Cultivation of the Evil Way
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        What is the cultivation of the evil way? There are several such forms: There is one kind of people who specialize in cultivating the evil way, for it has been taught through the ages. Why do they teach this? Because they are bent on fame and gain and making fortunes with ordinary people. They are interested in this. Of course such people will not gain cultivation energy because their Xinxing is not high. What will they gain then? Karma. When one's karma accumulates to a certain amount, it will also become a kind of energy. However, such a person is not in possession of an attainment level. He has no comparison with a cultivator, but in comparison with an ordinary person he has the ability to regulate the latter. This is because this matter is also the manifestation of a kind of energy which can play the role of being able to strengthen the supernormal capabilities of the human body when its density becomes great. This is why there have been some people who teach such things throughout the ages. Such a person says: I will increase my cultivation energy by doing wrong and swearing. He does not increase his cultivation energy; in fact, he increases the density of this black substance because doing wrong could gain the black substance --- karma. So he can also enable those bits of petty supernormal capabilities he carries along to be reinforced by such karma, and can also produce bits of petty supernormal capabilities, which cannot do anything significant. Such people hold that committing wrongdoings can also increase cultivation energy, and they have such a conviction.

        Some people talk about the so-called "The Tao grew by one foot but the demon grew by ten." This is but a fallacy among ordinary people. Demons will never be above the Tao. There is a state of affairs that the universe our mankind knows is only a small one among the numerous universes, and we just call it the universe for short. Each time after a long period of time in the remote past, this universe has always experienced a cosmic catastrophe, which was able to destroy everything in it, including the stars and all life in the universe. There is also a law governing the motion of the universe. For our present cycle of the universe, it is not just mankind that has become evil, as many beings have already perceived an occurrence of the situation for the time being, a big explosion has taken place in this cosmic space long before. The reason why astronomers today cannot see this is that what we see when we now use the most powerful telescope to observe it is a scene which occurred 150000 light years ago. If you want to see what changes have taken place in the celestial bodies, you will have to wait for 150000 light years. This is indeed a very remote future.

        By now the whole universe has already undergone a great change. Each time such a change took place, all life in the whole universe was annihilated and lay in ruins. Each time such an explosion occurred, those previously existing qualities of the universe as well as the substances inside were totally blown up. Ordinary lives were killed in the explosion. Somehow each time the explosion did not wipe out everything completely. When a new universe was reconstructed by the extremely high dimensional enlightened beings, there in the new universe would be some that had not been killed in the explosion. These great enlightened beings would reconstruct the universe according to their own characteristics and build the universe according to their own criteria. Therefore, their cosmic qualities were quite different from those of the last.

        Those who survived the explosion held on to the previous characteristics and principles and acted upon them in this new universe. But the newly-constructed universe acted in accordance with the new cosmic qualities, the Law. Thus, those who survived the explosion became demons who interfered with the Law of the universe. However, they are not that bad as they simply acted upon the cosmic qualities of the previous cycle. They are what people refer to as the Heavenly Demons. Nevertheless, they do not pose a threat to ordinary people, nor do they harm people at all. They only stick to their own law and act upon it. Ordinary people were not allowed to know this in the past. I say that there are numerous Buddhas whose status is far above that of Tathagata. What does that demon count? In comparison it is very, very tiny. Old age, disease and death are also a kind of demon. Yet they were born to maintain the cosmic qualities.

        Buddhism teaches the logic of the Sixfold Path of Transmigration, which speaks of the issue of the Path of Asura (malevolent spirits). This actually refers to the living beings of a different space, who, however, do not bear human nature. In the eye of a great enlightened one, they are of extremely low levels and devastatingly impotent. However, they are terrifying in the eyes of ordinary people. They have a certain amount of energy. They regard ordinary people as a kind of beast, and therefore enjoy eating human beings. Over the past few years they also have come out to teach qigong. But what sort of things do they belong to? How could they look like human beings? It is frightening to learn what belongs to them because you will have to go with them and become their species. When some people had wrong views in mind, which became identical with theirs while practising qigong, they would come to teach these people. One righteousness will overwhelm a hundred evils. If you do not seek after anything, no one will dare to bother you. If you harbour evil intentions, going after something wrong, they will come to help you, and the problem will arise that you will cultivate yourself in the world of demons.

        Another situation is called the unconscious cultivation of the evil way. What is meant by the unconscious cultivation of the evil way? It refers to a person practising the evil way without realizing it. This is a common occurrence, which is simply beyond number. Just as I told you the other day, there are a good many people who practise qigong with wrong ideas in mind though you can see them standing in a pile stance there with their hands and legs shaking from fatigue. But such a person maintains a busy mind, thinking: The prices are going up and I need to go shopping upon completing my practice, in case of a price rise. Another one may think: my work unit is now allotting houses. Is there a share of the houses for me? Well, the person in charge of housing allocation is all at odds with me. The more he thinks about it, the angrier he becomes. He will not give me any share for sure, and how should I argue with... All thoughts have cropped up this way. Just as I said, they chat about things from their home issues all the way to state affairs, getting angrier and angrier with those unpleasant subjects.

        Practising qigong requires one to value De ( virtues). While practising the exercise, if you are not thinking about anything good, you cannot think about anything bad either; and it is best for you not to think about anything at all. Low-level qigong practice requires laying a foundation, which will play a critical role as human intention has a certain part to play. Think about it. If you add something to our cultivation energy, can what you practise be good? Can it be other than something black? How many people are there who practise qigong without such ideas? Why do you always practise qigong without eradicating your diseases? Though some people may not think about those bad things at the practice ground, they always carry with them a variety of attachments and strong desires for supernormal capabilities, for this or for that, while doing the practice. Actually, they have already practised the evil way unconsciously. If you tell such a person that he is practising the evil way, he would feel very unhappy: I was taught by a certain qigong master. But that qigong master told you to value virtues. Did you listen to him? While practising qigong you always pitch in with some bad intentions. How could you, you tell me, come out with anything good from your cultivation? This is the problem which belongs to practising the evil way unconsciously, and it is very common.