Dajian Huineng or Hui-nengThe Sutra of Hui-neng, Grand Master of Zen, with Hui-neng's Commentary on the Diamond Sutra, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambhala Publications, 1998 (; trad. 638-713John Jorgensen (2005), Inventing Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, BRILL, p.xi), also commonly known as the Sixth Patriarch or Sixth Ancestor of Chan (), is a semi-legendary but central figure in the early history of Chinese Chan Buddhism.
According to tradition Huineng was an uneducated layman who suddenly attained awakening () upon hearing the Diamond Sutra. Despite his lack of formal training, he demonstrated his understanding to the fifth patriarch, Daman Hongren, who then supposedly chose Huineng as his true successor instead of his publicly known selection of Yuquan Shenxiu. Huineng is regarded as the founder of the "Sudden Enlightenment" Southern Chan school of Buddhism, which focuses on an immediate and direct attainment of Buddhist enlightenment. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (), which is said to be a record of his teachings, is a highly influential text in the East Asian Buddhist tradition.
20th century scholarship revealed that the story of Huineng's Buddhist career was likely invented by the monk Shenhui, who claimed to be one of Huineng's disciples and was highly critical of Shenxiu's teaching.
Biography
Sources The two primary sources for Huineng's life are the preface to the Platform SutraPine 2006 and the Transmission of the Lamp. Most modern scholars doubt the historicity of traditional biographies and works written about Huineng, considering his extended biography to be a legendary narrative based on a historical person of "merely regional significance", of whom very little is known. This legendary narrative reflects historical and religious developments which took place in the century after his life and death.
The Platform Sutra The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch is attributed to a disciple of Huineng named Fahai, and purports to be a record of Huineng's life, lectures and interactions with disciples. However, the text shows signs of having been constructed over a longer period of time, and contains different layers of writing. According to John McRae, it is
According to Wong, the Platform Sūtra cites and explains a wide range of Buddhist scriptures listed here in the order of appearance: Diamond Sutra Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra Brahmajāla Sūtra Vimalakirti Sutra Lotus Sutra Śūraṅgama Sūtra Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
Early life and introduction to Buddhism
According to Huineng's autobiography in the Platform Sutra, Huineng's father was from Fanyang, but he was banished from his government position and died at a young age. Huineng and his mother were left in poverty and moved to Nanhai, where Huineng sold firewood to support his family. One day, Huineng delivered firewood to a customer's shop, where he saw a man reciting the Diamond Sutra: "On my way out of the gate I saw someone reciting a sutra, and as soon as I heard the words of the sutra my mind opened forth in enlightenment."The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, translated by John McRae, page 17, Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000 He inquired about the reason that the Diamond Sutra was chanted, and the person stated that he came from the Eastern Meditation Monastery in Huangmei District of the province of Qi, where the Fifth Patriarch of Chan lived and delivered his teachings. Huineng's customer paid his ten silver taels and suggested that he meet the Fifth Patriarch of Chan.
Meeting the Fifth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism Huineng reached Huangmei thirty days later, and expressed to the Fifth Patriarch his specific request of attaining Buddhahood. Since Huineng came from Guangdong and was physically distinctive from the local Northern Chinese, the Fifth Patriarch Hongren questioned his origin as a "barbarian from the south", and doubted his ability to attain enlightenment. Huineng impressed Hongren with a clear understanding of the ubiquitous Buddha nature in everyone, and convinced Hongren to let him stay. The first chapter of the Ming canon version of the Platform Sutra describes the introduction of Huineng to Hongren as follows:
Huineng was told to split firewood and pound rice in the backyard of the monastery and avoid going to the main hall.
Poem contest Eight months later, the Fifth Patriarch summoned all his followers and proposed a poem contest for his followers to demonstrate the stage of their understanding of the essence of mind. He decided to pass down his robe and teachings to the winner of the contest, who would become the Sixth Patriarch. Shenxiu, the leading disciple of the Fifth Patriarch, composed a stanza, but did not have the courage to present it to the master. Instead, he wrote his stanza on the south corridor wall one day at midnight to remain anonymous. The other monks saw the stanza and commended it. Shenxiu's stanza is as follows:
The Patriarch was not satisfied with Shenxiu's stanza, and pointed out that the poem did not show understanding of "[his] own fundamental nature and essence of mind." He gave Shenxiu a chance to submit another poem to demonstrate that he had entered the "gate of enlightenment," so that he could transmit his robe and the Dharma to Shenxiu, but the student's mind was agitated and could not write one more stanza.
