CHAPTER IV: TRANSMISSION OF THE PRECIOUS DHARMA
A. DHARMA PRACTICE IN CONFORMITY WITH THE SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF THE BUDDHAS
5. Promulgation of the Bodhisattva Proclamation
Embedded Files
LORD MAITREYA AND LONG HOA
CHAPTER I: Bodhisattva Maitreya's Past Incarnations
CHAPTER II: Where Did I Come From?
CHAPTER III: Appearance as A Layman
CHAPTER IV: Transmission of The Precious Dharma
A. DHARMA PRACTICE IN CONFORMITY WITH THE SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF THE BUDDHAS
B. VIRTUE: Joyful Detachment Is Virtue
C. DOCTRINE
CHAPTER V: A Nation of Peace and Delight
Those who spend all their life seeking the truth will seek the truth all their life. Those collecting the truth will collect the truth all their life. If they seek the truth by thinking but do not recognize it yet, they will spend all their life thinking without recognition of it. It is only with faith in the Good-Intelligent-Awakened One that a Tao practitioner can attain the knowledge. —T. V.
–Teacherless Sutra
A. DHARMA PRACTICE IN CONFORMITY WITH THE SUPREME PRINCIPLE OF THE BUDDHAS
3. Attestation and Promulgation: Trust-Obedience-Respect
4. The Dharma of Holding Sutra
5. Promulgation of the Bodhisattva Proclamation
6. Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha-Chief’s Teaching the Day before Entering the Eight Masses of Nirvana
8. Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha Chief, Incarnating Lord Supreme Maitreya Buddha, Wept for Monks and Nuns
9. The Practical Dharma Subject Following the Footprints of the Buddhas
THE SANGHA CHIEF NHẤT TÔN
DHARMA CONSTITUTION VIETNAMESE BUDDHISM
Superior Association, January 25, 1977
The 7th Day of the 12th Month of the Lunar Year of the Dragon
THE DISCLOSED ORDER
PROCLAMATION
Promulgated to the Bodhisattva and Mahasattva Bodhisattva
On the 7th day of the 12th month of the Lunar Year of the Dragon, at 9:30 a.m.
In the presence of the Great Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva Bodhisattva, the Dragon-Deity Dharma Protectors, the Bodhisattva Dharma-Protectors, and the Mountain Deities, Land Deities, Supreme Rank True Deities, and Asura Deities, all are summoned.
Reverend Sangha Chief Tịnh Vương Nhất Tôn promulgates the proclamation to the Bodhisattva rank, who will transmit the sealed doctrine to the Devas, Dragon-Deity Dharma Protectors, Bodhisattva Dharma Protectors, Mountain Deities, Land Deities, Supreme Rank True Deities, and Asura Deities. Reverend Tịnh Vương declares the doctrine as follows:
You should know the vow to salvage countless living beings, the vow to serve in the boundless Tathagata, and the vow to accomplish the Supreme Rank True Enlightenment.
From the Bodhisattva rank, you must execute the Mahasattva, aiming at relying on non-ego to fully perform the true-ego great-enlightenment. That is the only path for Bodhisattvas to fulfill and attain in their Dharma practice. When the great enlightenment has been attained, the great ego is followed immediately, attaining the authentic-ego true enlightenment and being called the “Supreme Rank True Enlightenment”: This is the One who must successfully execute all manifestations sufficiently everywhere, without omission, to completely salvage all living beings, including those with and without forms — accomplishing the completion of the Great Nirvana. In place of manifestation (opening Dharmas through His seeing),[60] this One has completely salvaged uncountable forms through His uncountable appearances, but He does not possess any form Himself.
You should not, because of the manifestation of the Truly Enlightened One in a certain form or the miraculous use of the Great Enlightened One, be tardy in present action and correspondence with the Tathagata Constitution. How, being tardy, could you change past Dharmas to completely salvage living beings and fulfill the vow to serve in the boundless Tathagata? In the current Period of Return and Dharma-Ending, if you want to be completely enlightened, you should protect the True Dharma fully in all forms; when the Truly Enlightened One promulgates, you must execute [the complete salvation] in correspondence with Him (to have the same transformation as Him) for accomplishment.
These words are difficult to hear, understand, and know. It’s only through the Great Bodhisattva and the Bodhisattva implementing the Mahasattva, teaching the doctrine to the Devas, Dragon-Deity Dharma Protectors, Bodhisattva Dharma Protectors, Mountain Deities, Land Deities, Supreme Rank True Deities, and Asura Deities, that strata of them can understand these words thoroughly.
The proclamation is now promulgated.
