Liaofan's Four Lessons了凡四训

Also known as

Master Yuan Liaofan's Four Lessons, Instructions to My Son, Record of Hidden Merit

Author / transmission

Yuan Huang (Liaofan, 1533–1606)

Period

Ming · Written by Yuan Huang of the Ming dynasty, probably composed during the Wanli era; originally titled Instructions for My Son, it was later compiled by others into four chapters. One scroll. It belongs to the morality-book genre that blends Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, and is included here as part of the Daoist system of exhortatory morality books.

Canon division

Outside the Canon (Ming–Qing morality book, appendix)

Collected in

Outside the Canon

Category

Morality Books (Shanshu)

Fascicles

1 juan (4 sections)

Synopsis

Liaofan's Four Lessons is a Ming-dynasty book of instruction that Yuan Huang wrote for his son, divided into four chapters: "The Study of Establishing One's Destiny," "The Method of Correcting Faults," "The Way of Accumulating Good Deeds," and "The Efficacy of Humility." In his youth, Yuan Huang met a diviner surnamed Kong, who calculated the full course of his official career and lifespan; every prediction proved accurate, and Yuan Huang came to believe his fate was fixed. Later, at Mount Qixia, he met Chan Master Yungu and heard the teaching that "destiny is made by oneself, and blessings are sought by oneself"; he thereupon vowed to perform three thousand good deeds, recording them day by day using a ledger of merit and demerit. Thereafter his examination success, the birth of a son, and his extended lifespan all exceeded what had originally been predicted, and he wrote this book to demonstrate the principle of "establishing one's own destiny." The chapter "The Way of Accumulating Good Deeds" offers a meticulous analysis of good deeds, distinguishing the genuine from the false, the upright from the crooked, the yin from the yang, right from wrong, the proper from the biased, the complete from the partial, the great from the small, and the difficult from the easy; the chapter "The Method of Correcting Faults" distinguishes three levels of reform — correcting one's actions, correcting one's reasoning, and correcting one's mind. Although written by a Confucian scholar, the book absorbs Buddhist and Daoist elements, and it is the most famous individual case record of ledger-of-merit-and-demerit practice. From the Ming and Qing periods onward it circulated widely as a morality book alongside the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response and the Tract on Hidden Merit; it was highly esteemed by Master Yinguang in the modern era, and its influence in the Chinese-speaking world has endured to this day.

Key Ideas

• "Destiny is made by oneself, blessings are sought by oneself"
• The four lessons: establishing destiny, correcting faults, accumulating good, and the virtue of humility
• A famous individual case of ledger-of-merit-and-demerit practice
• An eightfold analysis of good deeds — genuine and false, upright and crooked, and so on
• A model morality book blending the Three Teachings

Structure

One scroll in four chapters: The Study of Establishing One's Destiny, The Method of Correcting Faults, The Way of Accumulating Good Deeds, and The Efficacy of Humility.

Editions

• Ming-dynasty printed edition of Instructions for My Son
• Qing-dynasty morality-book collections such as the Register of the Cinnamon of Cinnabar
• Modern circulating edition promoted by Master Yinguang

Commentaries

• Lectures on Liaofan's Four Lessons and other modern and contemporary expository works

Translations

• Multiple English translations (e.g. Liao-Fan's Four Lessons)
• Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese translations

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikisource: Liaofan's Four Lessons
• CTEXT search

Related scriptures