Two days later, the illiterate Huineng heard Shenxiu's stanza being chanted by a young attendant at the monastery and inquired about the context of the poem. The attendant explained to him the poem contest and the transmission of the robe and Dharma. Huineng asked to be led to the corridor, where he could also pay homage to the stanza. He asked a low-ranking official named Zhang Riyong from Jiangzhou to read the verse to him, and then immediately asked him to write down a stanza that he composed.
According to McRae, "the earliest version of the Platform Sutra contains two versions of Huineng's verse." Later versions, such as the Zongbao edition (c. 1291) from the Yuan era, contain one version of Huineng's stanza, somewhat different from the two verses found in the c. 8th century Dunhuang edition:
The followers who were present were astonished by the work of a southern barbarian. Being cautious of Huineng's status, the Patriarch wiped away the stanza and claimed that the author of the stanza had not reached enlightenment.
Interpretation of the verses According to the traditional interpretation, which is based on Guifeng Zongmi, the fifth-generation successor of Shenhui, the two verses represent respectively the gradual and the sudden approach. According to McRae, this is an incorrect understanding:
Huineng's verse does not stand alone, but forms a pair with Shenxiu's verse:
McRae notes a similarity in reasoning with the Oxhead School, which used a threefold structure of "absolute, relative and middle", or "thesis-antithesis-synthesis". According to McRae, the Platform Sutra itself is the synthesis in this threefold structure, giving a balance between the need of constant practice and the insight into the absolute.
Succession of Hongren However, on the next day, the Patriarch secretly went to Huineng's room and asked, "Should not a seeker after the Dharma risk his life this way?" Then he asked, "is the rice ready?" Huineng responded that the rice was ready and only waiting to be sieved. The Patriarch secretly explained the Diamond Sutra to Huineng, and when Huineng heard the phrase "one should activate one's mind so it has no attachment," he was "suddenly and completely enlightened, and understood that all things exist in self-nature."
The Dharma was passed to Huineng at night, when the Patriarch transmitted "the doctrine of sudden enlightenment" as well as his robe and bowl to Huineng. He told Huineng, "You are now the Sixth Patriarch. Take care of yourself, save as many sentient beings as you can, and spread the teachings so they will not be lost in the future."
Escape from monastery
He also explained to Huineng that the Dharma was transmitted from mind to mind, whereas the robe was passed down physically from one patriarch to the next. Hongren instructed the Sixth Patriarch to leave the monastery before he could be harmed. "You can stop at Huai and then hide yourself at Hui." Hongren showed Huineng the route to leave the monastery, and rowed Huineng across the river to assist his escape. Huineng immediately responded with a clear understanding of Hongren's purpose in doing so, and demonstrated that he could ferry to "the other shore" with the Dharma that had been transmitted to him.
The Sixth Patriarch reached the Tayu Mountains within two months, and realized that hundreds of men were following him, attempting to rob him of the robe and bowl. However, the robe and bowl could not be moved by Huiming, who then asked for the transmission of Dharma from Huineng. Huineng helped him reach enlightenment and continued on his journey.
Teachings
The earliest and most important source for the teachings of Huineng is the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (). There are various editions of this text, the earliest of which are copies from Dunhuang which date to the 9th century. The original may have been composed in around 780 CE. According to modern scholars like Yanagida Seizan and John McRae, the early Platform Sutra was composed within the Oxhead school, not within the so called "Southern School" as was previously believed.Yampolski, Philip. "Chan. A Historical Sketch." In: Buddhist Spirituality. Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World; edited by Takeuchi Yoshinori, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003.McRae, John R.(1983). The Northern School of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University. The text continued to be edited and expanded until the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), when Zongbao () produced an edition that eventually became part of the standard Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Chinese Buddhist canon.Jorgensen, John. “THE PLATFORM SŪTRA AND THE CORPUS OF SHENHUI RECENT CRITICAL TEXT EDITIONS AND STUDIES.” Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie, vol. 20, 2002, pp. 399–438. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24584546. Accessed 12 June 2024.
Non-thought, non-attribute, and non-abiding According to Peter Gregory, the most important ideas in the Platform Sutra, for which it is best known, form a set of three key interrelated doctrines: no-thought (wunian), nonform, also translated as nonattribute (wuxiang), and nonabiding (wuzhu).Peter Gregory, "The Platform Sūtra as the Sudden Teaching," in Readings of the Platform Sutra, edited by Morten Schlütter & Stephen F. Teiser, page 99, Columbia University Press, 2012
In the Platform Sutra, Huineng taught "no-thought," the "pure and unattached mind" which "comes and goes freely and functions fluently without any hindrance."John M. Thompson, Huineng (Hui-neng), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy It does not mean that one does not think at all, but is "a highly attentive yet unentangled way of being an open, non-conceptual state of mind that allows one to experience reality directly, as it truly is." Regarding non-thought, Huineng says: