What is the “ferry to God’s kingdom”? Can it be seen?
The phrase “ferry to God’s kingdom” is a parable. Actually,
it refers to Tien-Tao, which cannot be seen. Why would it take
on the name “ferry to God’s kingdom”? It is because humans
are in the sea of sufferings. When humans are alive, they are lost.
After they die, they are tried in the Underworld. Then they take
one of the six paths in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. As this
perpetuates, they sow a variety of causes and receive a variety of
effects, like riding endless tides and waves in the ocean. They cannot
find a way to escape, and suffer through the cycle of birth, death and
rebirth in great pain. Isn’t this the sea of sufferings? However, if a
person becomes a practitioner of Tao, he treats the physical world
as an imaginary flower, fame and wealth as dreams, and his wife
and children as emotional burdens. He understands that all matters
and phenomena cannot endure, and upon their destruction, their
existence becomes nil; the true existence is in the Void, for the
Void is eternal. Thus, he has no struggle nor obstacle in his way.
Isn’t this the same as if he has boarded the ferry to God’s kingdom?