“Nobody.”

“If so,” said the Master, “why should you ask for deliverance?”

This put the young novice on the way to final enlightenment, which he attained after many years’ study under the master. When Sêng-ts‘an thought that the time was ripe to consecrate him as his successor in the faith, he handed him as the token of the rightful transmission of the Law the robe which had come down from Bodhi-Dharma, the first patriarch of Zen in China. He died in A.D. 606. While much of his life is obscure, his thought is gleaned from a metrical composition known as Hsin-hsin-ming, or “Inscribed on the Believing Mind,” which is one of the most valuable contributions by the masters to the interpretation of Zen teaching. Here follows a somewhat liberal translation of the poem:

Inscribed on the Believing Mind.f97[4.41]

Under Tao-hsin (580–651), the fourth patriarch, Zen was divided into two branches. The one known as Godzuzen (Niu-t‘ou Chan),[4.42] did not live long after the passing of its founder, Fa-jung,[4.43] who lived at Mount Niu-t‘ou, and is considered not belonging to the orthodox line of Zen. The other branch was headed by Hung-jên[4.44] who is regarded by historians as the fifth patriarch, and it is his school that has survived. He came to the master when he was still a mere boy, and what pleased his master at their interview was the way he answered. When Tao-hsin asked[4.45] what was his family name 姓 ( hsing), he said,

“I have a nature 性 (hsing), and it is not an ordinary one.”

“What is that?”

“It is the Buddha-nature (fo-hsing).”

“Then you have no name?”

“No, master,” said the boy, “for it is empty in its nature.” Here is a play of words; the character denoting “family name” and that for “nature” are both pronounced hsing. When Tao-hsin was referring to the “family name” the young follower took it for “nature” purposely, whereby to express his view by a figure of speech.

Tao-hsin’s interview with Fa-jung, the founder of the Niu-t‘ou school of Zen, was significant, showing where their views differed and how the one came to be converted into the orthodox understanding of Zen. It was during the Chên-kuan era of the T‘ang dynasty that Tao-hsin, learning of the presence of an extraordinary saintly man in Niu-t’ou mountains, decided to see who he could be. When Tao-hsin came to a Buddhist temple in the mountains, he inquired after the man and was informed of a lonely anchorite who would never rise from his seat nor salute people even when they were approaching him. When Tao-hsin proceeded further into the mountains, he saw him as he was told sitting quietly and paying no attention to the presence of a stranger. He then asked the hermit what he was doing here. “I am contemplating on Mind,” was the reply. Tao-hsin then demanded, “What is he that is contemplating? What is Mind that is contemplated?” Fa-jung was not prepared to answer such questions. Thinking that the visitor was a man of deep understanding, he rose from the seat and saluting him asked who he was. When he found that the visitor was no other personage than Tao-hsin himself whose reputation he was not ignorant of, he thanked him for the visit. They were now about to enter a little hut near by where they might talk about religion, when Tao-hsin saw some wild animals such as tigers and wolves wandering about the place, and he threw up his hands as if he were greatly frightened. Fa-jung remarked, “I see this is still with you.” The fourth patriarch responded at once, “What do you see yet?” No answer came from the hermit. After a while the patriarch traced the character “Buddha” (fo) on the stone on which Fa-jung was in the habit of sitting in meditation. Seeing it, the latter looked as if shocked. Said the patriarch “I see this is still with you.” But Fa-jung failed to see the meaning of this remark and earnestly implored to be instructed in the ultimate teaching of Buddhism. This was done, and Fa-jung became the founder of the Niu-t‘ou school of Zen Buddhism.

Tao-hsin died at the age of seventy-two, A.D. 651.

Hung-jên, 605–675, the fifth patriarch, came from the same province as his predecessor, Ch‘i Chou, now in the district of Fu-pei. His temple was situated in Wang-mei Shan (Yellow Plum Mountain), where he preached and gave lessons in Zen to his five hundred pupils. He is claimed by some to have been the first Zen master who attempted to interpret the message of Zen according to the doctrine of the Vajracchedikā-sūtra. Though I cannot quite agree with this view for the reason already referred to elsewhere, we can consider the fifth patriarch the beginning of a turning in the history of Zen, which opened up to a full view under the sixth patriarch, Hui-nêng. Until now, the Zen followers had kept quiet, though working steadily, without arresting public attention; the masters had retired either into the mountains or in the hurly-burly of the world where nobody could tell anything about their doings. But the time had at last come for a full proclamation of Zen, and Hung-jên was the first who appeared in the field preparing the way for his successor, Hui-nêng.

