Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series

Chih-huang was an adept in meditation which he studied under the fifth patriarch. After twenty years’ discipline he thought he well understood the purport of meditation or samadhi. Hsüan-ts‘ê, learning his attainment, visited him and said, “What are you doing there?” “I am entering into a samadhi.” “You speak of entering, but how do you enter into samadhi—with a thought-ful mind or with a thought-less mind? If you say with a thought-less mind, all non-sentient beings such as plants or bricks could attain samadhi. If you say with a thought-ful mind, all sentient beings could attain it.” “When I enter into samadhi,” said Chih-huang, “I am not conscious of either being thoughtful or being thoughtless.” “If you are conscious of neither, you are right in samadhi all the while; why do you then talk at all of entering into it or coming out of it? If however there is really entering or coming out, it is not Great Samadhi.” Chih-huang did not know how to answer. After a while he asked who was Hsüan-ts‘ê’s teacher and what was his understanding of samadhi. Said Hsüan-ts‘ê,[4.58] “Hui-nêng is my teacher, and according to him, [the ultimate truth] lies mystically serene and perfectly quiet; substance and function are not to be separated, they are of one Suchness. The five skandhas are empty in their nature, and the six sense-objects have no reality. [The truth knows of] neither entering nor going out, neither being tranquil nor disturbed. Dhyana in essence has no fixed abode. Without attaching yourself to an abode, be serene in dhyana.

Dhyana in essence is birthless; without attaching yourself to the thought of birth [-and-death] think in dhyana. Have your mind like unto space and yet have no thought of space.” Thus learning of the sixth patriarch’s view on samadhi or dhyana, Chih-huang came to the master himself and asked to be further enlightened. Said the patriarch, “What Hsüan-ts‘ê told you is true. Have your mind like unto space and yet entertain in it no thought of emptiness. Then the truth will have its full activity unimpeded. Every movement of yours will come out of an innocent heart and the ignorant and the wise will have an equal treatment in your hands. Subject and object will lose their distinction, and essence and appearance will be of one suchness. [When a world of absolute oneness is thus realised,] you have attained to eternal samadhi.”

To make the position of the sixth patriarch on the subject of meditation still clearer and more definite, let me quote another incident from his Platform Sutra. A monk once made reference to a gāthā composed by Wo-luan which read as follows [4.59]:

These will be sufficient to show that Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, was on the one hand no quietist, nor nihilist advocating the doctrine of absolute emptiness, while on the other hand he was no idealist either, in the sense of denying an objective world. His dhyana was full of action, yet above a world of particulars, so long as it was not carried away by it and in it.

4. Hui-nêng’s method of demonstrating the truth of Zen was purely Chinese and not Indian. He did not resort to abstract terminology nor to romantic mysticism. The method was direct, plain, concrete, and highly practical. When the monk Ming came to him and asked for instruction, he said, “Show me your original face before you were born.” Is not the statement quite to the point? No philosophic discourse, no elaborate reasoning, no mystic imagery, but a direct unequivocal dictum. In this the sixth patriarch cut the first turf and his disciples quickly and efficiently followed in his steps. Notice how brilliantly Lin-chi made use of this method in his sermon on a “true man of no title.” (See the “Introduction.”)

To give another instance. When Hui-nêng saw Huai-jang, of Nan-yüeh, he said, “Whence comest thou?” which was followed by “What is it that so cometh?”[4.60] It took for Huai-jang eight long years to answer the question satisfactorily. Afterwards this way of questioning became almost an established form of greeting with Zen masters. Nan-yüan asked a newly arrived monk, “Whence comest thou?” “I am from Han-shang.” Said the master, “You are at fault as much as I am.”[4.61] Hsiang-yên asked San-shêng, “Whence comest thou?” “From Lin-chi.” “Bringest thou his sword?” San-shêng took up his seat-cloth (tso-chu) and struck Hsiang-yên across his mouth and went away.[4.62] The Venerable Ch‘en asked a monk, “Whence comest thou?” “From Yang-shan.” “Thou art a liar!” was the verdict of the master.[4.63] Another time he asked another monk, “Whence comest thou?” “From West of the River, sir.” “How many sandals hast thou worn out?” This monk had evidently a gentler treatment.

This difference of method between the Indian and the Chinese often raised the question as to the difference, if there be, between the “Tathagata Dhyana” and the “Patriarchal Dhyana.” For instance, when Hsiang-yên showed his song of poverty to Yang-shan, the latter said, “You understand the Tathagata Dhyana but not yet the Patriarchal Dhyana.” When asked about the difference, Mu-chou replied, “The green mountains are green mountains, and the white clouds are white clouds.”[4.64]

Hui-nêng died at the age of seventy-six in A.D. 712, while the T‘ang dynasty was enjoying its halcyon days and Chinese culture reached the highest point in its history. A little over one hundred years after the passing of the sixth patriarch, Liu Tsung-yüan, one of the most brilliant literati in the history of Chinese literature, wrote a memorial inscription on his tomb-stone when he was honoured by the Emperor Hsien-tsung with the posthumous title, Great Mirror (tai-chien),and in this we read[4.65]: “In a sixth transmission after Dharma there was Tai-chien. He was first engaged in menial labour and servile work. Just a few words from the master were enough and he at once understood the deepest meaning conveyed in them. The master was greatly impressed and finally conferred on him an insignia of faith. After that he hid himself in the southern district, nobody heard of him again for sixteen years when he thought the time was ripe for him to come out of the seclusion. He was settled at Ts‘ao-ch‘i and began to teach. The number of disciples is said once to have reached several thousands. According to his doctrine, non-doing is reality, emptiness is the truth, and the ultimate meaning of things is vast and immovable. He taught that human nature in its beginning as well as in the end is thoroughly good and does not require any artificial weeding-out, for it has its root in that which is serene. The Emperor Chung-tsung heard of him and sent his courtier twice asking him to appear at Court but failed to get him out.

So the Emperor had his words instead which he took for his spiritual guidance. The teaching [of the sixth patriarch] in detail is generally accessible to-day; all those who talk at all about Zen find their source of information in Ts‘ao-ch‘i.”f103

After Hui-nêng Zen was split up into several schools, two of which have survived even down to this day, in China as well as in Japan. The one represented by Hsing-szŭ, of Ch‘ing-yüan, (died 740), continues now as the Soto (Ts‘ao-tung) school of Zen, and the other coming down the line of Huai-jang, of Nan-yüeh (677–744),[4.66] is now represented by the Rinzai (Lin-chi) school. Though much modified in various aspects, the principle and spirit of Zen Buddhism is still alive as it was in the days of the sixth patriarch, and as one of the great spiritual heritages of the East it is still wielding its unique influence especially among the cultured people in Japan.