Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (12 page)

The monk Yin Zong expounded on the Buddhist sutras. One day during his lecture a storm came up. Seeing a banner waving in the wind, he asked his audience, “Is the wind moving or is the flag moving?”

Someone said, “The wind is moving.”

Someone else said, “The flag is moving.”

The two people held fast to their viewpoints and asked Yin Zong to say who was right. But Yin Zong had no way to decide, so he asked Huineng, who was standing nearby, to resolve the issue.

Huineng said, “Neither the wind nor the flag is moving.”

Yin Zong said, “Then, what is it that is moving?”

Huineng said, “Your mind is moving.”

Those who would realize the practice of nonaction must arrive at the nonperception of the errors of people. This is nonmoving nature. Deluded people simply stop the movement of their bodies, but as soon as they open their mouths they are talking about peoples’ rights and wrongs, and contradicting the Way.

In this school of Buddhism, what is it we call “sitting in Zen meditation”? In performing this practice no impediments exist. When no thoughts arise with respect to what is external, this is “sitting.” When one calmly observes original nature, this is “Zen.” So what is “sitting meditation?” Detachment from external things is “Zen.” When internally the mind is composed, this is “samadhi.”
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If one clings to external forms, then internally the mind is scattered and confused. If one is unattached to external forms, then internally the mind is composed. Original nature has self-purity and self-composure. It is only when, through causation, some condition is encountered that confusion arises. Remaining apart from form one remains unperturbed, and samadhi is realized. Externally, Zen; internally, samadhi—together they are called “sitting Zen.”

The true thusness of self nature is the real Buddha,
Perverse views and the three poisons are Mara,
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In times of delusion, Mara is in the room,
When right views prevail then Buddha is in the hall,

If the three poisons are seen in one’s nature,
Then Mara there resides,
Right views themselves root out the three poisons,
Demons become buddhas and truth has no falsehoods…

If, in this life, you can realize the dharma gate of sudden
awakening,
Then you can personally see the World-Honored One.
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But if you do not grasp this, and go on seeking Buddha,
Who knows when you may finally find true nature?

If you understand that you yourself have buddha nature,
This is the pivotal cause for becoming a buddha,
Those who don’t look in their own minds, but seek Buddha
externally,
Just waste their effort and are ignorant.

The teaching of sudden awakening formerly was transmitted
from India,
To save the people of the world it must be practiced by everyone,
Those of today who endeavor to offer the world the teachings
of Buddhism,
But know not this principle, are truly muddle-headed fools.

When Huineng finished speaking these three verses, he said to his disciples, “Each of you practice this well. Today I say goodbye to you. After I die, don’t mourn me in the usual manner of the world. If you receive other people’s condolences, offerings, and observances, or [you wear] mourning clothes, then this is not the true school and you are not my disciples. You should act as though I were still in the world—sitting completely upright, not moving or resting, without creation or passing away, not going or coming, without positive or negative, not abiding or leaving, but just in solitary peace. This is the great way. After I die, just go on practicing as before, as though I were still here. When I am in the world and you go against my teaching, it is as though my life here as abbot were meaningless.”

When he finished saying these words, at the third watch, Huineng suddenly died. He lived to the age of seventy-six.
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YUQUAN SHENXIU, “DATONG”

DATONG SHENXIU (605–706), the founder of the Northern school of Zen, was a student of the Fifth Ancestor, Daman Hongren.

Shenxiu and his students attained widespread fame and stature during the late seventh and first half of the eighth century, when they enjoyed the strong support of China’s imperial court. The Northern school thus extended and further popularized the Fifth Ancestor’s teachings, moving Zen more securely into the great crucible of Tang dynasty society.

Traditional accounts say that Shenxiu came from ancient Bianzhou (an area near modern Kaifeng City in Hebei Province). He is described as having been abnormally tall (Chinese sources say over nine feet), and to have possessed bushy eyebrows to match his handsome eyes. After studying the traditional Confucian classics and histories, he left home to become a monk. Eventually, he gained the position of senior monk in Hongren’s congregation. After his teacher’s death in 675, Shenxiu moved to Dangyang Mountain in Jiangling (near modern Jiangling City in Hubei Province). There, a great number of monks gathered to study with him. His fame spread to the capital city of Changan, and soon Empress Wu summoned him to her court to teach the Dharma, paying him special honors. He so impressed the empress that she commissioned the building of a special temple for him at Dangyang. Later, the Chinese emperors Zhong Zong and Rui Zong also honored the master, each becoming his student. Shenxiu was thus known as the “National Teacher of Three Emperors.”

According to Zen tradition, Shenxiu competed with the Sixth Ancestor, Huineng, in a legendary poetry contest at Hongren’s monastery at Huangmei. In that competition, the lowly positioned Huineng proved to have superior spiritual insight, despite the fact that Shenxiu was Hongren’s most senior student. This famous episode, well known in the religious folklore of East Asia, is the legendary seed of the growth of Zen into Northern (followers of Shenxiu) and Southern (followers of Huineng) schools. Twentieth-century scholarship has, to a large degree, undermined the evidence that this event really occurred. However, the story of the poetry contest at Huangmei remains informative, for it symbolizes the genuine doctrinal differences that many scholars believe divided the Northern and Southern Zen schools.

Because of the historical ascendancy of the Southern school of Zen after 755, the great contemporary influence of Shenxiu and his Northern school was downplayed or overlooked by later generations of scholars and Zennists. The lamp records saved little of the Northern school’s detailed history. The evidence that remains describes a Zen current faithful to the expedient practices established by the East Mountain school of Daoxin and Hongren. These practices, including chanting, sutra study, and receiving the Buddhist precepts, were instrumental to Zen’s entry into popular Chinese society. These were also the “gradualist” methods that were de-emphasized by the Sixth Ancestor’s disciple Shenhui and his followers in the Southern school.

To better understand the doctrinal differences between Shenxiu’s “Northern” and Huineng’s “Southern” Zen, it would be useful to briefly introduce the Buddhist doctrine of “mind.” The concept of “mind” is central to Zen, as well as other schools of Buddhist thought and philosophy. A Zen Buddhist teaching holds that there is but one universal “mind” that is constituted by the mind of all living beings. This universal mind is also called “Buddha,” “buddha nature,” “true self,” and so on.

But different schools of Zen and Buddhism had different interpretations about the teaching of mind and how it may be understood. Shenxiu’s Northern school believed and advanced the proposition that there are “impurities” that can cloud the mind. These impurities include an individual’s thoughts or intentions, any of which necessarily give rise to the illusion of an individual self. Therefore, a “mirror” analogy is applied to this type of understanding. The individual’s small mind is likened to a “mirror” that reflects the entire universe. Delusion is an impurity, the “dust” on the mirror that prevents the individual from maintaining his or her pure, original (and universal) mind.

In contrast, the Southern school advanced the idea that there is no way to realize the nature of mind except through sudden realization, and this must be done quite apart from any ideas of “purity” or “impurity.” Even the so-called “dust” on the allegorical mirror must only be part of mind, so how can it be called “impure”? “Polishing” the mirror, or removing impurities through various practices, does not lead to a genuine realization of the nature of mind. This difference was at the heart of the poems attributed to Shenxiu and Huineng in the contest at Huangmei.