Spiritual Forum

The saying that “all practices return to one” is something normally taught within the context of one specific cultivation way. The Daoist school holds that there are thirty-six hundred practices, all of which can lead to the Dao. The Buddhist school holds that it has eighty-four thousand practices by which one can cultivate Buddhahood. If someone tries to combine several different religions and practice them together at the same time, however, that is something altogether different [from what the saying refers to]. How could human beings know divine matters? What they are trying to do is just utter nonsense.

In the old China there was a group known as “Way of Unity” (Yiguandao). The group, which came into being in the late Qing dynasty, promoted the integration of five religions. It was a heretical sect, and from the moment it appeared in the Qing, people sought to vanquish it; the emperors of the Great Qing sought to destroy it. Early in the Republican period, the Nationalist Party (KMT) likewise sought to destroy it, executing its members in droves. When the Communist Party took power in the revolution, it similarly killed the group’s members by the dozen. Why did that happen? Nothing in ordinary human society is in fact by chance. The unfolding of history merely follows along with celestial changes. Thus, whatever happens in human society is not merely the product of someone doing something on the spur of the moment. In other words, it was not ordinary people who wanted to crush it; rather, it was Heaven’s will. Higher beings wanted it destroyed and would not permit its existence. That nonsense about “integrating five religions” was a serious case of undermining the Fa. It was a case of demons acting out among men.

Not even Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning or Buddha Shakyamuni was so bold as to suggest the union or fusion of Buddhist and Daoist. How could that happen! Even within Buddhism itself, it is taught that no two cultivation ways can be mixed together. Those who practice Pure Land can’t practice Zen, for example. The two can’t be mixed. And those who cultivate Zen cannot practice Tiantai or Huayan. You simply cannot blend different ways together when you cultivate. And why is that? It’s because evolving gong is something extremely complex. You have only one body, and it resembles a type of raw material being fed into a machine. Your gong is produced in that machine. Everything has to be meticulously arranged for you—be it the method used to save you, each step that is to be taken, the form in which each type of gong is evolved, etc. But if halfway through your journey you were to be put into a different machine, what would be the outcome? Could you still cultivate? You tell me. You would be a complete mess. You would become a heap of scrap.

Many people have failed to progress in their practice precisely on account of cultivating irresponsibly like that. What Buddha Shakyamuni truly meant by “no second cultivation way” (bu er fa-men), was that there cannot be mixing in cultivation. Later the saying “no second cultivation way” was misunderstood, and taken to mean something else. But mixing practices is strictly forbidden. The Way of Unity taught about the “union of five religions”—something Heaven’s laws forbid. Yet now the group has resurfaced in Taiwan. In the Age of Law’s End no one is going step in, and that is because no one is managing human affairs in this period. Man has turned ever worse, so all [divine beings] have let go of their hold and no longer look after things. Nor do they save people. Those who profess a faith in the Buddha or worship him aren’t interested in rigorous cultivation. Rather, they merely want wealth or to dispel adversity. It is that bad.

People still think that what it [the Way of Unity] teaches makes sense, however. The thoughts in the mind of a cultivator, as well as someone with religious belief, are quite crucial. Some cultivation ways depend completely on faith and don’t include any techniques, so when your mind has other things mixed in, it will foul up what your practice cultivates. It was never meant to include any such physical movements. Besides, demons now pervade the human world, and are bringing about mankind’s ruin. Doesn’t everyone possess good thoughts (shan nian)? That is precisely what demons are out to destroy, causing you to fail at cultivation. 

Master li hong zhi 

zhouan falun volume 2