Zhen Cang Jing Yao Jue — Spoken by the Celestial Worthy
This is a short, anonymous scripture preserved in the Daoist Canon printed in 1445 (the Zhengtong Daozang). No external record fixes its date, but its heavy absorption of Mahayana Buddhist vocabulary, its explicit invocation of the Chongxuan, or "Twofold Mystery," current of Tang philosophy, and its close imitation of Buddhist sutra form — a Celestial Worthy questioned by named disciples, closing on the stock formula "received in faith and reverently practiced" — all point toward the Tang dynasty (618–907), the great age of this kind of Buddho-Daoist scripture. This translation claims no more precision than that.
Its title marks it as a digest: yaojue, "essential instructions," condensing the teaching of a longer work named once within it, the Scripture of the True Treasury (真藏經). In prose closely modeled on a Buddhist sutra, an unnamed Celestial Worthy answers two questioning disciples — the Youth of Good Sound and the Youth of Wisdom's Power — on a single point: that within the body of every sentient being, unnoticed, lies an unborn, undying nature the text calls the "True Treasury" (真藏, zhencang), and that liberation is found by turning to this, not by any external rite, precept-counting, or bodily sacrifice.
Zang 藏, "treasury," is the same character used in the Buddhist term for the womb or storehouse of buddha-nature hidden in every being (如來藏, tathāgatagarbha); the scripture's central word asks to be heard with that resonance. It teaches by parable more than by argument — fire latent in wood that only a person's labor can strike free, a mother grieving for the disloyal child who never learns of her grief, a traveler who finds a mirror in an abandoned box and flees in terror of his own reflection — set inside long parallel lists in the manner of medieval Buddhist and Daoist scripture. Those lists are broken here into short lines for legibility; the line divisions are the translator's own, not marked as such in the source.
Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, printed in full below the translation. To our knowledge, this is the scripture's first complete published English translation.
Translation
Once there were five poor men who harbored constant pride: they did not believe in the scriptures and their Dharma, and they destroyed the gate of the Three Treasures.
They did not believe that sentient beings possess the nature of the true Way.
They did not believe that sentient beings possess the wondrous Dharma of the scriptures.
They did not believe that sentient beings, being without self, are still and extinguished.
They did not believe that sentient beings are equal within the Mahayana Dharma.
They did not believe that sentient beings are unborn and undying.
They did not believe that sentient beings' minds are like the great sea.
They did not believe that sentient beings are equal to the conduct of the Celestial Worthy.
They did not believe that sentient beings are, altogether, a great assembly of emptiness.
Because of such disbelief they fell into grave sickness. Living, they entered the dark hell; dying, they entered the dark hell; walking, they entered the dark hell; standing, they entered the dark hell; sitting, they entered the dark hell; lying down, they entered the dark hell; eating, they entered the dark hell; breathing, they entered the dark hell.
Let all good men and women, each reflecting for themselves, never give rise to such disbelief. Even one who has not yet penetrated understanding, if able to act with a direct mind and not give rise to slander, gains merit vast and far-reaching. Why is this so? Because the Dharma is without fixed marks, because the Dharma is without fixed nature, because the Dharma is itself liberation.
Know, then, that the direct mind is itself the place of awakening:
not harboring the myriad dharmas, one enters wondrous stillness;
not harboring birth and death, one enters the precious forms;
not harboring grasping and rejecting, one enters wisdom;
not harboring anger and delusion, one enters liberation;
not harboring greed and desire, one enters the treasury of the Dharma;
not harboring right and wrong, one enters the true Way;
not harboring sound and form, one enters the field of blessing;
not harboring the six senses, one enters the undefiled;
not harboring the five aggregates, one enters great wisdom;
not harboring the four elements, one enters spiritual power.