---

Besides this orthodox line of patriarchs, there were some sporadic expositors of Zen throughout the sixth and the seventh century. Several of them are mentioned, but there must have been many more such who were either altogether forgotten or not at all known to the world. The two best known are Pao-chih (died 514)[4.46] and Fu-hsi (died 569)[4.47]; and their lives are recorded in the Records as “adepts in Zen but not appearing in the world though well-known at the time.” This is a strange phrasing, and it is hard to know definitely what “not appearing in the world” means. Usually it applies to one who does not occupy any recognised position in an officially registered monastery. But of those that are classed under this heading, there is one at least to whom the designation does not properly apply; for Chi-i was a great high priest occupying an influential ecclesiastical post in the Sui dynasty. Whatever this was, those recorded here did not belong to the orthodox Zen school. The Tendai (T‘ien-tai) followers object to see two of their Fathers Hui-szŭ and Chi-i mentioned as “adepts in Zen but not appearing in the world though well-known at the time.” They think that these two are great names in the history of their school and ought not to be so indifferently referred to in the records of the Zen masters. But from the Zen point of view this classification is justifiable for the reason that the Tendai, except its metaphysics, is another current of Zen started independently of the line of Bodhi-Dharma, and if this were allowed to take a more practical course of development, it should surely have resulted in Zen as we have it now. But its metaphysical side came to be emphasised at the expense of the practical, and for this reason the Tendai philosophers were ever at war with the Zen, especially with the ultra-left wing which was inflexible in denouncing an appeal to ratiocination and literary discoursing and Sutra-learning. In my view the Tendai is a variation of Zen and its first promulgators may justly be classed as Zen masters though not of the pedigree to which belong Shih-t‘ou, Yüeh-shan, Ma-tsu, Lin-chi, etc.

While there were thus in the sixth and the seventh century some other lines of Zen about to develop, the one started by Bodhi-Dharma was uninterruptedly carried on by Hui-k‘ê, Shêng-t‘san, Tao-hsin, and Hung-jên, who proved to be the most fruitful and successful. The differentiation of two schools under the fifth patriarch, by Hui-nêng and Shên-hsiu, helped the further progress of pure Zen by eliminating unessential or rather undigested elements. That the school of Hui-nêng survived the other proves that his Zen was in perfect accord with Chinese psychology and modes of thinking. The Indian elements that had been found attached to the Zen of Bodhi-Dharma and his successors down to Hui-nêng, were something grafted and not native to Chinese genius. And therefore when Zen came to be fully established under Hui-nêng and his followers, it had nothing further to obstruct its free development until it became almost the only ruling power in the Chinese world of Buddhism. We must carefully watch how Hui-nêng came to be Hung-jên’s successor and where he differed from his rival school under Shên-hsiu.

IV

Hui-nêng (637–713)[4.48] came from Hsin-chou in the southern parts of China. His father died when he was yet young. He supported his mother by selling wood in town. When one day he came out of a house where he sold some fuel, he heard a man reciting a Buddhist Sutra. The words deeply touched his heart. Finding what Sutra it was and where it was possible to get it, a longing came over him to study it with the master. The Sutra was the Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedikā-sūtra ) and the master was the fifth patriarch residing at Yellow Plum in Chin-chou. Hui-nêng somehow managed to get money enough for the support of his aged mother while he was gone.

It took him about a month to reach Yellow Plum where he at once proceeded to see Hung-jên at the head of five hundred monks (sometimes said to be seven or even ten hundred). At the first interview asked the patriarch,

“Where do you come from? and what do you want here?”

“I am a farmer from Hsin-chou and wish to become a Buddha.”

“So you are a southerner,” said the patriarch, “but the southerners have no Buddha-nature; how could you expect to attain Buddhahood?”

This however did not discourage the bold seeker after the truth, for he at once responded: “There may be southerners and northerners, but as far as Buddha-nature goes, how could you make such a distinction in it?”

This pleased the master very much. Hui-nêng was given an office as rice-pounder for the Brotherhood. More than eight months, it is said, he was employed in this menial labour, when the fifth patriarch wished to select his spiritual successor among his many disciples. One day he made an announcement that any one who could prove his thorough comprehension of the religion would be given the patriarchal mantle and proclaimed as his legitimate heir. Shên-hsiu (died 706)[4.49] who was the most learned of all the disciples and thoroughly versed in the lore of his religion, and who was therefore considered by his brethren in the faith to be in possession of an unqualified right to the honour, composed a stanza expressing his view, and posted it on the outside wall of the meditation hall, which read:

All those who read these lines were greatly impressed, and secretly cherished the idea that the author of this gatha would surely be awarded the prize. But when they awoke the next morning, they were surprised to see another written alongside of it, which ran as follows:

The writer of these lines was an insignificant layman in the service of the monastery, who spent most of his time in pounding rice and splitting wood for the Brotherhood. He had such an unassuming air that nobody ever thought much of him, and therefore the entire community was now set astir to see this challenge made upon its recognised authority. But the fifth patriarch saw in this unpretentious monk a future leader of mankind, and decided to transfer to him the robe of his office. He had, however, some misgivings concerning the matter; for the majority of his disciples were not enlightened enough to see anything of deep religious intuition in the lines by the rice-pounder, Hui-nêng: and if he were publicly awarded the honour they might do him harm. So the fifth patriarch gave a secret sign to Hui-nêng to come to his room at midnight, when the rest of the Brotherhood was fast asleep. Then he gave him the robe as insignia of his authority and in acknowledgment of his unsurpassed spiritual attainment and with the assurance that the future of their faith would be brighter than ever. The patriarch then advised him that it would be wise for him to hide his own light under a bushel until the proper time arrived for his public appearance and active propaganda, and also that the robe which was handed down from Bodhi-Dharma as the sign of faith should no more be given up to Hui-nêng’s successors, because Zen was now fully recognised by the outside world in general and there was no more necessity to symbolise the faith by the transference of the robe. That night Hui-nêng left the monastery.

This narrative is taken from the literature left by the followers of the sixth patriarch and is naturally partial in his favour. If we had another record left by Shên-hsiu and his school, the account here reproduced may materially differ. In fact, we have at least one document telling Shên-hsiu’s relation to Hung-jên. It is the memorial inscription on his grave-stone written by Chang-shuo,[4.52] one of his lay-disciples. In this inscription Shên-hsiu is referred to as the one to whom the Dharma has been transmitted from his master, Hung-jên. Judging from this, the patriarchal authority of Hui-nêng was not an undisputed one at the time, or the orthodox order of succession was not settled until some time later when the school of Hui-nêng had been well established in authority over all the other schools of Zen that might have been existing then. Unfortunately, this memorial inscription does not give any further information concerning Hui-nêng’s relation to Hung-jên, but even from the above narrative we can gather certain facts of importance which will shed light on the history of Zen.

First, what necessity was there to make Hui-nêng an unlearned rustic in contrast with the erudition and wide information ascribed to Shên-hsiu? Or was Hui-nêng really such an ignoramus as could not read any thing written? But the Fa-pao-t‘an-ching,[4.53] a collection of his sermons, contains passages quoted from such Sutras as the Nirvāna, Vajracchedikā, Laṅkāvatāra, Saddharma-puṇḍarika, Vimalakīrti, Amitābha, and Bodhisattva-śīla-sutra. Does this not evince the fact that the author was not altogether unacquainted with Mahayana literature? Probably he was not a learned scholar as compared with Shên-hsiu, but in the narratives of his life we can trace some systematic effort to make him more unlettered than he actually was. What, let me ask, do we read in this attempt at the hand of the editors? In my opinion, this emphasising of the contrast between the two most eminent disciples of the fifth patriarch was at the same time the emphasising of the real character of Zen as independent of learning and intellectuality. If Zen is, as its followers claim, a “special transmission outside the scriptural teaching,” the understanding of it must be possible even for the unlettered and unphilosophising. The greatness of Hui-nêng as Zen master is all the more enhanced. This was in all likelihood the reason why the sixth patriarch was unreasonably and sometimes even dramatically made unlettered.

Secondly, why was not the patriarchal robe transferred beyond Hui-nêng? If Hung-jên advised him to keep it with him, what does the advice really imply? That the life of the possessor of the robe would be threatened, points to the fact that there was a dispute among the disciples of Hung-jên. Did they regard the robe as the symbol of patriarchal authority? But what advantages, material or spiritual, accrued from the ownership of it? Did the teaching of Bodhi-Dharma come now to be believed as the genuine transmission of the Buddha? And for that reason did the robe really cease to signify anything relative to the truth of Zen? If so, when Bodhi-Dharma first declared his special mission as teacher of Zen, was he looked upon as a heretic and persecuted accordingly? The legend that he was poisoned by his rival teachers from India seems to corroborate this. At all events, the question of the robe is deeply connected with the status of Zen teaching among the various schools of Buddhism at the time, and also with its firmer hold on the popular minds than ever before.

Thirdly, the secrecy observed in all the transactions between Hung-jên and Hui-nêng concerning the transmission of the Dharma naturally arrests our attention. To raise the rice-pounder who is not even an ordained monk to the rank of a patriarch, though only in name, to succeed a great master who stands at the head of several hundred disciples, seems to be a real cause for envy and jealousy and even for hatred. But if one were really enlightened enough to take charge of the important position of spiritual leadership, could not a combined effort of master and pupil withstand all the opposition? Perhaps, even enlightenment could not stand against human passions so irrational and elemental. I cannot however help imagining an attempt on the part of the biographers of Hui-nêng at the dramatisation of the whole scene. I am very likely mistaken, and there might have been some historical conditions of which we are now ignorant due to the lack of documents.

Three days after the flight of Hui-nêng from the Yellow-plum mountains, the news of what had happened in secret became noised abroad throughout the monastery, and a party of indignant monks headed by one named Ming, pursued the fugitive, Hui-nêng, who, in accordance with his master’s instructions, was silently leaving the Brotherhood. When he was overtaken by the pursuers while crossing a mountain-pass far from the monastery, he laid down his robe on a rock near by, and said to the monk, Ming: “This robe symbolises our patriarchal faith and is not to be carried away by force. Take this along with thee, however, if thou so desirest.”

