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This conceptualization of enlightenment, a significant evolution from previous Chinese Buddhist definitions of enlightenment, was the cornerstone of Hui-neng’s Buddhist theories, which were presented in the Platform Sutra, a “remarkable text, the only work by a Chinese called a Sutra” that is now a part of the Buddhist canon (Wills, 1994, p. 119). As Suzuki (1961) explains, “[t]he title ‘Sūtra’ has generally been given to writings ascribed to the Buddha or those somehow personally connected with him” (p. 218). For this reason, the fact that “a collection of the sermons of Hui-nêng has been so honoured shows what a significant position he occupies in the history of Chinese Buddhism” (Suzuki, 1961, p. 218). Wills (1994) claims that “Hui-neng’s importance in the history of Chan was consolidated by the transmission and widespread study” of this “remarkable text” (p. 119), and that through its teachings, Hui-neng was able to facilitate “sudden great awakenings…in many of his students, sometimes after only a brief conversation” (Wills, 1994, p. 119). The Platform Sutra is considered remarkable for many reasons. First, it is highly personal and even autobiographical, which may seem out of place “in a teaching that insists that the individual self is illusion and counsels its annihilation” (Wills, 1994, p. 119). However, Hui-neng’s unusual background and unconventional path to Buddhist enlightenment could have been seen as inspiring and particularly revelatory for the commoner, who could perhaps relate better to Hui-neng than his predecessor patriarchs, cloaked as they were in spiritual mystery and seemingly inaccessible. By opening the Platform Sutra in this way, and by maintaining a candid, and even intimate personal voice throughout, Hui-neng conveys central Buddhist teachings effectively and spreads them to a wider audience.
The format of the Platform Sutra is also remarkable and hints at the qualities which made the Sutra so effective and appealing. Quite logically, Hui-neng develops his lessons in the order in which he himself learned them, and as such, they are concordant with his own chronological personal history. Yet he is more clever and thoughtful still, presenting the lessons in a variety of genres and styles. The lessons of the Platform Sutra are conveyed in poems, fragments of conversations, prosodic meditations, and sermons (Wills, 1994). As often as possible, the prose is open and even conversational, lacking the tone and formality that might be expected of a sacred text. In the opening sermon of the Platform Sutra, for instance, Hui-neng addresses his audience as “Good friends,” a term which he returns to throughout the sermon. This form of address is warm and inviting, and when repeated, as it is, establishes a certain tone, rhythm, and lyrical quality that makes the Sutra pleasant to hear and equally pleasant to read.
What is also remarkable about the Platform Sutra, particularly in this opening sermon, is the clarity with which Hui-neng speaks about ideas and phenomena that were traditionally discussed with a certain cryptic dialectic, using koans and riddles in which symbols and metaphors had greater weight and value than direct speech. Hui-neng breaks that mold completely, and in the opening sermon no less. Without hesitation, Hui-neng begins to expound upon his view of enlightenment, conveying his insistence that it is possible for enlightenment to occur without warning or expectation. He also challenges some of the most important tenets of traditional Buddhism, especially the ideas of non-thought, non-form, and non-abiding. What is more, Hui-neng urges his listeners to evaluate his and other Buddhists’ contentions using their own critical faculty. He calls upon his listeners to “separate yourselves from fixed opinions” (in Willis, 1994, p. 123), and to come to their own understanding of enlightenment and transformation based on careful thought and the wisdom of observation and experience. One of the possible benefits of this direct, unadorned, yet passionate speaking style of Hui-neng was that it facilitated the transmission of ideas to an even broader audience, with the possibility of lessons being passed down “mind-to-mind” (Heine, 2000, p. 95). Indeed, Zen Buddhist scholar Heine (2000) suggests that Hui-neng “became a fitting symbol of Ch’an ‘mind to mind transmission’ (i-hsin ch’uan-hsin) and a ‘special transmission outside the teaching,’ freed of the alleged limitations of Buddhist doctrinal teaching” (Heine, 2000, p. 95). This direct form of address was not without consequence, however. Suzuki (1961) wrote that there are reports in the history indicating that Hui-neng’s Platform Sutra was burned. Nonetheless, he is viewed by many contemporary scholars as the “real Chinese founder of Zen Buddhism” (Suzuki, 1961, p. 218).
There is still another quality of Hui-neng that suggests just how different he was from his preceding patriarchs. While this quality is hinted at in openness and directness that characterizes the Platform Sutra, it gained its full expression in Hui-neng’s person-to-person interactions (Heine, 2000). Through his individual contacts and conversations “Hui-neng is represented as enlightened, not [solely] by any doctrine he pronounces or essay he produces, but rather in his interactions with the figures around him (Heine, 2000, p. 56). Heine (2000) and Gregory (1987) both suggest that even more important than Hui-neng’s Platform Sutrai was the fact that Hui-neng was a walking lesson. Even Hui-neng’s most devoted and disciplined student, Shen-hui, “never quote[d] his mater’s sayings” in his own written work (p. 227). Instead, Hui-neng conveyed his teachings to Shen-hui so effectively through “mind verses” that Shen-hui was able to equilibrate his master’s teaching style by developing his own style, thereby “expressing a rarified understanding of the ‘perfect teaching’ of constant bodhisattvic practice” (Gregory, 1987, p. 228). Indeed, one may see Shen-hui’s failure to incorporate Hui-neng’s teachings in his own work as the ultimate expression of admiration for his teacher, who believed that each individual was capable of “open[ing] a spiritual eye and by ourselves see into the Nature [that] knows no multiplicity” (Suzuki, 1961, p. 219). Hui-neng also had urged his disciplines to “not depend upon letters, but let your own Prajñā illumine within yourself” (in Suzuki, 1961, p. 219), or, in Hershock’s (1994) words, to “look into our own nature and become buddhas” (p. 701).
As Hui-neng approached his later years, he penned a final address to his fellow Chan Buddhists, in which his last lesson, first developed in the Platform Sutra, was emphasized. He wrote, “If you are only peacefully calm and quiet, without motion, without stillness, without birth, without destruction, without coming, without going, without judgments of right and wrong, without staying and without leaving, this then is the Great Way” (in Wills, 1994, p. 125). His followers, including the disciple Shen-hui, would continue to build upon his written lessons, as well as those that he modeled through his deeds. Ultimately, the Platform Sutra was a crucial document that we now consider central to the development of Buddhist thought and practice. However, Hui-neng’s entire life read as a book, for he seemed to live his life according to the principles that he so directly and openly shared with his audience. Without provoking division intentionally, Hui-neng fearlessly developed his own conceptualization of Buddhism and shared it with those who wanted to listen and learn from Hui-neng’s unusual experiences. Hui-neng’s core beliefs, developed and conveyed in the Platform Sutra, remain significant to contemporary Buddhist practitioners, and represent an important development in the history of this religious and spiritual movement.
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References
Gregory, P.N. (1987). Sudden and gradual: Approaches to enlightenment in Chinese thought.
Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
Heine, S. (2000). The Koan: Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Heine, S. (2004). Opening a mountain: Koans of the Zen masters. New York: Oxford University Press.
Heine, S., & Wright, D.S. (2004). The Zen canon: Understanding the classic texts. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hershock, P.D. (1994). Person as narration: The dissolution of “self” and “other” in Ch’An Buddhism. Philosophy East and West, 44(4), 695-721.
McRae, J.R. (2003). Seeing through Zen: Encounter, transformation, and genealogy in Chinese
Chan Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Suzuki, D.T. (1961). Essays in Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press.
Wills, J.E. (1994). Mountain of fame: Portraits in Chinese history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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