The Purpose of Tao
Translation Compiled by Shih-ming Hwang (Tsan Huah Temple)
To venerate the Heavens and the Earth.
To worship God and revere the Zhu Tian Shen Sheng.
To be patriotic, loyal, and responsible.
To be of virtuous character and uphold the Rules of Propriety.
To carry out the filial duties to one’s parents.
To honor and respect one’s teachers and elders.
To be faithful to friends.
To live harmoniously with neighbors.
To rid oneself of bad habits and evil, and to pursue good thoughts and deeds.
To expound upon the Five Bonds of Human Relationships and the Eight Cardinal Virtues.
To preach the main principles of the founders of the five world religions.
To obey and respectfully practice the Four Ethical Principles, the Three Mainstays of Social Order, and the Five Constant Virtues.
To cleanse the mind, purify the soul and eliminate unclean thoughts.
To cultivate one’s true-self by utilizing untruths.
To recover one’s original Buddha-nature.
To continually develop one’s innate wisdom and natural abilities until perfection is achieved.
To establish and reach one’s own goals and to help others do so.
To transform the world into a peaceful, honest, and orderly society.
To enlighten the minds of people and enable them to return to a state of benevolence.
By pursuing this path, to bring the world into a state of equality, fraternity, harmony, welfare, and justice – the World of Da-Tong.
* Dao (Tao): means God, Truth, path, way.
God: means Lord of all souls, Tao, and Truth.
Zhu-Tian-Shen-Sheng: means Buddhas, Sages, Imortals, Saints, angels, and deities in cosmos.
To carry out the filial duties to one's parents.
Filial piety – To joyfully love, honor, respect, support, be obedient to one’s parents, and also to let them live worry-free lives.
The Five Bonds of Human Relationships – between sovereign and minister; parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister, and friend and neighbor.
The Eight Cardinal Virtues – filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty/honesty, truthfulness/trustfulness, propriety, righteousness, integrity/purity, and shamefulness.
The Four Ethical Principles – propriety, righteousness, integrity/purity, and shamefulness.
The Three mainstays of Social Order – between sovereign and minister, parent and child, husband and wife.
The Five Constant Virtues – benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and truthfulness/trustfulness.
True-self – The true, the real; Buddha-nature, thus always, eternally so; unchanging or immutable.
Untruths – Unreal, false, fallacious. In I-Kuan Tao, Taoism, and Buddhism, it means nothing is real and permanent; all is temporal, phenomenal, empirical, fallacious, and unreal.
Buddha-nature: Bodhi-nature, true-self, real-self; the absolute as eternal existence.
The World of Da-Tong is similar in concept to a Commonwealth State; i.e., a Perfect World.