This Dharma is subtle and wondrous. Though one spoke of it to the end of a kalpa, one could not exhaust it. Yet for one whose understanding comes easily and whose awakening comes readily, a bare word — half a word, even — truly verifies the Mahayana and unlocks the supreme Way. If one can receive and uphold it with a believing mind, rightly understand it, forget the spirit, and wash the mind clean of its every stain, the merit gained is vast, far-reaching, and beyond conceiving.
The Celestial Worthy said: Without departing from body and mind, one attains liberation. Whoever attains liberation finds that the place of awakening is itself quiescent extinction; enters the true seal of the Dharma; verifies the causes running through the three times; and accomplishes the supreme fruit.
In all sentient beings, the nature of the mind is liberation, and the marks of the body are liberation. The mind is the spoken teaching; the body is the written word. Seeking through the text and pursuing the words, one comes at last to forget the traces of the teaching. Awakening to these words, one enters the gate of liberation and verifies the supreme Way.
The Youth of Good Sound addressed the Celestial Worthy, saying: May I ask — you say that the mind of sentient beings is the spoken teaching, and their body the written word. But the minds of sentient beings are minds of delusion, and their bodies are nets of darkness. How, then, can sentient beings be made to study their own deluded minds and search within nets of darkness, and still come to accomplish the Way?
Sentient beings, being of deluded mind, no longer know how to study in a way that reaches the Way; and those who do not know how to study do not accomplish it. If they study with a deluded mind, they likewise do not accomplish it. Why is this so? Delusion studying delusion, the nature of delusion never opens forth — how, then, could the Way be accomplished? The deluded minds of sentient beings: delusion does not know how to study, and such study does not accomplish the Way.
It is like fire hidden within wood: the fire does not kindle itself; it must borrow the labor of a person's hand, and only then is the fire obtained. The deluded minds of sentient beings likewise must borrow a guiding teacher before awakening and understanding can be reached. I beg you to explain this.
The Celestial Worthy said: All dharmas are pure, unborn and undying. How is it, then, that some sentient beings attain the Way, and some sentient beings lose the Way? How is it that some, caught in a net of delusion, study and yet accomplish the Way, while others, with a deluded mind and no study at all, likewise attain it? The dharmas are without any nature of their own; in the end there is no self. How, then, do sentient beings so differ, that you raise this difficulty?
When I speak in words — though their nature stands apart from words, and this is so — it is not that liberation lies in that nature itself; it is an expedient means, to guide and draw you in, so that you come to recognize the written word. Their nature stands apart, and this is so; the nature of the Dharma is liberation; it is an expedient means, to guide and draw you in, so that you come to recognize the true sound. For the one who realizes the Dharma-sound, there is no dharma to verify, no dharma to cultivate, no dharma to study, no dharma to attain, no dharma to receive — utterly pure, fused into a wholeness that is no single thing.
The beings of the Two Vehicles, hearing these words, were startled and shaken, thrown into fear, with no ground left to stand on. But in that same moment the assembly that had heard the Dharma-sound suddenly understood, awakened to the essentials of the Mahayana, to equality without a second, took refuge with their whole being, forgot their own forms, bowed their heads, and departed.
All sentient beings are greedily attached to the conditioned; they delight in life and abhor death. Though their intention seeks life, they create the karma of death and do not keep precept and practice. Even should they gain long life, they are no different from an old tree — what real distinction is there?
But one who keeps the precepts is, at death, appointed to celestial office and ascends as an immortal, free and at ease. Even one who holds the rank of emperor or of the Three Dukes, if able to keep precept and practice, will at death ascend as an immortal, free, at ease, and full of joy.
Of all the things under heaven, none endures forever; only the Way and its Power are unborn and undying. All sentient beings are born from the Way and perish into the Way; their karmic conditions, every one, run alike through a single gate.
It is like a mother who bears a child. The child, harboring unfiliality, abandons its mother and casts her away, wandering in all four directions creating transgression, until it is caught and beaten within a net of its own making. The mother thinks of the child always, her innermost heart withering, cut through inch by inch — yet the child never once perceives this, and suffers in its own body a pain hard to bear. Sentient beings, inverted in their thinking and lost from their own root, are exactly the same.
