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:
“This body is the Bodhi-tree,
The soul is like a mirror bright;
Take heed to keep it always clean,
And let not dust collect on it.”[4.50]
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 Bodhi is not like the tree,
The mirror bright is nowhere shining;
As there is nothing from the first,
Where can the dust itself collect?”[4.51]
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 years[f100] 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:
“The teaching of all the Buddhas
In one’s own Mind originally exists:
To seek the Mind without one’s Self,
Is like running away from the father.”
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:
“While living, one sits up and lies not,
When dead, one lies and sits not;
A set of ill-smelling skeleton!
What is the use of toiling and moiling?”[4.55]
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.”