REVEREND SANGHA CHIEF TỊNH VƯƠNG NHẤT TÔN
SEALED TRANSMITTING
[60] For instance, upon seeing a disciple, the Lord opens Dharmas to save this disciple, making them readily know and see the Buddha.
I have been practicing the Dharma Constitution Buddhism for one year. On the 30th day of the ninth month of the lunar year in 1970, at the annual Great Ceremony of attestation, I was attested by Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha Chief Maitreya Supreme Buddha, who handed me the certificate of the Venerable.
After twenty years of continuous practice of Tao Dharma, I have trained and acted through millions of hardships and sufferings and plenty of challenges; as well as through many times when the Lord miraculously utilized formlessness to test one’s virtue and intelligence with many obstacles and dangers, but I still endured and controlled all the outbursts—Dharma metamorphoses—of devilish karma. The Lord’s three thousand true disciples refused to come to practice Tao Dharma at the Central Association, but continued their practice as He showed at home. There were no more than seven true disciples remaining in Nha Trang, including myself.
One day the Lord told me to make a repentance report:
You thought you offered me your wife? You have to write down that you abandoned your wife and children, and were unable to make ends meet. Therefore, I have to resolve your family’s problems.
From 1975 onward, every family was inverted and life was very hard. For my part, I was imprisoned in re-education camps and unable to take care of my family, bringing suffering to the Lord. I knew that completely salvaging living being natures means happily undergoing whatever things coming to us without refusal, because not agreeably following what the Truly Enlightened One showed would lead to tardiness. I wrote the repentance report in trust-obedience-respect toward the Lord and submitted it to Him.
At 6:30 a.m., on July 23, 1989 (the 21st day of the sixth month of the lunar year of the snake), in the Central Superior Association and in front of the main Buddha altar, the fragrance of agarwood incense filled the room. Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha Chief was sitting solemnly and calmly. In front of the Lord were me, Venerable Pháp Bang, true disciple Tạng Thân, and true disciple Diệu Hạnh, all sitting semi-circular as usual. The Lord handed me the Proclammation of Bodhisattva, Mahasattva Bodhisattva, and said these words:
Pháp Khả, I now grant you this “Proclamation of Bodhisattva.” You are the only one who receives this proclamation bearing my seal and signature. No one else has this original. I do give a number of other disciples the same proclamation, but without my seal and signature.
After that, the Lord turned to Venerable Pháp Bang and said these words:
Pháp Bang, you have to practice in two or three more lives before you can be at the same level as current Pháp Khả. As for Tạng Thân, later you will use education to teach others.
As soon as the Lord finished these words, I got up, and the three others also solemnly got up. I kowtowed seven times before the Lord to show my gratitude for His granting the Proclamation to me. From now on I was a Bodhisattva, implementing Mahasattva in the universe, succeeding the path of the Buddhas of Ten Directions and Three Generations.
When the Lord had just entered the Eight Masses of Nirvana, Mrs. Tạng Trình, with the position of His wife, did not allow me to organize the Great Ceremony, and Pháp Bang secretly asked the videographer to cut all my pictures out of the video of the Lord’s Great Burial Ceremony.[61] Right after that, Pháp Bang was in a vehicle accident; he could only sit still in one spot, and he had to leave during the Great Ceremony.
As for true disciple Diệu Hạnh, the Lord taught her nothing. To the Buddha, “two or three more lives” means two or three more generations of Buddhas. In reality, a Tao practitioner remaining in the depth of the belts of Dharma precepts remains in continuous ignorance for countless lives. It’s very difficult to get over erroneous passions by oneself to be clearly and fully aware of ignorance. When the foundation of great cause is deeply set, one could meet the Buddha of True Rank True Enlightenment or a Bodhisattva who will guide one to abolishing ignorance; how much can be abolished depends on oneself. This counts for one life. When one is aware, comprehension follows, and one immediately knows how to practice Tao Dharma by following the Bodhisattva path without getting lost. Therefore, in this Return Period, the Lord has corrected the way of Dharma practice so that it must precisely follow the supreme principle and the attesting promulgation of trust, obedience, and respect. This is the path of the Patriarchs and Bodhisattvas leading to the Buddha. Those who decry and practice Tao Dharma on their own volition will not reach the achievement.
As for Mr. Tạng Thân, using education to teach others means that his knowledge is gained through learning and studying the Buddha’s sutra. He will teach others through thinking and reasoning, lacking intuition.
[61] The Great Burial Ceremony is called Đại Lễ Trà Tỳ in Vietnamese.
The next morning, I came to receive the Dharma, as usual every time I went from Saigon to Nha Trang. The Lord ordained as follows:
In the future, you will return to the human world to teach the Patriarchs and walk through the fire to seek for the Miraculous Bodhi Fruit. You must know, in this return to the human world—the last rebirth to become a Buddha, during the Tao-executing path, I have enough time to train only one Bodhisattva to implement the Mahasattva. For My disciples, who are later “hungry for Tao Dharma” and will go seeking for it, only then you can teach them efficiently. —T. V.
