A Life of Hui Neng by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

As the fame of the sixth Patriarch spread throughout the Middle Kingdom, he became known to the Imperial Household. The story is told of dharma masters Hui An and Shen Hsui (none other than Hui Neng’s old rival, the leader of the Northern school) modestly suggesting that the Emperor and dowager Empress should consult the Patriarch. The Emperor then issued an edict requesting that “His Holiness” graciously favour them with an early visit to the capital. When Hui Neng declined on grounds of ill-health, the courtier began to question the master on his method of meditation. Hui Neng was typically iconoclastic.

The Tao is to be realised by the mind, and does
not depend on the sitting position…Strictly speaking,
there is even no such thing as “attainment”; why then
should we bother ourselves about the sitting position?

The courtier then asked what he should report to Their Majesties about Hui Neng’s teaching.

From the point of view of ordinary men, enlightenment
and ignorance are two separate things. Wise men
who realise thoroughly the essence of mind know that
they are of the same nature. This same nature or non-dual
nature is what is called the “real nature”, which neither
decreases in the case of ordinary men and ignorant
persons, nor increases in the case of the enlightened
sage.

It is reported that the courtier became enlightened on hearing the teaching from the lips of the master. On his return to the palace another edict was released, this time honouring Hui Neng to the nation.

“Devoting his life to the practice of Buddhism for our benefit, he is indeed the ‘field of merit’ of the nation. Like Vimalakirti … he widely spreads the Mahayana teaching…and expounds the system of the Non-Dual Law … In appreciation of the graciousness of the Patriarch, we present to him herewith a (Korean Buddhist robe of great value) and a crystal bowl.”

Moreover, the local Prefect was ordered to renovate his monastery and convert his residence into a temple. Honoured by the people and his Emperor, the old sage was rapidly approaching his paranirvana (leaving his body at death). His sutra records that in the 7th Moon of the year of Jen Tzu, the 1st year of T’ai Chi or Yen Ho Era (712 AD), the Patriarch ordered his disciples to build a stupa (Buddhist shrine). When it was completed the following year, he addressed the assembled monks and told them that he would depart this life before the next moon. At this news most of the assembly burst into tears. The one exception was praised by the Patriarch.

“(He) is the only one here who has attained that state of mind which sees no difference in good and evil, knows neither sorrow nor happiness, and is unmoved by praise or blame.”

He castigated the others for the lack of enlightenment in their response. Still teaching and passing on his wisdom, he continued:

“Are you worrying for me because I do not know whither I shall go? But I do know: otherwise I couldn’t tell you beforehand what will happen … (If you knew) there would be no occasion for you to cry. In suchness there is neither coming nor going, neither becoming nor cessation.”

The head monk Fa Hai asked Hui Neng who would inherit the robe and bowl of the patriarchate. The master replied that all his sermons should be copied into a volume entitled Sutra Spoken on the High Seat of the Treasure of the Law, and the book circulated and passed down from generation to generation.

The practice of the transmission of the robe was to be discontinued, as he had been instructed by his own master, the fifth Patriarch, Hung Yen. All his disciples were to propagate the Dharma from his own words and from the teachings contained in his sutra. He then quoted a stanza of Bodhidharma to justify his decision:

The object of my coming to this land (China)
Is to transmit the Dharma for the deliverance of those
under delusion.
In five petals (i.e. patriarchates) the flowers will be
complete.
Thereafter, the fruit will come to bearing naturally.

Much of this, of course, has the flavour of later, pious additions. Hui Neng’s own transmission to the world and to us is contained in the deceptively simple words which spring out from his sutra:

It is not impossible for … men to realize the
Buddha-nature, provided they acquaint themselves with
the nature of ordinary sentient beings … Within our
mind there is Buddha (enlightenment), and that
Buddha within is the real Buddha. If Buddha is not
to be sought within our mind, where shall we find the
real Buddha?

His last stanza reveals the nature of the Buddha-mind:
Imperturbable and serene the ideal man practises no virtue.

Self-possessed and dispassionate, he commits no sin.
Calm and silent, he gives up seeing and hearing.
Even and upright his mind abides nowhere.

At the third watch of the night, Hui Neng said to his disciples: “I am going now”.

In The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, Suzuki writes, “Prajna … becomes one of the chief issues discussed in the (Platform Sutra), and this is where the current of Zen thought deviates from the course it had taken from the time of Bodhidharma.”

Hui Neng’s teachings on prajna begin his sutra of the Treasure of the Law, and runs like a connecting thread throughout his subsequent life and work. It constitutes his main legacy to human understanding.

You should know that as far as Buddha-nature is
concerned, there is no difference between an
enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the
difference is that one realises it, while the other
does not … Those who recite the word “prajna” the
whole day long do not seem to know that prajna is
inherent in their own nature … You should know that
the mind is very great in capacity, since it pervades
the whole (universe). When we use it, we can know
something of everything, and when we use it to its
full capacity we shall know all. All in one and one
in all. When the mind works without hindrance, and is
at liberty to “come” or to “go”, then it is in a
state of prajna.

Down the years, many Buddhists have reported that their first flash of enlightenment came through the reading of the Sutra of Hui Neng.

A Life of Hui Neng by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

Hui Neng believed that the “quick-witted” were quite capable of enlightening themselves, but those who were not (perhaps those who on reading the Diamond Sutra think it less than profound), should take advice from learned Buddhists who understand the highest teachings.

“On the other hand, those who enlighten themselves need no extraneous help. It is wrong to insist upon the idea that without the advice of the pious and learned we cannot obtain liberation. Why? Because it is by our innate wisdom that we enlighten ourselves, and even the extraneous help and instructions of a pious and learned friend would be of no use if we were deluded by false doctrines and erroneous views. Should we introspect our mind with real prajna, all erroneous views would be vanquished in a moment, and as soon as we know the essence of mind we arrive immediately at the Buddha stage.”

Apart from the conjunction of concentration and prajna, Hui Neng taught a method of living in the Buddha-mind which he called kung teh. He explained that to keep the mind within in a humble and non-grasping mode is “kung”. To behave outwardly with dignity and propriety is “teh”. Realisation of the Buddha-mind is kung, while equanimity in behaviour is teh.

“When our mental activity works without any impediment, so that we are in a position to know constantly the true state and the mysterious functioning of our own mind, we are said to have acquired kung teh.”

If we treat others with disrespect because of our inflated views of our self, we lack kung and do not know the Buddha- mind; thus we also lack teh. If our mind functions naturally without ego, this is kung; if it produces a straight-forward approach to things, this is teh. To train the mind is kung, and to train the body is the. This bears more than a passing resemblance to the ancient Chinese doctrine of yin and yang.

Hui Neng’s way of kung teh may be summarised as turning the light inward to realise the Buddha-mind, which then manifests outwardly as enlightened behaviour. He would have no truck with forms and rituals, or the seeking of merits by alms-giving or good works. The latter should be performed without any expectation of reward, as in the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. Merit comes from within, from the Buddha-mind, not as a gift from without, dispensed by a higher authority. To have kung teh is to live in the world as an enlightened being. When asked where to find the Buddha’s Pure Land (the Western Paradise of Amida), he cites the questioner’s own body.

“Sirs, this physical body of ours is a city. Our eyes, ears, nose, and tongue are the gates. There are five external gates, while the internal one (thought) is ideation. The mind is the ground. The Buddha-mind is the King who lives in the domain of the mind…We should work for Buddhahood within the essence of mind, and we should not look for it apart from ourselves.”

Here is another characteristic term of Hui Neng’s: essence of mind, for Buddha-mind. The third Patriarch used “timeless mind essence” so perhaps it derived from that. All these phrases refer to the ultimate reality, the Buddha-nature, unborn and unconditioned.

He also insisted that the life of a layman was no impediment to enlightenment. After all, he himself had reached Buddhahood and the patriarchate as a layman, even though he was subsequently received into the Order.

“Learned audience,” he said, addressing monks and lay guests at his monastery, “those who wish to train themselves (spiritually) may do so at home. It is quite unnecessary for them to stay in monasteries…So far as the mind is pure, it is the ‘Western Pure Land of one’s own Buddha-mind’.”

To train oneself at home he gave a series of instructions in the form of a stanza. For a fair mind, he said, moral precepts are not necessary; for straight-forward behaviour (action through non-action, the Taoist wu wei), meditation may be dispensed with. (Remember this refers to concentration, not zazen — mindfulness. It is awkward that the word “Zen” derives from dhyana, which is a concentrative technique, set against vipissana, the insight meditation of the Pali canon).

The equality of all persons should be understood, since there is “no other”. Forbearance should be a watch-word, even in a hostile crowd, then perseverance will lead to Buddha-nature appearing from the “black mire” of the unenlightened state. The aspirant should be altruistic, but never expecting reward or merit. For enlightenment is to be found “within our own mind, and there is no necessity to look for mysticism from without”.

“Learned audience,” the Patriarch added, “all of you should put into practice what is taught in this stanza, so that you can realise the Buddha-mind and attain Buddhahood directly.”

For Hui Neng, non-attachment was a fundamental principle. He also listed “idea-lessness” as the goal of his school, and “non-objectivity”, by which he meant not to be absorbed by external objects, as its basis.

“Our mind should stand aloof from circumstances, and on no account should we allow them to influence the function of our mind.”

As a caution, however, he added, “But it is a great mistake to suppress our mind from all thinking.” In India this state is known as yoga nidra, a totally unconscious condition in which the meditator is unaware of any mental or physical activity. On awakening, the subject’s mind simply reactivates at the point at which it left off. The state has no spiritual value whatever since it is absolute quiescence akin to annihilation.

Go to Part 5.

A Life of Hui Neng by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

After the transmission of the Dharma, Hui Neng fled to the south of China, taking with him the symbolic robe and bowl of the honour bestowed on him. It seems he was pursued by several hundred men, presumably jealous Northern monks who could not accept the transmission to such a lowly Southerner. However, the new patriarch confronted the most fierce of them, a former army general, Hui Ming, and enlightened him with the koan: “When you are thinking of neither good nor evil, what is your original face? (that is, real nature).” The monk asked for more esoteric information, to which Hui Neng replied, “If you turn your light inwardly, you will find what is esoteric within you.”

This was to be his method, a turning inward toward Self-being, or Buddha-mind, producing an awakening of prajna. Dih Ping Tsze, in a commentary on Hui Neng’s Platform Sutra, has said “Let it be noted that in China alone thousands of Buddhists have attained enlightenment by acting on this wise saying of the sixth Patriarch.”

The awakening of prajna, or higher wisdom, is the nub of all Hui Neng’s teaching. The gradualists of the North, adopted the Indian tradition of sitting in meditation tranquillising the thoughts and hoping that, at the appropriate moment, prajna awakens and enlightenment is attained. Here is the wiping of the mirror, or, as the Zen master said, the polishing of a brick.

Hui Neng did not accept the temporal division between meditation and the awakening of prajna. He taught that when one is present, so is the other; there is no distinction to be made between them, though I suspect his definition of meditation was more mindful than concentrative. Indian meditation (dhyana), he said, is not necessary as a prerequisite for the subsequent stirring of prajna, he thought. Dhyana is prajna, and prajna dhyana (I think the word “concentration” rather than dhyana makes more sense here).

Zen is more than just a name for meditation as is commonly thought. It contains within it the end and the means, the path and the goal, enlightenment itself. This point presumably reflects the long antipathy of Zen to Indian samatha techniques of concentration leading to samadhi (blissful stillness within meditation). A recent Zen master has termed this state, “the Devil’s cavern” because it can easily snare students into believing they have reached nirvana. In my own case, I was in this state for around a month, but my reading had told me that it was not enlightenment, however blissful the experience. It came spontaneously and it left spontaneously, and was a prelude to genuine insight, so perhaps it serves a purpose after all. It appears in Christian mysticism as the “prayer of quiet” which, St Theresa of Avila believed, is a supernatural harbinger of genuine insights to come. In Hinduism it appears as Brahmajhoti, or the touch of God.

Following Hui Neng, Zen took on a new significance, a complex of meanings that expressed the non-dual reality as Hui Neng saw it. To illustrate by going back to the haiku poem,

The old pond.
A frog jumps in,
Plop!

On first reading, there is a brief moment of recognition that goes beyond words. In that instant there is both concentration and prajna, that is, Zen. The non-verbal flash, when the word becomes a sound and ceases to have literal significance, opens up a meditative state in which prajna is present. They come together for, as the Patriarch said, they are not two.

For the observer of the scene, the poet himself, and perhaps for the susceptible reader, the distinction between observer and observed vanishes, if only momentarily before analysis comes charging back. The observer, the pond, the frog, and the “plop” merge into a seeing which has no seer or seen. There is only suchness on a plane above the normal dualities of the world.

When thought stops, there is something else there, prajna, enlightenment, behind our everyday consciousness. The goal of the doctrine of enlightenment is to prolong this token moment into a way of living in this very universe of dualities, as the Flower Garland Sutra says, “illuminated by the light of the concentration of the Buddha.” When we hear the plop, Bankei’s unborn Buddha-mind stands there fully revealed. Hui Neng developed his theme of prajna in his Platform Sutra:

Prajna does not vary with different persons; what makes
the difference is whether one’s mind is enlightened or
deluded. He who does not know his own Buddha-mind,
and is under the delusion that Buddhahood can be attained
by outward religious rites is called the slow-witted. He
who knows the teaching of the sudden school and
attaches no importance to rituals, and whose mind functions
always under right views, so that he is absolutely free
from defilements or contaminations, is said to have known
his Buddha-mind.

Go to Part 4.

A Life of Hui Neng by John M Evans. In the Zen Masters Series.

Hui Neng’s path to enlightenment and the sixth patriarchate began while he was selling firewood in the market at Kwang Chou as a young man. As he was completing a transaction he heard a man reciting a sutra in the street. The words immediately struck a chord within his mind and he experienced a kensho, or “seeing into his own nature”. The text he had heard was the famous Diamond Sutra and the reciter was from the Tung Ch’an monastery, where the Abbot was none other than Hung Yen, the fifth Patriarch of Chinese Zen.

Hui Neng must have questioned this man closely, because he learned that the Abbot encouraged not only the monks but also the laity in the reading of this scripture. He believed that by doing so they could realise their own Buddha-mind and achieve Buddhahood directly. The notion that he was not doomed to a life of poverty or excluded from enlightenment, must have fired his mind at this moment, for he soon abandoned his way of life and set off for the monastery.

There has been much discussion over the years about Hui Neng’s alleged illiteracy. Suzuki has questioned it because of the Patriarch’s apparent knowledge of other scriptures apart from The Diamond Sutra, which was so important to him. It is also true that his father held an official post before being dismissed “to be a commoner”. Although poor, such parentage would surely have had an influence on an exceptionally talented “Buddha-to-be”. The illiteracy charge may have been a subsequent fabrication by Hui Neng’s disciples to underpin Zen’s claim to be a wordless doctrine. We shall never know for certain.

Later, as the old Patriarch handed over the apostolic transmission to this Southern “barbarian” kitchen-hand he instructed Hui Neng on its future.

“From time immemorial it has been the practice for one Buddha to pass to his successor the quintessence of the Dharma, and for one patriarch to transmit to another the esoteric teaching from heart to heart (or mind to mind — the words are represented by the same character). As the robe may give you cause for dispute, you are the last one to inherit it.”

Despite the unprepossessing qualifications of the new patriarch, Zen, as we know it, began with the enlightening being, Hui Neng.

The starting point of his Zen is the Diamond Cutter (or simply, Diamond) Sutra. It is part of the mighty Perfection of Wisdom scriptures (Prajnaparamita) of the Mahayana and is thought to have been composed in the 4th Century in India — it was translated into Chinese around 400AD, and is associated with, though probably not written by, the great Indian Buddhist sage, Nagarjuna.

Opinions vary about this seminal work. There is a view that it is lightweight compared to, say, The Lankavatara Sutra. Thus an author of an otherwise excellent book on Zen culture: “…the more easily understood Diamond Sutra, a repetitive and self-praising document whose message is that nothing exists.” But in the view of A. F. Price, a translator of the scripture: “…those who have many times carefully read and thoroughly meditated upon the (sutra) have found that the mind is re-oriented in a striking way. In the light of this re-orientation the problems of life assume different proportions, and a new and clearer perspective gradually takes the place of the old.”

This was certainly true of Hui Neng, who placed the work firmly at the heart-centre of his school of Zen. His own Platform Sutra has the words: “…if you wish to penetrate the deepest mystery…of prajna, you should practise prajna by reciting and studying the (Diamond) Sutra, which will enable you to realise Buddha-mind…This sutra belongs to the highest school of Buddhism, and the Lord Buddha delivered it specially for the very wise and quick-witted.”

The Diamond Sutra is a discourse by the Buddha himself on non-duality and skylike mind. It sets out the highest Mahayana viewpoint on the dependency of individuality and phenomena, and the futility of attachment to names and concepts. At first glance, and to the materialistic mind, it can indeed seem nihilistic and self-congratulatory. However, the approach to it must be made at a deeper level than intellectual analysis. Only insight reveals its true meaning, which is to awaken the born to the unborn, the transient to the eternal. An enlightened being, says the sutra: “is free from the idea of an ego-entity, free from the idea of a personality, free from the idea of a being, and free from the idea of a separated individuality.”

Being free from ideas about these things is the understanding here, not the things themselves, which exist at least on their own terms at their normal level of functioning. In the time-honoured Buddhist phrase, they are what they are. With the ceasing of notions, all becomes clear, and, since ideas have gone, there is no room for description of any sort. Even the terms of scripture, the six paramitas, the Buddha himself, are all names, and therefore lacking in self-supporting substance.

“Words cannot explain the real nature of a cosmos. Only common people fettered to desire make use of this arbitrary method (that is, description).” This scripture does not give much comfort to the professional writer, except, of course, that without the words, we would never get the chance to read the message of the inestimable Diamond Sutra.

It follows from this, as the sutra reasons, that the Buddha himself has nothing to teach. Why? Because truth is “uncontainable and inexpressible. It neither is nor is it not.” The Diamond Sutra ends with the thought:

Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world,
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream.

This is the typical sentiment of the Prajnaparamita scriptures, which require a high spirituality for full understanding. The words themselves can be easily misconstrued by the unwary, and the prevailing mood of emptiness taken for nihilism. Huang Po’s “deathless” reality is a much more comforting version of the same truth.

On its own terms, and at the appropriate level of awareness, The Diamond Sutra is a supremely profound work. Its structure, which is largely recitative, is composed to carry a message deep beyond the nature of conditioned description, undermining the shaky foundations of the ego-entity, and revealing the clear light of truth: the “diamond in the heart of the Buddha lotus”.

Go to Part 3.