Ming tried to lift it but it was as heavy as a mountain. He halted, hesitated, and trembled with awe. At last, he said, “I come here to obtain the faith and not the robe. O my brother monk, pray dispel my ignorance.”

Said the sixth patriarch, “If thou comest for the faith, stop all thy hankerings. Think not of good, think not of evil, but see what at this moment thy own original face doth look like, which thou hadst even prior to thy own birth.”[4.54]

Being thus demanded, Ming at once perceived the fundamental truth of things, which hitherto he had sought in things without. He now understood everything, as if he had taken a cupful of cold water and tasted it to his own satisfaction. Out of the immensity of his feeling, he was literally bathed in tears and perspirations, and most reverently approaching the patriarch he saluted him and asked; “Besides this hidden sense as is embodied in these significant words, is there anything which is secret?”

The patriarch answered, “In what I have shown to thee there is nothing hidden. If thou reflectest within thyself and recognisest thy own face, which was before the world, secrecy is in thyself.”

Whatever historical circumstances surrounded Hui-nêng in those remote days, it is certain that in this statement, “to see one’s own face even before one was born,” we find the first proclamation of the new message which was destined to unroll a long history of Zen and to make Hui-nêng really worthy of the patriarchal robe. We can see here what a new outlook Hui-nêng has succeeded in opening to the traditional Indian Zen. In him we do not recognise anything of Buddhism as far as phraseology goes, which means that he opened up his own way of presenting the truth of Zen after his original and creative experience. Prior to him, the Zen experience had some borrowings, either in wording or in method, to express itself. To say, “You are the Buddha,” or “You and the Buddha are one,” or “The Buddha is living in you,” is too stale, too flat, because too abstract and too conceptual. They contain deep truth but are not concrete nor vivifying enough to rouse our dormant souls from insensibility. They are filled up too much with abstractions and learned phraseology. Hui-nêng’s simple-mindedness not spoiled by learning and philosophising could grasp the truth at first hand. Hence his unusual freshness in the way he handled the problem. We may come to this again later.

V

Hung-jên died, A.D. 675, four yearsf100 after the Dharma was transmitted to Hui-nêng. He was seventy-four years old. But Hui-nêng never started his mission work until some years later, for in accordance with the advice of his master he lived a secluded life in the mountains. One day he thought that it was time for him to go out in the world. He was now thirty-nine years old, and it was in the first year of I-fêng (A.D. 676) during the T‘ang dynasty. He came to Fa-hsing temple in the province of Kuang, where a learned priest, Yin-tsung, was discoursing on the Nirvāna Sūtra. He saw some monks arguing on the flattering pennant; one of them said, “The pennant is an inanimate object and it is the wind that makes it flap.” Against this it was remarked by another monk that “Both wind and pennant are inanimate things, and the flapping is an impossibility.” A third one protested, “The flapping is due to a certain combination of cause and condition”; while a fourth one proposed a theory, saying, “After all there is no flapping pennant, but it is the wind that is moving by itself.” The discussion grew quite animated when Hui-nêng interrupted with the remark, “It is neither wind nor pennant but your own mind that flaps.” This at once put a stop to the heated argument. The priest-scholar, Yin-tsung, was greatly struck by the statement of Hui-nêng, so conclusive and authoritative. Finding out very soon who this Hui-nêng was, Yin-tsung asked him to enlighten him on the teaching of the master of Yellow Plum Mountain. The gist of Hui-nêng’s reply was as follows:

“My master had no special instruction to give, he simply insisted upon the need of our seeing into our own Nature through our own efforts, he had nothing to do with meditation, or with deliverance. For whatever that could be named leads to dualism, and Buddhism is not dualistic. To take hold of this non-duality of truth is the aim of Zen. The Buddha-Nature of which we are all in possession, and the seeing into which constitutes Zen, is indivisible into such oppositions as good and evil, eternal and temporal, material and spiritual. To see dualism in life is due to confusion of thought; the wise, the enlightened see into the reality of things unhampered by erroneous ideas.”

