Zen Masters Of China. Richard Bryan McDaniel

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      The story of Dajian Huineng is one of the best known in the Zen tradition and is recorded in a document entitled The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. This purports to be a transcript of statements made by Huineng from his seat on the platform in the meditation hall. It begins with his account of how he came to be Hongren’s successor.

      He tells his disciples that his father had been a disgraced government official who had died when Huineng was only three years old, leaving his wife and child in extreme poverty. Once the boy was old enough, he took on the responsibility of supporting his mother by gathering and selling firewood. As a commoner, he had no schooling, and, in the chronicles of Zen, stress is put on the fact that he was not able to read or write.

      When he in his mid-twenties, he was going about his rounds and happened to hear a man chanting a sutra. Although Huineng was unfamiliar with the sutra, when he heard the phrase “let thought arise without resting it anywhere” he came to a deep spontaneous awakening. He asked the man what he was reciting and was told that it was the Diamond Sutra.

      “How did you come by this sutra?” Huineng inquired.

      “I visited the East Mountain Monastery,” the man explained, “and the master there gave it to me.”

      “And who’s that master?”

      “He’s Master Hongren, who is called the Fifth Patriarch, and he has one thousand monks studying with him. But he encourages even laypeople to recite this sutra so that they might realize their true nature, their Buddha-nature, for themselves. If you want to learn about this sutra, he’s the man you should go to see.”

      Huineng was eager to visit the Fifth Patriarch, but he first needed to arrange for his mother’s care. Fortunately, a villager who learned of his desire to travel to East Mountain provided him with a sum of money that ensured his mother’s security. Once the appropriate arrangements had been made, he set out on the journey that took thirty days to complete.

      The Fifth Patriarch received Huineng formally, asking his name and inquiring where he had come from. The young man replied that he was a commoner from Guangdong in the South and that he had come to East Mountain in order to attain Buddhahood.

      The patriarch tested Huineng by asking: “How is it possible for someone like you to attain Buddhahood? Southerners are barbarians and don’t have Buddha-nature.”

      Undeterred, Huineng responded: “There may be Southerners and there may be Northerners, but what has that to do with Buddha-nature?”

      “You are a very clever barbarian,” Hongren said. “But you aren’t a monk, so you can’t stay in the monastery. Report to the granary. You may begin work there.”

      The young man was put to work hulling rice and splitting firewood. It is said that he was so slight that he had to have a stone tied to his belt in order to give him enough weight to trample the rice.

      He worked without any instruction from Hongren for eight months before the master came to see how he was doing. At that time, the patriarch confirmed Huineng’s awakening. “Among the monks in this monastery there are none who have attained what you have attained,” he added. “Instead of striving to open their mind’s eye, they seek only to accumulate merit in hopes of obtaining a more auspicious rebirth in the future. If they heard that a layman, an illiterate lad at that, had achieved awakening, they wouldn’t believe it, and they might do you harm. Or they might come to lose respect for the teachings of Buddhism altogether. So for a while, you and I will keep this secret.”

      Huineng agreed to do as the master instructed. He kept away from the monks’ quarters and the meditation hall, and he pursued his chores in the granary.