The mysterious teaching of the Mahayana spreads its virtue according to each being's root of capacity, though they remain wholly unaware of it themselves. Even without perceiving it, they are delivered according to their capacity; all sentient beings alike receive its moistening grace, come forth from suffering into joy, and never depart from the True Treasury.
Yet sentient beings, deluded and confused, fasten on false imaginings as though they were real, and within the True Treasury itself never come to awaken. Why is this so? Because the nature of the Dharma is truly real, and it is precisely within that reality that they take up existence — and that existence is a heap of suffering, which is affliction itself.
I behold all things, and they are, every one, a great grace — unborn, undying, without suffering, without affliction; going and coming are equal; going out and coming in are equal.
The giving of the lower capacity — this is itself equality.
The discipline of the middle capacity, practiced without clinging to precept — this is itself equality.
The wisdom of the higher capacity, without wisdom and without self — this is itself equality.
The joy that sentient beings receive: joy received by no receiver — this is itself equality.
The karmic recompense of sentient beings: recompense and karma amounting to no karma — this is itself equality.
All the myriad dharmas are equal, with nothing left to equal them; and because there is nothing left to equal them, this is called the Great Way.
Diligently studying the Mahayana, one skillfully practices three wisdoms:
First, skillfully amassing expedient means, one rightly extinguishes the dust of the outer world.
Second, cutting off every outflow of action, one does not go forth into other realms.
Third, seeking out true reality, one goes directly to the place of awakening.
Having thus verified this, one turns back to the root, and then:
the two views are forever clear;
the three karmas turn freely;
the four elements flow ever unhindered;
the five aggregates open into brightness;
the six senses remain unstained;
the seven consciousnesses stand of themselves;
the eightfold path is without self;
the nine virtues continue, unbroken.
Every worthy of old and sage since has come to accomplish the Way by nothing other than this.
Know, then, that the True Treasury is foremost of all. In every sentient being the nature of the body is pure; the true and natural Way lies hidden within it — this is what is called the True Treasury. Whoever expounds the Scripture of the True Treasury, that person's merit is beyond conceiving: such a one will behold my body, and accomplish the supreme Way. Whoever has a believing mind and lets go of every other thought at once gains the eye of the Way, illuminating the causes running through the three times, seen equally and without obstruction.
Some cast away their bodies and shatter them; some throw their bodies to hungry tigers; some burn their bodies and their very lives in fire; some bind themselves within cause and effect, giving up what they have in search of blessing — yet merit gained in this way is very thin, and the power of the Dharma does not come to completion. Why is this so? Because there is no power of wisdom in it, no true penetration. Verifying only themselves, seeking only for themselves, attaining only a self of their own — they bind themselves by this very act, fall into the obstruction of ignorance, and their bound karma is never removed, karma dragging upon karma. How, then, could they find liberation?
This contemplation is foremost: one begins by observing the mind, and finds that mind and its dharmas do not stay fixed. Because dharmas do not stay fixed, there is no fixed dharma; and because there is no fixed dharma, one comes to see the wisdom of the Way. The one who sees the wisdom of the Way is one's own original body — unborn and undying.
Not to recognize this original body is like a traveler on a road who picks up an abandoned chest, opens it, and finds a mirror inside; seeing his own reflection, he takes it for the chest's owner, and in the fright of his heart bows low in apology, then throws the chest down and walks away. Sentient beings, deluded and confused — casting aside the real to seize the false, abandoning the root to chase the branch-tip — are exactly the same.
The Celestial Worthy said: All sentient beings, in the boundless forms of their bodies, are called "scripture and Dharma," and are also called "a gathering of dharmas." Why is this so? Understanding and delusion each set up their own name; failing to understand the one same substance beneath them, they are called "sentient beings," and also called "birth and death," and also called "a heap of suffering," and also called "inversion," and also called "seeking outward." Why is this so? Because sentient beings do not understand — and it is this very not-understanding that is called delusion.