This was the beginning of Hui-nêng’s career as Zen master. His influence seems to have been immediate and far-reaching. He had many disciples numbering thousands. He did not however go around preaching and proselyting. His activities were confined in his own province in the south, and the Pao-lin monastery at Ts‘ao-ch‘i was his headquarters. When the Emperor Kao-tsung learned that Hui-nêng succeeded Hung-jên as one of Dharma’s spiritual descendants in the faith of Zen, he sent him one of his court officials with an imperial message, but Hui-nêng refused to come up to the capital, preferring his stay in the mountains. The messenger however wished to be instructed in the doctrine of Zen that he might convey it to his august master at Court. Said Hui-nêng in the main as follows:

“It is a mistake to think that sitting quietly in contemplation is essential to deliverance. The truth of Zen opens by itself from within and it has nothing to do with the practise of dhyana. For we read in the Vajracchedikā that those who try to see the Tathagata in one of his special attitudes, as sitting or lying, do not understand his spirit, and that the Tathagata is designated as Tathagata because he comes from nowhere and departs nowhere, and for that reason he is the Tathagata. His appearance has no whence, and his disappearance no whither, and this is Zen. In Zen therefore there is nothing to gain, nothing to understand; what shall we then do with sitting cross-legged and practising dhyana? Some may think that understanding is needed to enlighten the darkness of ignorance, but the truth of Zen is absolute in which there is no dualism, no conditionality. To speak of ignorance and enlightenment, or of Bodhi and Kleśa (wisdom and passions), as if they were two separate objects which cannot be merged in one, is not Mahayanistic. In the Mahayana every possible form of dualism is condemned as not expressing the ultimate truth. Everything is a manifestation of the Buddha-Nature which is not defiled in passions, nor purified in enlightenment. It is above all categories. If you want to see what is the nature of your being, free your mind from thought of relativity and you will see by yourself how serene it is and yet how full of life it is.”

---

While Hui-nêng was working for the cause of Zen in the south, Shên-hsiu representing another school was active in the north. Before he was converted into Buddhism, he was a learned Confucian and thus destined from the start to cut a different figure, compared with his brother-disciple, Hui-nêng. The Emperor Wu of the T‘ang dynasty was one of the devoted followers of Shên-hsiu, and naturally around him were gathered a large number of courtiers and government officers. When the Emperor Chung-tsung came to the throne, A.D. 685, he was all the more treated with reverence, and it was Chang-shuo, one of the state ministers, who inscribed a biographical sketch and eulogy on the memorial stone erected over his grave when he died. One of his sermons recorded reads:

He died in A.D. 706, seven years prior to Hui-nêng. His school known as the Northern in contrast to Hui-nêng’s Southern School prospered in the north far better than the latter did in the south. But when Ma-tsu (died 788) and Shih-t‘ou (700–790) began their active propaganda in the south and finally established the foundations of Zen teaching, Shên-hsiu’s school failed to find able successors and finally disappeared altogether so that all the records we have of their movements come from the rival school. It thus came to pass that Hui-nêng, and not Shên-hsiu was recognised as the sixth patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China.

The difference between the Southern and the Northern school of Zen is one inherent in human mind; if we call the one intellectual or intuitional, the other would be regarded as pragmatical. The reason why the Southern school is known as “abrupt” or “instant” (yugapad) against the “gradual” (kramavṛittya) school of the North is because it upholds that the coming of enlightenment is instantaneous and does not allow any gradation, as there are no stages of progress in it; whereas the Northern school emphasises the process of arriving at enlightenment which is naturally gradual, requiring much time and concentration. Hui-nêng was a great advocate of absolute idealism, while Shên-hsiu was a realist and refused to ignore a world of particulars where Time rules over all our doings. An idealist does not necessarily ignore the objective aspect of reality, but his eyes are always fixed at one point which stands by itself, and his surveyings are done from this absolute point. The doctrine of abruptness is thus the result of looking at the multitudinousness of things in absolute unity. All true mystics are followers of the “abrupt” school. The flight from the alone to the alone is not and cannot be a gradual process. The teaching of Shên-hsiu is to be heeded as the practical advice to those who are actually engaged in the study of Zen, but it fails to describe the character of experience known as “the seeing into one’s own Nature,” which was the special message of Hui-nêng as distinguished from those of the other Buddhist schools. That the school of Shên-hsiu could not survive as a branch of Zen was natural enough, for Zen could not be anything else but an instantaneous act of intuition. As it opens up all of a sudden a world hitherto undreamed of, it is an abrupt and discrete leaping from one plane of thought to another. Hsiu missed the ultimate object of Zen when he emphasised the process to reach the end. As a practical adviser he was therefore excellent and full of merit.

The ideas of instantaneity and gradation in the realisation of the truth of Zen originally comes from the Laṅkāvatāra (Nanjo’s edition, p. 55), where this distinction is made in regard to cleansing one’s mind of its stream of ideas and images. According to the Sutra, this cleansing is in one sense gradual but in another abrupt or instantaneous. When it is regarded as like the ripening of a fruit, the modelling of a vessel, the growing of a plant, or the mastering of an art, which takes place gradually and in time, it is an act of gradual process: but when it is comparable to a mirror reflecting objects, or to the Ālaya reproducing all mental images, the cleansing of mind takes place instantaneously. Thus the Sutra recognises the two types of minds: with some the cleansing to a state of enlightenment can be obtained gradually after a long practice of meditation, perhaps through many a successive life; but to others it may come all of a sudden, even without previously conscious efforts. The division of the two schools as regards the abrupt realisation of enlightenment is based not only on the statements in the Sutra but ultimately on facts of psychology. The point at issue however was not a question of time; whether enlightenment took place as an act of one moment or not, ceased to concern them; for the difference now developed into that of their general philosophical attitude and outlook towards the fact of enlightenment itself. The question of physical time has thus turned into that of psychology in its more profound aspect.

