Longhu Mountain Zhengyi Morning and Evening Liturgy Explained (VIII): The Secret Incantation of the Opening Scripture Verse
Opening Scripture Verse
Still and silent, reaching trackless void; emptiness stands aloft on the kalpa-cliff. Through the open cavern of Numinous Script—who can fathom this secluded remoteness?
Once one enters the Great Vehicle path, who counts the many years and kalpas? Neither born nor extinguished; desire for birth arises from the lotus.
Surpassing the paths of the three realms, a compassionate mind unties the snares of the world. Perfected of supreme virtue—age after age become a house of immortals.
In the Tang dynasty and earlier it was the secret opening incantation of the Lingbao school, and it required accompanying visualization. As recorded in Volume Fifty-Two of the Numinous Scripts of the Most High Yellow Register Rites: When turning the many Lingbao scriptures, the ritual master should visualize his body seated within clouds of blue, yellow, and white. To the left Azure Dragon, right White Tiger, front Vermilion Bird, rear Dark Warrior. Sun, moon, and five planets illuminate left and right. Scripture-attending immortal officials array the altar. One already has a circular radiance, like the image of the sun. When finished, swallow the liquid three times and click the teeth thrice—then recite this incantation.
The Lingbao school takes the highest immortality Dao as its foundation and considers Buddhism a branch of the teachings of the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning; hence it attempted to incorporate Buddhism into its school as well, and at the same time absorbed a great deal of Brahmanical culture (such as many Sanskrit mantras). This thought is related to the evolution of the "Laozi transformed the Barbarians" theory circulating in the Han dynasty, and also to the early Shangqing school; therefore it did not avoid using some foreign religious terminology. Only in the Northern and Southern Dynasties and later the Yuan, when Buddhists incited the Yuan rulers to burn the Daozang, were Lingbao scriptures largely deleted and altered, so that today it is hard to glimpse their full form.
Still and silent, reaching trackless void; emptiness stands aloft on the kalpa-cliff
Still and silent refers to stillness with nothing still, reaching a state of complete tracklessness—as in the Clear and Still Scripture, "naturally ever serene, stillness with nothing still." Kalpa-cliff refers to the Kalpa-Cliff Terrace, that is, Jade Capital Mountain, also called Xuan Capital Mountain, Jade Mountain, Xiao Terrace, Jade Mountain Upper Capital, or Yuluo Xiao Terrace. Song-dynasty Chen Jingyuan in Four Commentaries on the Wondrous Scripture of the Highest Rank of Immeasurable Deliverance by the Primordial Beginning, citing the Scripture of Naturalness of the True One in the Shao-wei commentary, says: "Jade Mountain is also called Kalpa-Cliff Terrace; measured by ren, it is like that kalpa-number, hence the name kalpa-cliff." In the version of Daoist Min's former commentary, "a-e" was wrongly taken as a single compound word—one should note this here.
Simply put, this line means: stillness with nothing still, concealing the body and withdrawing into storage, facing Jade Capital Mountain in the high sky.
Through the open cavern of Numinous Script—who can fathom this secluded remoteness?
"Open cavern" and "Numinous Mystery" are technical Daoist terms. One explanation of "open cavern" refers to the Open Cavern Palace—as in the Wondrous Scripture of the Most High Dongxuan Lingbao Eight Majesties Summoning Dragons, which has the phrase "in the vast Open Cavern Palace, reciting leaks outbound without shore"; more so, the Most High Three Caves Divine Incantations has the line "my body is stored within the Open Cavern Nine Perfection." "Numinous Mystery" means penetrating the mysterious and subtle, and here stands for the "Dongxuan" among the Three Caves of "Dongshen," "Dongxuan," and "Dongzhen" in the Daoist canon.
Once one enters the Great Vehicle path, who counts the many years and kalpas.
"Great Vehicle" refers to the superior vehicle path. As the Classic of the Root Boundary says: "Using impermanence and suffering to generally treat all illnesses, constantly minding the right Dao to equally cure the myriad illnesses—this is called the mark of maturing sentient beings. Once matured, they are fit to be told of the profound mystery that is both mysterious and forgetting, equality and right Dharma, entering true actuality—this is named the art of Great Vehicle transformation and teaching."
This line means that once one enters cultivation, one no longer knows the years.
Neither born nor extinguished; desire for birth arises from the lotus.
Neither birth nor extinction; and desire's appearance is because of the lotus—the lotus here is a metaphor.
Surpassing the paths of the three realms, a compassionate mind unties the snares of the world.
Although beyond the three realms, one still has a compassionate mind to resolve worldly affairs.
Perfected of supreme virtue—age after age become a house of immortals.
The Perfected one's supreme virtue allows generation after generation to become immortals, because Daoism does not require leaving home. Hence "age after age" here refers to successive generations of descendants. Cultivation of the Dao requires delivering the nine generations above and seven ancestors; the seven ancestors are: father, grandfather, great-grandfather, high ancestor, great-great-grandfather, mysterious, and manifest. The nine generations are: son, grandson, great-grandson, great-great-grandson, to-come, kun, reng, yun, and er.