Starting Spiritual Practice
If every school claims the right path, how can I judge?
English translation draft · Based on the Chinese article. This is not a word-for-word translation approved by Master Shengyuan.
Examine actual thoughts and behaviour and the condition toward which they lead body, mind and spirit. A person or group’s claim cannot end discernment. Sheng Zhen Men’s ‘Three Purities as discipline’ uses purity of body, mind and spirit to remind us how to act.
Bodily purity includes responsibility for life and health. I have used excessive smoking, drinking and continual late nights as examples. Claiming practice while repeatedly harming oneself needs adjustment. Purity matters beyond recitation and meditation.
Thoughts are similar. Seeing beauty and wishing to violate someone, or wealth and wishing to rob, causes harm if followed. Wanting something cannot make it right. When greed, anger or delusion arise, examine where the thought leads.
Spiritual purity concerns the ease and stability we seek, cared for alongside body and mind. In daily life, reduce harm to self and others and disturbance of thoughts, applying learning in action rather than merely arguing whose title is most orthodox.