When process is emphasised, the end is forgotten, and process itself comes to be identified with end. When a disciple of Shên-hsiu came to Hui-nêng to be instructed in Zen, he asked what was the teaching of Shên-hsiu, and the disciple informed him thus: “My master usually teaches us to stop the working of our minds and to sit quietly in meditation for a long time at a stretch, without lying down.” To this Hui-nêng responded: “To stop the working of mind and to sit quietly in meditation is a disease and not Zen, and there is no profit whatever to be gained from a long sitting.” Then he gave him the following gāthā:

This shows exactly where Hui-nêng stands in relation to his rival Shên-hsiu who is so taken up with the practical details of the process of Zen. Those two gāthās inscribed on the monastery wall at Yellow-plum Mountain while they were yet under the tutorship of Hung-jên, are eloquent enough to bring out the characteristic features of the two schools.f101

When Hui-nêng further asked the monk from the north as to the teaching of his teacher in regard to morality (śīla), meditation (dhyāna), and wisdom (prajñā), the monk said, “According to my master Hsiu, morality consists in not doing anything that is bad; wisdom in reverently practising all that is good; and meditation in purifying the heart.” Replied Hui-nêng: “My view is quite different. All my teaching issues from the conception of Self-Nature, and those who assert the existence of anything outside it betray their ignorance of its nature. Morality, Meditation, and Wisdom—all these are forms of Self-Nature. When there is nothing wrong in it, we have morality; when it is free from ignorance, it is wisdom; and when it is not disturbed, it is meditation. Have a thorough understanding once for all as to the being of Self-Nature, and you know that nothing dualistic obtains in it; for here you have nothing to be particularly distinguished as enlightenment, or ignorance, or deliverance, or knowledge, and yet from this nothingness there issues a world of particulars as objects of thought. For him who has once had an insight into his own Nature, no special posture as a form of meditation is to be recommended; everything and anything is good to him, sitting, or lying, or standing. He enjoys perfect freedom of spirit, he moves along as he feels, and yet he does nothing wrong, he is always acting in accord with his Self-Nature, his work is play. This is what I call ‘the seeing into one’s own Nature’; and this seeing is instantaneous as much as the working is, for there is no graduating process from one stage to another.”

VI

Some of the sermons of the sixth patriarch are preserved in the book known as the Platform Sutra on the Treasure of the Law (Fa-pao-t‘an-ching). The title, “sutra” has generally been given to writings ascribed to the Buddha or those somehow personally connected with him, and that a collection of the sermons of Hui-nêng has been so honoured shows what a significant position he occupies in the history of Chinese Buddhism. “The Platform Sutra” has a reference to the famous ordination platform erected by Gunabhadra, the first translator of the Laṅkāvatāra, of the Liu-sung dynasty, A.D. 420–479. At the time of the erection as well as later, it was prophesied by Chih-yüeh (according to another authority by Paramārtha), during the Liang dynasty that some years later a Bodhisattva in the flesh would be ordained on this platform and deliver sermons on the Buddha’s “spiritual seal.” Thus the “Platform Sutra” means the orthodox teaching of the Zen given from this platform.

The sermons here preserved are mere fragments of those delivered during the thirty-seven years of Hui-nêng’s active missionary life. Even of these fragments how much is to be regarded as genuine and authoritative is a question we cannot at present give any definite answer, as the book seems to have suffered the vicissitudes of fates, partly showing the fact that the Zen message of the sixth patriarch was extraordinary in many respects so as to arouse antagonism and misunderstanding among Buddhists. When this antagonism later reached its climax, it is reported that the book was burned up as against the genuine teaching of Buddhism. Except a few sentences and passages, however, which can at once be rejected as spurious, we may take the Platform Sutra on the whole as expressing the spirit and teaching of the sixth patriarch of Zen.

The principal ideas of Hui-nêng, which make him the real Chinese founder of Zen Buddhism may be summed up as follows:

1. We can say that Zen has come to its own consciousness by Hui-nêng. While Bodhi-Dharma brought it from India and successfully transplanted it in China, it did not fully realise its special message at the time. More than two centuries were needed before it grew aware of itself and knew how to express itself in the way native to the Chinese mind; the Indian mode in which its original teaching had been expressed as was the case with Bodhi-Dharma and his immediate disciples had to give way as it were to become truly Chinese. As soon as this transformation or transplantation was accomplished in the hands of Hui-nêng, his disciples proceeded at once to work out all its implications. The result was what we have as the Zen school of Buddhism. How did then Hui-nêng understand Zen?