For this reason they do not recognize their own body; yet within that body of theirs there are boundless dharmas, gathered together complete with the three realms of Purity. Sentient beings, deluded and confused, are thereby driven to seek outward — not believing in the true Dharma, not seeking a good friend — and this is what is meant by "sentient beings." Carrying the Dharma, yet lost and sunk within the world, they pass from kalpa to kalpa and never, in the end, come to understand it.
But if they meet a good friend, this is called a cause planted in a former life, by which their store of blessing is sown. Why is this so? Former cause, present fruit: so it is that one comes to meet the Celestial Worthy, who reveals the secret Twofold Mystery of the supreme True Treasury, so that one fully comprehends the cause of before and verifies the fruit of this present life.
If you would seek this, you must first seek it within yourselves; then the secret vision of the Dharma will open, and the True Treasury will be thrown wide. By means of this Treasury of the Dharma, all dharmas are gathered up as one, down to the very bottom of the boundless.
The Youth of Wisdom's Power said: Though I have heard the sage's teaching, I cannot fully grasp it. I do not know: what is meant by "the Way"? What is meant by "the Dharma"? What is meant by "the teacher"? What is meant by "the gathering"? Because I do not know, I beg you to explain it.
The Celestial Worthy answered, saying: What you ask concerns the self-sought vision of the True Treasury's Dharma. Settle your spirit now and abide in stillness, and I will explain it for you fully.
In every sentient being the nature of the body is pure; the true and natural Way lies hidden within it — this is what is called the True Treasury.
The Celestial Worthy spoke further, saying: Not to believe that the Three Treasures lie within one's own root; not to believe that sentient beings are equal to the nature of the Celestial Worthy; not to believe that all dharmas are quiescent extinction, without any mark; not to believe that sentient beings, coming down through measureless kalpas and manifesting form after form, remain all the while unborn and undying — such disbelief is called slandering the Dharma, is called destroying the Dharma, is called extinguishing the Dharma. And once it is called extinguishing the Dharma, one turns on the wheel of birth and death and must fall into hell, with no way left to come out.
Be careful, then, never to seek outward. Harboring no bodily mark, it fills every land completely; harboring no bodily mark, it is unborn and undying. Not apart from sentient beings do its auspicious forms appear; not apart from sentient beings does it fill the whole of empty space; not apart from sentient beings does the treasure of the True Treasury exist.
All you good sons, do not give rise to disbelief. What has been spoken by this golden mouth holds no error at all.
The Youth of Good Sound bowed his head to the ground and prostrated again and again; he received the teaching in faith, and undertook to carry it out with reverence.
Colophon
This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Daoist shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The scripture is prose throughout — narrative frame, doctrinal statement, and disciples' questions, kept in the paragraph divisions of the source text — except for several passages of tightly parallel, incantatory listing (what should not be harbored, the numbered progression of virtues from two to nine, the varieties of "equality"), which have been broken into short lines here for legibility; that lineation belongs to the translation, not to the source.
Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed: Komjathy's standard bibliography of Daoist texts in English translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud update to it were both searched by Chinese title and by pinyin. In Komjathy, the alphabetical run of "Zhen-" titles passes directly from Zhang Sanfeng taiji liandan bijue to Zhen'gao to Zhenqi huanyuan ming, where an entry for this scripture would fall — no entry for it, or for any translation of it, appears there or anywhere else in either bibliography. Two further open web searches, for the Chinese title and for the pinyin title, returned no matching scripture or translation. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Zhen Cang Jing Yao Jue. We state this as the limit of our search, not as a certainty.
