Excerpt from Chronicles of Tao
Sutra recitation is fine, but one must do good deeds in one's life. It is your life that counts. It is by your life that fate and the gods judge you. You must always strive to live your life for the sake of good. Many people are only good out of fear. others engage in charity only fore the sake of prestige and the identity it affords them. Countless people do 'good' for a variety of reasons, but they all end up being actors playing roles. Don't be attached to the role of a holy man. That makes you no better than the rest. Just do good for true compassion.
Don't try to prove anything. Just act the way you want, and don't be a hypocrite. No one is perfect, not even the immortals and gods. Even the Monkey Kind was naughty. Tung Fengshiu was a thief. The Northern Sea Immortal was once banished from heaven as punishment for misdeeds. What is important is that you have a goal that you strive for. You must try to be good purely as a challenge, an adventure. Then the pursuit if the challenge will become discipline. Just take purity as a goal. If you really want it, you will put all else aside to achieve it.
Then accept this challenge. Take purity as your goal. This will make you extraordinary. An ordinary person lacks willpower, fortitude, and strength. An unusual man is one of supreme determination. Once he puts his mind to it, anything can be done. The sages say a rock can come alive if one worships it with total belief. That is the mind's power. As you wander, turn that power to one goal: purity.
Don't try to be good for the sake of the gods. Be good for your own sake. Then you will also actually be doing good for the sake of the holy, for the gods are within you. The highest divinity exists within all of us. Don't look outside for it. Look within. But look with the gaze unpolluted by dishonesty, greed, lust, and attachment. Remember that everything we do, we do ourselves. The gods don't intervene; one's friends cannot really help. You can be what you want to be. Be extraordinary not for the sake of holiness, but only as a personal goal.
Religion means other people are on your path too: They'll drag you down. You must be your own person, and you must resist following others' ideals. Filling yourself with the thinking of other people limits you. You must realize your own nature by yourself. Self-disciplinary realization is the key. You say you want to be free to be anything, but you can't. You must only be free to be yourself. You must know yourself, bring what is within yourself to fruition.
Life is a game, drama, mere theater. In this epic comedy, the stage is crowded with an amazing number of characters, each with his plots and subplots, each mired in his own petty and pathetic circumstances. How will you make your way through this eternal play?
You must have principle and philosophy. You must have philosophy that truly perceives the reality of life and understands human feeling. Carefully observe everything before you enter any new phase. Consider before you decide. Use your reason, your powers of discrimination. Understand the reason why good and evil exist. Understand how neither is indestructible and how they are even interdependent. Be flexible. Let your philosophy change and evolve. Be aware of how your thoughts progress and take different forms as you age. Think in terms of your whole life, not just the present. Make sure what you do will last a lifetime.
Only one thing counts in life: you must look deeply into the structure of your being.