According to him, Zen was the “seeing into one’s own Nature.” This is the most significant phrase ever coined in the development of Zen Buddhism. Around this Zen is now crystallised, and we know where to direct our efforts and how to represent it in our consciousness. After this, the progress of Zen Buddhism was rapid. It is true that this phrase occurs in the life of Bodhi-Dharma in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, but it is in the part of his life on which we cannot put much reliance. Even when the phrase was actually used by Dharma, it was not necessarily considered by him the essence of Zen as distinguishing itself from other schools of Buddhism. Hui-nêng however was fully aware of its signification, and impressed the idea unequivocally upon the minds of his audience. When he made his first declaration of Zen for the benefit of Yin-tsung, the statement was quite unmistakable, “We talk of seeing into our own Nature, and not of practising dhyana or obtaining liberation.”[4.56] Here we have the gist of Zen, and all his later sermons are amplifications of this idea.

By “Nature” he understood Buddha-Nature, or more particularly from the intellectual point of view, Prajñā. He says that this Prajñā is possessed by every one of us, but owing to the confusion of thought we fail to realise it in ourselves. Therefore we must be instructed and properly guided by an adept in Zen Buddhism, when we shall open a spiritual eye and by ourselves see into the Nature. This Nature knows no multiplicity, it is absolute oneness, being the same in the ignorant as well as in the wise. The difference comes from confusion and ignorance. People talk so much, think so much, of Prajñā, but fail altogether to realise it in their own minds. It is like talking about food all day, however much we may talk we forever remain hungry. You may explain the philosophy of Śūnyatā for ten thousand years, but so long as you have not yet seen into your Nature, it is absolutely of no avail. There are again some people who regard Zen as consisting in sitting quietly with an empty mind devoid of thoughts and feelings. Such know not what Prajñā is, what Mind is. It fills the universe and never rests from work. It is free, creative, and at the same time it knows itself. It knows all in one and one in all. This mysterious working of Prajñā issues from your own Nature. Do not depend upon letters but let your own Prajñā illumine within yourself.

2. The inevitable result of it was the “abrupt” teaching of the Northern school. The seeing is an instant act as far as the mental eye takes in the whole truth at one glance—the truth which transcends dualism in all form; it is abrupt as far as it knows no gradations, no continuous unfolding. Read the following passage from the Platform Sutra, in which the essentials of the abrupt doctrine are given:

“When the abrupt doctrine is understood, there is no need of disciplining oneself in things external. Only let a man always have a right view within his own mind, no desires, no external objects will ever defile him. This is the seeing into his Nature. O my friends, have no fixed abode inside or outside,f102 and your conduct will be perfectly free and unfettered. Take away your attachment, and your walk will know no obstructions whatever.... The ignorant will grow wise if they abruptly get an understanding and open their hearts to the truth. O my friends, even the Buddhas will be like us common mortals when they have no enlightenment, and even we mortals will be Buddhas when we are enlightened. Therefore we know that all things are in our own minds. Why do we not then instantly see into our own minds and find there the truth of Suchness? In the Sutra on the Moral Conduct of the Bodhisattva we read that we are all pure in our Self-nature, and that when we know our own minds we see into this Nature and all attain to Buddhahood. Says the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, ‘An instant opening leads us into the Original Mind.’ O my good friends, while under my master Jên, I realised the truth the moment I heard him speak and had an instant [i.e. abrupt] glimpse into the true essence of Suchness. This is the reason why I now endeavour by means of this doctrine to lead truth-seekers to an instant [i.e. abrupt] realisation of Bodhi. When you by yourselves look into your minds, you perceive at once what the Original Nature is....

“Those who know by themselves do not look for anything external. If they adhere to the view that liberation comes through external aid, through the office of a good wise friend, they are entirely at fault. Why? There is a knower in your own mind and it is this that makes you realise the truth by yourselves. When confusion reigns in you and false views are entertained, no amount of teaching by others, good wise friends of yours, will be of use for your salvation. When on the other hand your genuine Prajñā shines forth, all your confused thoughts will vanish in an instant. Knowing thus what your Self-Nature is, you reach Buddhahood by this single understanding, one knowledge.”