A few terms and readings are worth noting. Zhen 真 ("true") and cang 藏 ("treasury") together name the whole teaching; cang is the same character used in the Buddhist term for the buddha-nature hidden within every being, rulaizang 如來藏 (tathāgatagarbha), and the scripture's central word is meant to be heard with that resonance. Tianzun 天尊, "the Celestial Worthy," is the scripture's own generic title for its speaker; no specific Worthy is named in the source, and none is supplied here. Mahayana and kalpa are kept as the loanwords they already are in English Buddhist-studies usage, since this scripture wears its Buddhist borrowings openly. Two short passages in the Wikisource transcription appear to carry a transcription slip rather than a deliberate reading — yun a 云啊, where four preceding parallel clauses beginning yunhe 云何 make "how is it that" the near-certain sense, and ru you ru xing lu 如有入行路, read here as ru you ren xing lu 如有人行路, "like a person walking a road" — both are translated by their evident sense and left unaltered in the Source Text below.
Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.
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Source Text: 真藏經要訣
Classical Chinese text of the Daoist Canon, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
昔有五貧士常懷我慢，不信經法，滅三寶門；不信眾生有真道性，不信眾生有經妙法，不信眾生無我寂滅，不信眾生等大乘法，不信眾生不生不滅，不信眾生心如大海，不信眾生等天尊行，不信眾生為大空聚。如是不信，即得重病，生入闇獄，死入闇獄，行入闇獄，住入闇獄，坐入闇獄，卧入闇獄，食入闇獄，息入闇獄。諸善男女，各自思惟，勿生不信。若不達解，能行直心，不生毀謗，功德廣遠。何以故？法無相故，法無定故，法解脫故。當知直心即是道場，不懷諸法，入諸妙寂；不懷生死，入諸寶相；不懷取捨，入諸智慧；不懷嗔癡，入諸解脫；不懷貪欲，入諸法寶；不懷是非，入諸正道；不懷聲色，入諸福田；不懷六情，入諸無漏；不懷五蔭，入諸大慧；不懷四大，入諸神通。此法微妙，終劫說之，亦不能盡。若有生知易悟，略說半字，真證大乘，解無上道。若能信心受持，善解忘神，洗除心垢，功德廣遠，不可思議。
天尊言：不離身心而得解脫，得解脫者，寂滅道場，入正法印，證三世因，成無上果。一切眾生，心性解脫，身相解脫。心為言教，身為文字，尋文逐字，教迹斯忘。悟此文字，入解脫門，證無上道。
善音童子白天尊言：不審眾生心為言教，身為文字。眾生心是癡心，身是闇網，云何令眾生學其癡心而求闇網，而得成道？眾生癡心，不復知學應得成道，不知學者而不成道。若學癡心，亦不成道。何以故？以癡學癡，癡性不發，云何成道？眾生癡心，癡不知學，學不成道。譬如木中有火，火不自生，必假人攻，方得其火。眾生癡心，必假導師而得悟解。願為說之。
