The notion of abandoning the conception and attachment to religions and sectarianism is not giving up religions or religious sects, but giving up the attachment to them.

    Sectarianism is like our surname, but no matter what your surname is, you are still a human. In order to differentiate people, each person has a different name and surname, but this does not stop us from communicating, or discussing humanity, respecting each other, and protecting each other based on commonly held morality. We can't say that we don't want to love someone because his surname is different from ours, nor can we use that to call that person inhuman and criticize him. When we want to pursue spiritual cultivation, we enter into the religious circle by way of a certain sect. No one is sure by which sect he will be brought into the religious circle, which depends on his cause and condition. But this is not important. The most important thing is to figure out what we want to do after entering into the circle. To attach to the name of a specific sect is not our purpose.

    The developments of most old religions or religious sects rely on the achievements of their previous saints. People get involved in religions or religious sects generally for the purpose of following the styles of those ancient saints, learning how the saints acted, their experiences of enlightenment, and their methods of perfection, but not for the purpose of attaching to the sects. However, when we break away from this basis and just hold on the name, organizational structure, and the common interests of a certain sect, we will likely attack other sects and criticize others. It seems like we understand other sects and so slander them according to our whims. This is very bad. As we are still attached to external marks of existence, as a matter of fact, we will likely bring those bad propensities in other social contexts into the religious circle and pollute the religious group we have joined. In this light, although the name of a religious group still exists, it is merely an illusory name.

    Can a group that doesn't observe precepts be counted as a religious group? A religious group needs to have stringent regulative principles and moral codes that distinguish it from other kinds of social groups. If a religious group breaks away from this, I think it is more or less true that the government calls it evil cult.

    Therefore, after we enter into any religious sect, it is very easy for us to bring and indulge our emotions that we had before, and indulge in our senses legitimately in the name of religion. We call this spiritual cultivation, the interests of the sect, and the content of spiritual cultivation, allowing it to exist in a dignified but deceitful way. However, all this can't bring benefit to us, but can only bring a bustling scene and satisfy our profit-driven mentality. The most it can bring is finding some partners to go along in the same evil deeds.

    But after a while, we can examine what kind of role we play in our families and lives. Are we respected, welcomed and admired by people? We persist in our ways and don't care about what others think. It results in that nobody likes us. In the beginning we entered into religious circle due to distress. But afterwards, we only make ourselves more distressful and find ourselves situated in loneliness, because of strong attachment to our own views. We are polluted with this kind of attachment, but still talk about that we are in spiritual cultivation and criticize others. We are unaware of our own wrongs.

    Ancient religions all teach people to be good, to have good conduct, and to give up their own interests to benefit others, and for public interests, social stability, the nation, and ethnicity. There are many religious sects today that have turned into religious gangs due to a kind of narrow profit-driven mentality. These kinds of sects are obviously violent. Look at some of them overseas. They fight each other every day in the name of spiritual cultivation. What are they doing? Did their ancestors tell them to cultivate that? They do this. What do soldiers do? They fight. What do gangsters do? What do rebels do? What do the Mafia do? It is so strange!

    For a group of cultivators or an individual cultivator, their first mission must be to bring peace to their environment, families, surroundings, social contexts, their ethnicity, and their nation. They should strive for and put their efforts into this mission. This should be their first wish.

    Therefore I ask you not to get involved in the sectarian ideology that others hold. It is clearly stated in my books, "Brahma's Wind from the East Forest", that the disciples of Yuan Dun's Method manage themselves on their own. The Method of Yuan Dun is a kind of practice, but it is absolutely not a religious group. There is no organization. It is not a group. No one checks on you. It depends on yourself to understand your role to be a good person. It does not require you to take an oath or make a promise. You can cultivate yourself with the method if you like. Or you don't have to if you don't like. You can work hard or be lazy. Spiritual cultivation is your own business, as it is not an organization. The purpose of transmission of the mental Dharma of this method is to give us a chance to improve ourselves and become a person who conforms to the interests of the society and the whole humankind.

    Therefore how the people in other sects behave and act, and negate others is not related to us. We don't get involved. What I advocate is to give up all religious activities. Through self-realization, one can attain enlightenment and perfection of life, and then benefit, love, devote to, and serve others. This is the basis. There is no other pursuit than that. If you feel you suffer losses in this way, don't adopt this method; if you plan to cultivate Yuan Dun's Method but with other intentions, I can't transmit it to you.

    We must speak and act honestly, letting people understand us and understand that we are spiritual cultivators but not a religious organization. If anyone agrees with this principle and doctrine, we agree and are happy to transmit this method to him. We can see directly whether or not our lives have changed through spiritual cultivation. This is the judging rule.

    If spiritual cultivation can help you get out of distress and obtain happiness, don't worry about the name of the method. It must be right. If cultivation can't help you get out of distress and obtain happiness and your distress is still there or maybe worse, you must figure out the problems that you have. Don't shun your responsibility and blame it on whichever sect; you are the one who uses the name of the sect to play around. It is not the fault of any sect. It is just that everybody uses the name of a certain sect to play around and at the end, blame on the sect. When something goes wrong, it is due to the sect; when things go well, it is due to themselves.

    If everyone in a country doesn't take responsibility for the country, this country will not have any upward force. When all the members in a family don't love their family and turn their thoughts outside the family, this family will not be attractive and all of the members will have no hope for the family. Therefore the principle of being a human is not for the interest of oneself, or to benefit oneself and gratify the pleasure of one's own senses and material pursuits. As a matter of fact, our goal is to benefit our family, relatives, community, neighbors, coworkers, friends, and the surroundings. If everyone acts in this way, many people will be looked after and loved, and then their lives will change. We just need to do this and have interest in this matter. There are other people who can take care of other things. Spiritual cultivators just do this.

    I don't advocate that people give up the pursuit of spiritual awakening to persist in the attachment of a certain sect and exciting religious activities. Those things won't bring benefit to spiritual cultivation, and sometimes can lead people astray. Therefore we can examine a sect by whether its followers are engaged in slandering others. If not, that sect should be O.K. because it still maintains its legacy. Otherwise this sect has no value and so there is no need to be attached to it. Why do people attach to external form? That is because they don't have anything within and there is no internal attraction. Frankly speaking, it is due to a lack of Dharma.

    If there is something within, people won't turn outward in their pursuits. We had been attracted by the outside in the past. From this point of view, therefore, if we are attached to religious sects and religious activities but can't obtain the true meaning of religion, it is something contrary to our wishes. It is formalism. Life is already very distressful. That only adds one more distress, or another unnecessary thing!