Chapter 4: What Makes the Heavenly Dao Precious

The preciousness of the Heavenly Dao lies in this: first, Dao is not lightly transmitted. Second, when receiving Dao, one must have two sponsors who serve as the Introducer and Guarantor Masters. Furthermore, before the altar one makes grand oaths and great vows, certifying that this is not a heterodox path or side door, not a heretical sect or the White Lotus, and moreover that no one is swindling you of your wealth. The final two lines of the guarantor's vow declare: "Should I introduce anyone whose family background is not clean or whose conduct is not upright, I am willing to receive Heaven's punishment and be struck by the five thunders."

Moreover, when you receive Dao, you first make the Ten Great Vows; otherwise, even holding ten thousand taels of gold in your hands, you still cannot obtain it. Among the Ten Vows, the phrase "repenting with a sincere heart" further proves that before receiving Dao, all people are sinners. After receiving Dao, if one sincerely guards what one has received and repents with a true heart, correcting one's faults, one can become a good and upright person in society. If one can embrace Dao and put it into practice, striving without ceasing, one can further become a Buddha or a patriarch. Since we have already obtained the true Dao, we must press forward. If one can advance day by day and month by month, accumulating merit and virtue, in this life one will surely escape calamity and avoid disaster, and upon leaving this world one can transcend birth and death. One's own nine generations above and seven below will all return together to the Realm of Truth — is this not the preciousness of the Heavenly Dao?