天尊曰：諸法清浄，無生無滅。云何有眾生得道？云何有眾生失道？云何有眾生癡網而學成道？，云何有癡心，不學而得成道？法無自性，畢竟無我。云啊眾生差別，而作此難？我說文字，性離則是，非性解脫，方便引誘，令識文字；性離則是，法性解脫，方便引誘，令識正音。證法音者，無法可證，無法可修，無法可學，無法可得，無法可受，究竟清浄，混成非一。二乘眾生，聞此語者，驚忙震懼，立身無所。是時法音等眾豁然意解，悟大乘宗，平等無二，歸命忘形，稽首而去。
一切眾生貪著有為，欣生惡死，意雖求生，由造死業，不持戒行；雖得長壽，由如老樹，有何殊別？若持戒者，死補天官，昇仙自在。雖有帝王、三公之位，能持戒行，死則昇仙，自在快樂。天下萬物，無有長存；唯有道德，不生不滅。一切眾生，從道而生，從道而滅，業緣悉被，同貫一門。譬如母之生子，子懷不孝，棄擲其母，四向造罪，被擊羅網。母思憶之，枯腸寸斷，子終不覺，身自受苦，痛楚難當。眾生顛倒，迷失其本，亦復如是。大乘玄教，隨根布德，了不自知。雖不覺知，隨根度脫，一切眾生悉皆受潤，出苦入樂，不離真藏。眾生迷惑，妄想為有，於真藏中，終不覺悟。何以故？法性真故，於真受有，有是苦聚，即是苦惱。我觀一切，悉是大惠，無生無滅，無苦無惱，去來平等，出入平等。下根布施，即是平等；中根誡行無戒，即是平等；上根智慧，無智無我，即是平等。眾生受樂，樂受無受，即是平等。眾生業報，報業無業，即是平等。一切諸法，等無所等，無所等故，名為大道。勤學大乘，善行三慧：一者，巧積方便，善滅外塵；二者，斷諸行漏，不出他境；三者，尋求實相，直至道場。既證反本，二見常明，三業輪轉，四大恒通，五蔭開朗，六情不染，七識自存，八正無我，九德綿綿。先賢後聖，莫不由此而得成道。當知真藏，最為第一。一切眾生，身性清浄，天真正道，隱在其中，名為真藏。若有說《真藏經》者，此人功德不可思議，則見我身，成無上道。若有信心，捨諸他念，即得道眼，照三世因，平等無礙。或捨身毀碎，或投身餓虎，或火焚身命，或繫業因果，捨施求福，如此功德甚薄，法力不成。何以故？無慧力故，無通達故。自證自求，自得自我，如是自縛，墮無明障，繫業不除，業業相牽，云何解脫？此觀第一，初從數心，心法不住，法不住故，則無定法。無定法故，則見道慧，見道慧者，即是本身，不生不滅。不識本身，如有入行路，拾得遺篋，開篋視鏡，自見其形，謂是篋主，心地惶怖，稽首而謝，棄之而去。眾生迷惑，捨真取偽，棄本尋末，亦復如是。
天尊曰：一切眾生，身無邊相，名為經法，亦名法聚。何以故？解惑立名，不同體解，名為眾生，亦名生死，亦名苦聚，亦名顛倒，亦名外求。何以故？眾生不解，名之為惑。以是緣由，不識自身，自身之中，有無量法，聚具三清境。眾生迷惑，遂使外求，不信正法，不求善友，名為眾生。將法迷沒世間，從劫至劫，終無曉了。若遇善知識，名為宿因，種其福德。何以故？昔因今果，得遇天尊，顯無上真藏祕密重玄，了達昔因，證今生果。汝等若求，先當自求，祕密法見，廣開真藏。以此法藏，統收諸法，盡無邊底。
慧力童子曰：雖聞聖說，不能解了。不知何者為道？何者為法？何者為師？何者為聚？以不知故，願為說之。
天尊答曰：汝所問者，問於自求真藏法見，汝今澄神靜處，廣為說之。一切眾生，身性清浄，天真正道，隱在其中，名為真藏。
天尊又曰：不信根中而有三寶，不信眾生等天尊性，不信諸法寂滅無相，不信眾生從無量劫來，種種示形，而無生滅。如是不信，名為謗法，是名毀法，是名滅法。既名滅法，生死輪轉，必墮地獄，無緣得出。慎勿外求，不懷身相，遍滿諸國；不懷身相，不生不滅；非離眾生而出相好，非離眾生而滿虛空，非離眾生有真藏寶。諸善男子，勿生不信。金口所說，更無差謬。善音童子稽首再拜，信受奉行。
Source Colophon
The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 真藏經要訣, revision of 19 August 2018), inspected from a witness copy captured on 8 August 2026. Chinese Wikisource transcriptions are published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the GFDL; the text itself is ancient and in the public domain. The wiki header and license templates have been removed; the text is otherwise complete and unaltered.
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