It was the same in the time of The Founding Master Shakyamuni Buddha. When the Lord had entered the Eight Masses of Nirvana, all the Venerables were so proud that they did not come to Venerable Maha Kasyapa. Only Venerable Ananda, arranged by the Lord as the second Patriarch, was close to Venerable Kasyapa.
It is the same in the present time: Since they conceive that they and I are all true disciples of the Lord, it’s not easy for them to have intuition to clear up all ignorance and error. In reality, when Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha Chief, incarnating Lord Supreme Maitreya Buddha, promulgates the Proclaimation of Bodhisattva implementing Mahasattva for a Tao practitioner, this Practitioner is integrated into the universe’s constitution and communicates unthinkably with the Buddha’s power. This Practitioner—the Bodhisattva— has sufficient strength, as well as sufficient effortful and virtuous merits to teach to the Four Species, including to humans, Devas, Fairies, Deities, Saints, and Bodhisattva Dharma Protectors (such as the Sravakas, Pratyekas, Arahants, and Solitary Enlightened Buddhas) in the Three Thousand Great Thousand Worlds in conformity with the principle of the Proclamation. Those who act oppositely or decry this Bodhisattva will be tardy, not only in this life but in countless lives to come.
The highest leader of the Dharma Constitution was Reverend Long-Hoa Sangha-Chief, Lord Supreme Maitreya Buddha. Below the leader, the manager was the principal of the Central Dharma Support Committee. The Lord gave me this responsibility. The central, provincial, district and village executive committees elected every two years to contact the government on administrative matters.
In the Lord’s last lunar new year festival, that of the rooster in 1993, on the 12th day of the first month after the annual Great Ceremony opening the Dharma Constitution Originality, the Lord told me,
Mr. Pháp Khả, you are the highest graduate of our Association, and you will have your Dharma name changed. From now on, you will be named Di Như[62].
[62] “Di” is the surname of Lord Maitreya (called “Di Lạc” in Vietnamese); “Như” means suchness.
I kowtowed three times before the Lord to receive His granting. Previously, the Lord taught in the presence of many other true disciples that He would change their Dharma names to include the family name “Di.” But for a long time afterwards, no one had their name changed by the Lord. It turned out that the Lord intentionally said that in order to cause neither surprise nor disapproval for the one who did have their Dharma family name changed to “Di,” saying instead that that one changed their name themselves.
On my path seeking True Enlightenment, many of my students, friends, and relatives, who noticed my absolute trust-obedience-respect toward the Lord in seeking Tao Dharma, decried me as stupid or insane and said I’d lost my mind. In the secular world, I have undergone countless hardships, including dying and reviving nine times, but I still firmly keep my will seeking the Miraculous Bodhi Fruit. Remembering one of my former lives, in this lifetime I underwent hardships, about one hundred times more than that of the period when I went from China to India in quest of the Buddha’s sutras. It’s true that he who goes across the bridge will experience that.
The Lord often told many of His disciples, “I have used a mass of gold as large as Pháp Khả’s body to create him. What a marvelous achievement!”
After the Lord had given me the Proclaimation of Bodhisattva, when I went from Saigon to Nha Trang to receive the precious Dharma, the Lord often drove me away, scolding me for betraying Him. Many of the Lord’s disciples who witnessed this felt happy and said that I was being wasted, and there would soon be another to replace me in managing the Tao teaching of the Dharma Constitution.
They waited impatiently, but the Lord chose no one to replace me, and I still managed Tao matters for Him as usual. The Devadatta’s descendants showed their hatred more intensively and expressively. They planned three times to assassinate me, but I got out of danger all three times. In the outside world, the police of the city of Nha Trang forbade the Lord to act on Tao Dharma. The Lord already knew that if He declared His successor, the government on the one hand and His disciples on the other would kill that successor.
One morning, the Lord told me at the Centre, “You have received the Proclaimation bearing my seal and signature. You are the First Patriarch.” I bowed to the Lord and retreated. The Lord said, “In order to save you, I release ten copies resembling ten eels, and nobody knows which ones to catch.”
After a few days of handing down the Proclaimation, the Lord met me and advised, “You must go immediately to Saigon. Otherwise, somebody will assassinate you.” At that time, Ms. Diệu Khiêm was listening too.
Indeed, later on the Lord handed down about ten more Proclaimations of Bodhisattva, but none of them had the seal and signature. Most of the recipients were happy.
Google Sites
Report abuse