Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (11 page)

A monk asked Niutou, “The people known as ‘saints’—what dharmas should they cut off and what dharmas should they attain so that they can thus earn this title?”

Niutou said, “Those who don’t cut off or attain even a single dharma—they are called ‘saints.’”

The monk then asked, “If they don’t cut off or attain a single dharma, what difference is there between such people and common people?”

Niutou said, “There is a difference. Do you know why? Because common people try to rid themselves of afflictions and they delusionally scheme for gain. There is nothing that is fundamentally lost or gained by the true mind of a saint. That is why there is a difference.”

The monk then asked, “In considering what is attained by common people and what is not attained by saints, where does the difference lie between this attainment and nonattainment?

Niutou said, “The difference lies in that what is attained by common people is delusional, whereas the nonattainment of saints is not delusional. For the deluded, there is a difference in these two viewpoints, whereas saints do not recognize a difference.”

The monk then asked, “Please describe the viewpoint of those saints who do not recognize the difference in these two views.”

Niutou said, “The terms ‘commoner’ and ‘saint’ are but false names. Within these two false names there are actually not two things, and thus there is no difference.”
²⁸

A monk asked, “Just at the moment when someone uses his mind, how can that mind remain composed?”

Niutou said, “Just at the moment when the mind is being used—that is precisely when mind is not being used. Convoluted thinking and speech just cause everyone trouble. But speaking directly and frankly doesn’t cause complications. No-mind is exactly the employment of mind, while constantly using the mind is to never employ it. What I’ve just said about not using mind is no different from using the mind for deliberation.”

The monk asked, “When the wise use expedient words they are exactly in accord with mind. But when mind and words diverge, isn’t it heresy?”
²⁹

Niutou said, “Expedient and beneficial speech is the Mahayana way, and it eradicates the mind’s disease.
³⁰
Speech that is unconnected to original nature is a hollow fabrication. When one always adheres to no-thought, then one is on the road that cuts off mind. One’s nature apart from thoughts is unmoving, and it is without misconceptions concerning birth and death. When there is the sound of an echo in the valley, the reflection in the mirror can turn to hear it.”

In the year 656 the magistrate Su Yuanshan invited Niutou to become the abbot of Jianchu Temple. The master tried to decline but was unable to do so. He then gave his genuine Dharma transmission to his great disciple Zhiyan, instructing him to continue the transmission to future generations. When he left Mt. Niutou he said to the congregation, “I’ll never return to this mountain!” At that time even the birds and beasts of the mountain wailed in mourning. Four large pauwlonia trees that were in front of Niutou’s cottage inexplicably withered and died during [June]. The next year, on the twenty-third day of the first lunar month, although not appearing ill, the master died. He was buried on Jilong Mountain.

Sixth Generation

DAJIAN HUINENG, “CAOXI”

THE SIXTH ANCESTOR, Dajian Huineng (638–713) is a pre-eminent figure of China’s Zen heritage. The five traditional schools of Chinese Zen Buddhism all trace their origin through this famous master. The traditional story of Huineng’s life reveals an iconoclastic personality whose defiance of religious convention sharpened the unique cultural flavor of Chinese Zen.

The main source of information about Huineng’s life is a text of his teaching known as the Platform Sutra. This work is traditionally regarded as a lecture by Huineng, recorded by his disciple, Fahai. The earliest extant copy of the work, found among papers taken from the Dunhuang caves, dates to about a century after Huineng lived. The legendary events of Huineng’s life were central to political intrigues and factional religious struggles that occurred between the Northern and Southern schools of Zen during the eighth century. These facts, plus the dating of the Dunhuang manuscript, have cast some doubt on certain of the traditional stories about Huineng.

Despite the arguments surrounding the origin Platform Sutra, this text of Huineng’s teachings contains important and insightful material. From a traditional standpoint, the text expounds and supports the “sudden” nature of Zen enlightenment. Strictly speaking, this view does not recognize expedients such as chanting Buddha’s name, reading sutras, etc., as being necessary to realize enlightenment.

There is scant solid evidence to support the traditional story of Huineng’s life but his legend remains a cornerstone of Chinese religious culture. As told in the Platform Sutra, Huineng lost his father at the age of three and was forced as a youngster to support his widowed mother by selling firewood in ancient Guangzhou City. He is said to have gained enlightenment instantly as he overheard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra. Resolving to follow the Dharma, he set off to seek out the Fifth Ancestor, Daman Hongren, who resided at Huangmei, a place near the Yangzi River hundreds of kilometers to the north. Upon their meeting, the Fifth Ancestor assigned Huineng to work in the kitchen.

Months later, Hongren invited the monks to each write a verse that would display his individual understanding of the Zen way. In the famous episode that followed, the head monk, Shenxiu, purportedly wrote the following verse on a wall in the monastery:

The body is the Tree of Wisdom,
The mind but a bright mirror,
At all times diligently polish it,
To remain untainted by dust.

According to the legend, Huineng, who was illiterate and had not yet gained ordination as a Zen monk, enlisted another monk’s help to write his own verse upon the wall. It read:

The Tree of Wisdom fundamentally does not exist,
Nor is there a stand for the mirror,
Originally, there is not a single thing,
So where would dust alight?

Upon reading Huineng’s verse, Hongren recognized the author’s profound level of spiritual realization. Afraid of the uproar that would result from bestowing authority on someone of such low status, Hongren is said to have met secretly with Huineng at night to pass him the traditional robe and bowl of succession, symbols of the mind-to-mind transmission of Zen. Hongren instructed Huineng to leave the monastery to avoid repercussions from the congregation. Thereafter, Huineng remained in obscurity for, by some accounts, sixteen years, before beginning to teach publicly.

The story cited above is the kernel inside more elaborate legends concerning Huineng’s life and teaching. The legend’s essence is of an individual, uncultured and unlettered, who injects a strong element of nonconformity into the traditional and structured religious hierarchy. If Bodhidharma’s teaching of “directly pointing at mind” was misplaced among the more labored practices that later gained entry into the Zen tradition, the story of Huineng’s life moved the scales back toward the First Ancestor’s direct and simple teaching.

The Platform Sutra itself states that fundamentally there is no difference between “gradual” and “sudden” as they relate to enlightenment. However, the text also ascribes a lesser standing to the “gradual” idea, associating it with persons of “inferior ability.”

A key part of the Platform Sutra involves an ordination ceremony. In it, Huineng introduces what he terms the “signless precepts,” “signless penitence,” and the “signless refuges.” The idea of “signless” is here related to Huineng’s emphasis on the nature of the mind as central to the Zen perspective, and punctuates this idea’s importance in the tradition. Huineng focuses on thought and its contents as the arena fundamental to Zen practice and the place where genuine morality and penitence is practiced. Thus the monks in Huineng’s ceremony are called on to say “All my former evil karma arising from ignorance, I fully confess and acknowledge, so that in a single moment it is extinguished, to not arise again forever.…Thoughts of former times, thoughts of the present, and thoughts of the future, all these will never again be carelessly defiled.” Similarly, Huineng changes the “three refuges” taken by the monks in his ceremony. Buddhists take refuge in the “three jewels” of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—traditionally referring to the historical Buddha, his teachings, and the community of Buddhist followers; in the ceremony described in the Platform Sutra Huineng says, “Buddha is awakening, Dharma is rectitude, and Sangha is purity.” Then he calls on the novitiates to take refuge in these three mental characteristics.

This emphasis on mental penitence as opposed to simply foreswearing sinful acts reflects a key component of how Zen remained independent and flourished in the “Southern school.” By tilting the emphasis of the precepts toward mental penitence, the Platform Sutra, the “Treasure Text of the Zen Tradition,” subtly changed the precepts to permit Buddhism to flourish in China’s conditions. Huineng’s Southern Zen has been termed the “Sixth Ancestor’s Revolution.” Undoubtedly, his synthesis of different streams of Mahayana Buddhism reflects the special insight of a talented and key historical figure.

China’s Southern school Zen monks, in order to remain independent in their mountain monasteries far from the court, engaged in certain economic activities such as farming, which contradicted Buddhist admonitions against harming life and living only by dana, or donations. The evolution of the bodhisattva precepts, of which there were many versions, as well as the “signless precepts” of Huineng, reflected the adaption of Buddhism to Chinese society. By placing more emphasis on mental purity, ethical questions about not harming life and the related precepts were adapted in the practical conditions of China’s Buddhist development.

Huineng resided as abbot at Baolin (“Precious Woods”) Monastery near Shaozhou.
^31
,
32
According to tradition, he had twenty-six disciples. Among them were Nanyue Huairang and Qingyuan Xingsi, through whom all of the five most famous “houses” of the Southern school of Zen traced their ancestry to Huineng.

Many stories and legends about Huineng’s life and teaching remain part of Zen lore. The events offered below are recorded in the Zen classic texts,
The Ancestral Hall Collection
and the Platform Sutra.