are the same problem viewed from two aspects. Every member of the Dao Yuan is, in a sense, a co-participant in the spirit-writing; the collective quality of the community’s speech and intention determines what can be received.
Sub-Instruction 2.4.4 – The Creative Intelligence Must Be Clear and Restrained
此不但宜節，抑且要禁。若問非所問是從混濁篆靈卯接混成一片，靈不特要清抑且要達到至情以至清之靈。
This must not only be regulated but must also be prohibited. If the questioning is inappropriate - not what should be asked - it comes from the confused-turbid spirit-writing conduit mixing and blending into one piece. The Creative Intelligence must not merely be clear but must reach the highest clarity of feeling, reaching the Creative Intelligence of supreme clarity.
The distinction between 宜節 (appropriate regulation) and 要禁 (must be prohibited) marks a significant escalation: certain kinds of questioning – inappropriate, self-serving, or spiritually polluting – are not merely to be discouraged but categorically prohibited. The phrase 混成一片 – ‘mixing and blending into one piece’ – describes the state of confusion that results when impure questioning corrupts the conduit: the distinction between human and divine, between the cultivator’s ego-driven desires and The Most Holy One’s genuine instruction, becomes indistinguishable. The result is a planchette transmission that cannot be trusted as authentic celestial communication.
The high positive standard – 至情以至清之靈 (‘the Creative Intelligence of supreme feeling and supreme clarity’) – sets the highest possible bar. The planchette conduit must achieve not merely technical purity of speech but the positive quality of 至情 (supreme feeling or genuine emotion), suggesting that authentic divine communication flows through a channel characterised not by emotionless neutrality but by the highest form of sincere compassionate feeling.
2.5. Instruction Five - 勤坐靜養，澈悟玄機
勤坐靜養以澈悟玄機。凡人端坐無為之魃久則心地晶瑩。自然神與天游，玄機默契，爾時我心如鏡，凡日中所欲行之事即自然而施行，上自無半點塵障。
Diligently practise seated meditation to cultivate stillness and penetrate to the apprehension of the Mysterious. When any person sits upright in non-action for a prolonged period, the mind-ground becomes crystal-clear. Naturally The Creative Intelligence roams with Heaven, the Mysterious is silently apprehended. At that time the mind is like a mirror; whatever one wishes to do in the day naturally flows into its proper execution, and above there is not half a speck of dust-obstruction.
The inner alchemy process engaged by seated meditation is described with precise language: 心地晶瑩 (the mind-ground becomes crystal-clear) → 神與天游 (The Creative Intelligence roams with Heaven) → 玄機默契 (the Mysterious silently apprehended) → 心如鏡 (the mind as a mirror). This four-stage cascade from ordinary sitting through cultivation to the achievement of the mirror-mind is the foundational practice, grounded in the inner alchemy formula 煉精化氣，煉氣化神，還虛 (Refine Essence into Breath, Breath into Creative Intelligence, return to the Void).
This instruction is exceptional: The Most Holy One is directing the publication and dissemination of the very planchette record that is being created. The 星洲道院開幕紀念刊 – the founding publication – is itself the fulfilment of this directive. The physical document, printed by 天倉印務公司 and distributed to all branches of the network, is not merely a record of what was said but is the living act of obedience to the instruction to disseminate. Every reader of this founding charter is therefore receiving what The Most Holy One commanded to be distributed.
The instruction closes with a remarkable practical-logistical note: 此次壇訓對於道於慈於坐以至延年登峰造極于此基之矣，願羣弟子細心領悟勤坐忽。大多閱壇訓以參悟要旨，各事多詳為剖析，將來封沙後編成付梓用宋體大些的字，排印成帙，除分寄各院外凡入修諸方稍服即各各手一巻靜。 – ‘This session’s planchette instruction on the Dao, on Compassion, on Seated Meditation, extending to prolonging life and reaching the summit of perfection – these are its foundations. I wish all disciples to understand carefully and to diligently meditate without neglect. After reading the planchette instructions to participate in awakening, when all affairs have been carefully analysed, after the planchette is subsequently sealed, compile and engrave using large Song-typeface characters, print into volumes, distribute copies to all Dao Yuan branches, and for all who enter cultivation from every direction – each one should have a volume in hand, in stillness.’