Huineng

Huineng

Huineng (638-713), also known as "Huineng", is an eminent monk in the Tang Dynasty, the founder of the southern Zen sect, and known as the sixth patriarch of Zen in the history of Buddhism.

Life story

According to the biography of song eminent monks and other records, the common surname is Lu. He was born in Xinxing, Nanhai (now Guangdong). At the age of three, he lost his father and lived on firewood for his mother. After listening to the King Kong Sutra, I learned that it was taught by Huang Mei Hongren. So in the first year of longshuo (661, xianhengjian), I went to Huang Mei to see Hongren as a "Walker" and pounded rice in the pestle house. Hou Hongren, a disciple of xuansi FA, ordered each monk to write a verse. God Xiu advocated gradual realization, and wrote a verse: "the body is a bodhi tree, and the heart is like a mirror platform. Wipe it frequently, so as not to cause dust." Huineng advocated epiphany and asked people to write a verse on behalf of him, saying: "there is no tree in Bodhi, nor is there a platform in the mirror. There is nothing in it (according to the Dunhuang version of the Sutra of the altar, which is called" the purity of Buddha's nature "), where can it cause dust." He won the praise of Hongren and gave the Dharma suit secretly,. Fearing that people would fight for the Dharma suit, he returned to Lingnan and lived in the city for 16 years. In the first year of Yifeng (676, the year of chuigong), he met master Yinzong in the Dharma Temple of Nanhai, and he was able to get rid of it. The next year, he returned to Baolin temple in Caoxi, Shaozhou, to promote the enlightenment method of "directly pointing to the heart and becoming a Buddha by seeing one's nature". In contrast to the "gradual realization" advocated by Shenxiu in the north, it is known in history as "Southen to the north" and "Southen to the north". Wu Zetian and Tang Zhongzong Zeng Zhaohui were able to enter the capital and both left. After his death, he was named "great Zen master" by Tang Xianzong.

Characteristics of Zen

Huineng's thought of Zen can be found in his disciple Fahai Ji Ji's six patriarch magic weapon Tanjing (Tanjing for short). This sutra was later adapted by the Shenhui department as the basis for the transmission of the sect, so it was mixed with later theories. But generally speaking, it can be seen that Huineng's idea is to give up the meaning of the words, and straight the source of the heart. He said that this kind of state is "like a person drinking water, warm and cold know". He also said: the mind is vast, all over the Dharma circle, free to come and go, and the mind and body have no stagnation, which is Prajna. All Prajna wisdom comes from self nature, not from outside. If you know self nature, you can transcend the three realms.

Huineng's Zen is based on Dinghui. He thinks that consciousness is there and worry is not. The direct evidence of consciousness is epiphany. He said that the self mind should neither climb up to good and evil, nor sink into silence. That is to say, it is necessary to learn a lot, to know the self mind, and to reach all Buddhist principles. Therefore, he does not regard meditation as Zen, that is, he can experience the realm of Zen by living in sitting and lying all the time. This is different from beizong's teaching that people sit in silence and look at the heart. They think that the state of mind can't be divided into two parts, and they can't get wisdom from their own nature. He taught people to start from mindlessness, not just meditation.

It emphasizes "seeing the purity of self nature, self-cultivation, self-cultivation, self-cultivation, self-cultivation and self-cultivation".

disciple

Huineng had many disciples, and there were 43 heifa in both chuandenglu of Jingde and zhengzongji of zhuanfa. According to the Fabao Tanjing, there are ten disciples and eight in Zutangji. But the most famous are Qingyuan Xingsi, Nanyue huairang, Heze Shenhui, Nanyang Huizhong and Yongjia xuanjue. After they got the law, they all became their own families. Among them, Qingyuan and Nanyue are the most popular; Nanyue's xiashuzhuan is divided into Linji and Jiyang; Qingyuan's xiashuzhuan is divided into caodong, Yunmen and fayan, forming five schools of Zen.

Chinese PinYin : Hui Neng