3. When the seeing into Self-Nature is emphasised and intuitive understanding is upheld against learning and philosophising, we know that as one of its logical conclusions the old view of meditation begins to be looked down as merely a discipline in mental tranquillisation. And this was exactly the case with the sixth patriarch. Since the beginning of Buddhism there have been two currents of thought concerning the meaning of meditation: the one was, like Arāda and Udraka who were the two teachers of the Buddha, to take it for suspending all psychic activities or for wiping consciousness clean of all its modes; and the other was to regard meditation simply as the most efficacious means for coming in touch with the ultimate reality. This fundamental difference of views with regard to meditation was a cause of the unpopularity at first of Bodhi-Dharma among the Chinese Buddhists, scholars and dhyana-masters of the time. It was also a factor of divergence between the Niu-t‘ou school of Zen and the orthodox teaching of the fourth patriarch, as well as between the Northern and the Southern school of Zen Buddhism after the fifth patriarch. Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, came out as a strong advocate of intuitionalism and refused to interpret the meaning of dhyana statically, as it were. For the Mind according to him at the highest stage of meditation was not a mere being, mere abstraction devoid of content and work. He wanted to grasp something which lay at the foundation of all his activities mental and physical, and this something could not be a mere geometrical point, it must be the source of energy and knowledge. Hui-nêng did not forget that the will was after all the ultimate reality and that enlightenment was to be understood as more than intellection, more than quietly contemplating the truth. The Mind or Self-Nature was to be apprehended in the midst of its working or functioning. The object of dhyana was thus not to stop the working of Self-Nature but to make us plunge right into its stream and seize it in the very act. His intuitionalism was dynamic. In the following dialogues both Hui-nêng and his disciples are still using the older terminology but the import of this parley is illustrative of the point I want to specify.

Hsüan-chiao first studied T‘ien-tai philosophy and later while reading the Vimalakīrti he discovered his Self-Nature. Being advised to see the sixth patriarch in order to have his experience certified or testified, he came to Tsao-ch‘i. He walked around the master three times and erecting his staff straight stood before him. Said the master, “Monks are supposed to observe three hundred rules of conduct and eighty thousand minor ones; whence comest thou, so full of pride?”

“Birth-and-death is a matter of grave concern, and time waits for nobody!” said the T‘ien-tai philosopher.

“Why dost thou not grasp that which is birthless and see into that which is timeless?” the master demanded.

“Birthless is that which grasps, and timeless is that which sees into.”

“That is so, that is so,” agreed the master.

When this was over, Hsüan-chiao came to Hui-nêng again in the full attire of the Buddhist monk, and reverently bowing to the master wished to take leave of him.

Said the master, “Why departest thou so soon?”

“There is from the very beginning no such thing as movement, and then why talkest thou of being soon?”

“Who knows that there is no movement?” retorted the master.

“There,” exclaimed Hsüan-chiao, “thou makest a judgment thyself!”

“Thou truly comprehendest the intent of that which is birthless.”

“How could the birthless ever have an intent?” Hsüan-chiao asked.

“If there were no intent, who could ever judge?”

“Judgments are made with no intent whatever.” This was the conclusion of Chiao.

The master then expressed his deep appreciation of Hsüan-chiao’s view on the subject, saying, “Well thou hast said!”[4.57]

Chih-huang was an adept in meditation which he studied under the fifth patriarch. After twenty years’ discipline he thought he well understood the purport of meditation or samadhi. Hsüan-ts‘ê, learning his attainment, visited him and said, “What are you doing there?” “I am entering into a samadhi.” “You speak of entering, but how do you enter into samadhi—with a thought-ful mind or with a thought-less mind? If you say with a thought-less mind, all non-sentient beings such as plants or bricks could attain samadhi. If you say with a thought-ful mind, all sentient beings could attain it.” “When I enter into samadhi,” said Chih-huang, “I am not conscious of either being thoughtful or being thoughtless.” “If you are conscious of neither, you are right in samadhi all the while; why do you then talk at all of entering into it or coming out of it? If however there is really entering or coming out, it is not Great Samadhi.” Chih-huang did not know how to answer. After a while he asked who was Hsüan-ts‘ê’s teacher and what was his understanding of samadhi. Said Hsüan-ts‘ê,[4.58] “Hui-nêng is my teacher, and according to him, [the ultimate truth] lies mystically serene and perfectly quiet; substance and function are not to be separated, they are of one Suchness. The five skandhas are empty in their nature, and the six sense-objects have no reality. [The truth knows of] neither entering nor going out, neither being tranquil nor disturbed. Dhyana in essence has no fixed abode. Without attaching yourself to an abode, be serene in dhyana. Dhyana in essence is birthless; without attaching yourself to the thought of birth [-and-death] think in dhyana. Have your mind like unto space and yet have no thought of space.” Thus learning of the sixth patriarch’s view on samadhi or dhyana, Chih-huang came to the master himself and asked to be further enlightened. Said the patriarch, “What Hsüan-ts‘ê told you is true. Have your mind like unto space and yet entertain in it no thought of emptiness. Then the truth will have its full activity unimpeded. Every movement of yours will come out of an innocent heart and the ignorant and the wise will have an equal treatment in your hands. Subject and object will lose their distinction, and essence and appearance will be of one suchness. [When a world of absolute oneness is thus realised,] you have attained to eternal samadhi.”

To make the position of the sixth patriarch on the subject of meditation still clearer and more definite, let me quote another incident from his Platform Sutra. A monk once made reference to a gāthā composed by Wo-luan which read as follows [4.59]: