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

In The Flower Garland Sutra there is a description of the masters of enlightenment, or Bodhisattvas, who come into the world to bring others to spiritual knowledge. Described in this version as “enlightening beings”, they are often not what they seem :

Some appear in the form of mendicants, some in the
form of priests, some in bodies adorned head to foot
with particular emblematic signs, some in the form of
scholars, scientists, doctors; some in the form of
merchants, some in the form of ascetics, some in the
form of entertainers, some in the form of pietists, some
in the form of bearers of all kinds of arts and crafts
— they are seen to have come, in their various guises, to
all villages, cities, towns, communities, districts, and
nations … (They) are lamps shedding light
on the knowledge of all beings … for the purpose of
leading people to perfection.

Hui Neng (638-713 CE), the sixth Patriarch of Ch’an Buddhism was clearly an enlightening being. Apparently illiterate, born into poverty because of the exile and death of his father, rising to be patriarch from the lowly position of rice pounder in a monastery kitchen, he founded the Zen that we know today.

Zen Buddhism is a poet’s path. Although its objectives are beyond words and concepts, yet words are among the skilful means it uses to take the voyager to the other shore, despite its hard-won reputation as a “scripture without words”. It is perhaps no coincidence that Zen is steeped in the evocative poetry of China and Japan, and that many of the scriptures are expressed in verse or canticle. No doubt this made memorizing simpler, but it also adds an additional dimension to the meaning of the texts. For example, a Zen poem is regarded as successful if it awakens in us a direct perception of a timeless moment.

The old pond.
A frog jumps in.
Plop!

The onomatopoeic “plop” gives us a shock of recognition. Indeed, the English translation here is probably better than the Japanese original (Mizu-no oto! — “watersound”) As a poem, in English terms, it is a bit deficient because it doesn’t seem to say anything. But for just an instant we are at the pondside and our discursive tendency retreats before the truth of a real Zen experience. It is a moment of “mindfulness”, the central method of zazen and Buddhist insight meditation. Fittingly, the story of Hui Neng’s rise to prominence begins with two poems :

Our body is the Bodhi-tree,
Our mind a mirror bright.
We wipe and polish them every day,
To let no dust alight.

This was written secretly at dead of night on the wall of Tung Ch’an monastery by Shen Hsui, the leading candidate for the mantle of the fifth Patriarch who was approaching death.

The master, sensing who had written it, summoned the author and told him, “Your stanza shows that you have not yet realised the essence of mind (Buddha-mind). So far you have reached the “door of enlightenment”, but you have not yet entered it … To attain supreme enlightenment, one must be able to know spontaneously one’s own nature, or Buddha-mind, which is neither created nor can it be annihilated.”

The layman, Hui Neng, who worked in the granary and kitchens, felt he could do better. He persuaded a visiting official to write his stanza on the corridor wall :

Since there is no Bodhi-tree,
Nor sign of a mirror bright,
And because no object ever was,
Where can the dust alight?

Read the rest of this entry »

Go To Part One.

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

Despite his wordless doctrine, Bodhidharma is credited with the writing of some important texts. This may not be precisely the case, as it often happens in Eastern religions that some may have been put down “in his style” by disciples after his death.

Among the works said to have been composed by the master, one of the most important was discovered at the turn of the 20th Century in the Tun Huang caves in China. This important text is known variously as A Dialogue on the Contemplation Extinguished, A Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition, or, more happily in a newer translation from the Zen Centre in London, The Ceasing of Notions.

This is a remarkable work which, though set down more than a thousand years ago, remains fascinatingly modern. It tells of a dialogue between Master Nyuri and his (almost) intractable pupil, Emmon. The encounter opens with the main theme of Bodhidharma’s Zen, that of pacifying the mind, here called heart (the Chinese character has both meanings).

Emmon: What is called heart? And how is the heart
pacified?
Master: You should not assume a heart, then there
is no need to pacify it. That is called pacifying the heart.
Emmon: But if there is no heart, then how can we learn
the Way?
Master: The heart cannot conceive of the Way, so why
should the Way depend on the heart?

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Bodhidharma’s fierce-looking exterior effectively masks his underlying wisdom, as well as the compassion which took him to China to spread the Dharma. His life spanned the years 448 to 527 AD, although there is some confusion over dates, with a few scholars placing him decades earlier. The year of his arrival in China varies from 486 to 527. The one more generally accepted is 520. Either way, the journey from tropical India via bandit-infested passes and the terrifying cold of the high Himalayas, or alternatively by a hazardous sea voyage, marks him out as a man forgetful of his own bodily needs and comforts, a mentality he was to prove many times in the succeeding years.

He arrived in Nanking where he attended on the Emperor Liang Wu Ti and conducted the famous interview already quoted.

“What is the nature of the holy Dharma?” asks the Emperor.
“Vast emptiness, nothing holy.” cries Bodhidharma.

It is a classic case of non-communication. The Emperor speaks from a relative understanding of Buddhism, while the sage talks from the absolute plane of Buddha-mind. Seeing the error in the ruler’s understanding, should Bodhidharma perhaps have given him further instruction? Here was the man whose prescript was “A wordless doctrine outside the scriptures, direct perception of the nature of being, seeing into one’s own nature as Buddhahood.” The Chinese ruler had failed to understand the direct pointing the master had transmitted. Perhaps Bodhidharma felt he was not yet ripe for further instruction.

Whatever the situation, Bodhidharma left the capital and crossed the Yangtze River, heading North to Loyang in Honan Province, where he came upon the now famous Shao Lin monastery. At this time, far from being a centre of the deadly martial arts, it was a translation point for more than five thousand volumes of Buddhist texts being collected from all over India.

The monks, not surprisingly, were rather nervous of the great man’s brand of wordless Buddhism, which, if allowed to prosper, would undoubtedly throw them out of work. Bodhidharma faced the same reactions as did the Luddites in a 19th Century Manchester cotton mill.

Accordingly, he was banished to a cave outside the monastery, where he placed himself before a cliff face and spent the next nine years contemplating the wall in complete silence (the reader will note that there is a symbolic element in this story). Visitors were attracted to this strange figure. How many of them, one wonders, understood his silent transmission that their minds should be like the wall, utterly imperturbable in the face of the world’s clamour, serenely ungrasping towards the ghosts of form?

Recently discovered manuscripts, ostensibly written by Bodhidharma himself, throw more light on the great meditator’s wall-like attitude of mind:

Those Buddhists who discipline themselves in the
doctrine of absolute Buddhahood should make their
minds like a piece of rock … The Dharma has no
magnitude, no form, no altitude. To illustrate: here
is a big stone in the court attached to your house.
You sit on it, sleep on it, and have no feeling of
fear. One day you suddenly conceive the idea of
painting a picture on it. You hire an artist and
have a Buddha’s figure painted on it and you take
it for a Buddha. No longer dare you sleep on it, you
are fearful of desecrating the image, which was
originally nothing but a huge rock. It is due to the
change in your mind that you no more sleep on it. And
what is this so-called mind too? It is your own brush
pieced out of your imagination, which has
turned the stone into the Buddha-figure … All is
mind made.

Eventually, the Abbot of the monastery relented and Bodhidharma was allowed into the club to become the first Patriarch of Ch’an Buddhism in China.

Go to Part Five.

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

The central figure among committed Buddhists, at least in the Mahayana (the “Great Vehicle” of northern Buddhism), is the Bodhisattva, who exhibits a care and concern for fellow creatures based on an interweaving of wisdom (prajna) and compassion (karuna). That is to say, compassion is always tempered by wisdom in that a Bodhisattva’s avowed intent is to carry all beings to enlightenment with him (or her — it is interesting that in The Flower Garland Sutra, most of the great Bodhisattvas are women). The rules followed include the Ten Grave Precepts:

1. Not to kill.
2. Not to take what is not given.
3. Not to abuse passions.
4. Not to lie.
5. Not to use intoxicants.
6. Not to slander others.
7. Not to praise oneself.
8. Not to value possessions.
9. Not to harbour ill-will.
10. Not to abuse the Three Treasures :

1) The Buddha (or awakening).
2) The Dharma (or teaching).
3) The Sangha (or community of Buddhists).

The Bodhisattva “takes refuge” in the Three Treasures of enlightenment, law and community as a pledge of commitment to the general aims of Buddhism. This is the nearest that Buddhists get to an institutional church, except perhaps in the Tibetan diaspora which has a more cohesive structure.

Bodhisattvas, therefore, seeks enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient and insentient beings. Their own benefit never arises since they are practising a non-dual philosophy. The guidelines include the Six Virtues, or Paramitas:

1. Giving - all forms of generosity.
2. Morality.
3. Patience.
4. Vigour.
5. Meditation.
6. Higher wisdom.

The paramitas are regarded as expedient means for living in the highest realm of our being. These realms are often taken for separate worlds into which people are born according to their karma. In fact, they are psychological states which exist within us (as potential) at all times. The realms are:

1. The hells.
2. Hungry ghosts.
3. Animal realm.
4. Fighting demons.
5. Human realm.
6. Heavenly realm.

Depending on our mood, we are always in one or other of these realms. For example, when we crave for the things of this world we are in the realm of the “hungry ghosts”. When we act out of pure aggression or anger, we are in the animal realm. Buddhists stress that enlightenment is only possible from the human realm, so ours is a fortunate birth which must not be squandered.

Above these six realms are the Holy States, or Grades of Buddhahood:

1. Hearers of the Buddha’s teaching.
2. Private Buddhas (some imply “selfish” here).
3. Bodhisattvas.
4. Buddhas.

Taken together, the ten realms and states of being, represent the nature of life. By practice and correct endeavour, we can improve our lot in this life and make the ascent Buddhaward. It is important to realise, though, that all these states are ever with us, even the supreme realm of full enlightenment. We just have to attain the state in which it becomes visible. That is the essence of Buddhism.

The Buddhist classification of human life, taken together with its psychology and high aspiration, represents one of the noblest attempt to make sense of the universal mystery. It has proved its efficiency over more than 2500 years, among many different types of people to whom it has given meaning and satisfaction. Astonishingly it is still growing, especially in the West, where it appeals increasingly to scientists working at the speculative edge of modern thought, and to ecologists who understand the healing (or holistic) nature of the Buddhist view of the world.

This then was the philosophical, psychological and religious inheritance which Bodhidharma represented when he arrived in China in the 6th Century. As has been noted, his methods and manner brought no comfort to the average Chinese Buddhist, who by now had probably grown rather self-satisfied and set in his ways.

Much that is legend has been woven about the remarkable character of Bodhidharma — P’u-t’i-ta-mo in China, Daruma in Japan. He was, it is said, the third son of a king in southern India, where a meditation sect, not unlike Advaita Vedanta, held sway. He was born into a period of unprecedented religious activity. Joseph Campbell points out that “between the lifetime of Confucius…and the legendary date of the coming to China of the Indian Buddhist sage Bodhidharma (520), the basic texts and principles of Confucian, Taoist, and Chinese Buddhist thought were established.”

Go to Part Four.