Excerpt from 'The Three-Character Rhymed Classic on the Ka‘bah' by Ma Fu-ch’u (Yusuf Ma Dexin)

The foundation of the Path

is clearly to acknowledge God,

not bounded by space

nor limited by form

without end or beginning,

not to be apprehended by the senses,

neither near nor far,

the Uniquely Sublime;

not empty nothingness

but Truth and Reality,

mysterious and hard to fathom,

beyond definition,

resembling Goodness and Reason,

yet like empty space,

Reality, Truth and Being,

wondrous and beyond description.

If we simply consider Being,

not trying to ponder too deeply,

Being’s great attribute

is called Consciousness-Potency,

Consciousness foreshadowing the intelligence of things

and Potency implying forms;

creative change begins

when the archetypes are born;

the Great Command is given

which is the gate to all marvels;

natures and intelligences are separated out

prefiguring their forms;

the myriad intelligences muster

and the subtle substance forms;

what one calls the Primal Spirit

is truly all-pervasive

from the limits of the Previous Heaven

to the roots of the Later Heaven;

the male and female principles emerge

and the four elements are manifested

and their celestial and chthonic aspects fixed;

when the myriad forms are complete

they make Man.