Chapter 3

Mind is like the void in which there is no confusion or evil, as when the sun wheels through it shining upon the four corners of the world. For, when the sun rises and illuminates the whole earth, the void gains not in brilliance; and, when the sun sets, the void does not darken. The phenomena of light and dark alternate with each other, but the nature of the void remains unchanged.

That is how this chapter opens. I put that passage into Bing’s AI image generator, and the image accompanying this post is what popped out. I just thought we could use a little color in this community.

Huang Po goes on to use this metaphor to compare our conceptions of enlightened beings and ordinary sentient beings, the former being viewed as light and the latter dark. This view is itself driven by attachment, as there is nothing else but the one mind, which I suppose is the void in this metaphor.

If you students of the Way do not awake to this Mind substance, you will overlay Mind with conceptual thought, you will seek the Buddha outside yourselves, and you will remain attached to forms, pious practices and so on, all of which are harmful and not at all the way to supreme knowledge.

My interpretation is that Huang Po’s one mind is the same as emptiness. I asked the Bing chatbot which seems to confirm my interpretation:

The void that Huang Po refers to is the concept of śūnyatā in Sanskrit, which means emptiness or voidness.

Granted, what does AI know? But it’s hard not to interpret void as emptiness, and then Huang Po goes on the equate this with the one mind.

Huang Po again warns against attachments to particular practices or teachings (going so far as to call them “harmful” this time), which again reminds me of the Heart Sutra:

There is neither ignorance nor Extinction of ignorance… neither old age and death, nor Extinction of old age and death； no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path； no knowledge and no attainment. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna parami ta, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear. Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana.

My interpretation is that Huang Po would have his students focus on understanding emptiness. Maybe I’m biased in my interpretation as this has been the focus of my practice as of late.

Chapter 2

This chapter is pretty simple, and yet I spent longer than I anticipated chewing on it.

The opening line:

As to performing the six pāramitās and vast numbers of similar practices, or gaining merits as countless as the sands of the Ganges, since you are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection by such meaningless practices.

Simple enough, right? This is a fundamental zen thing, we all have Buddha nature, there is nothing to do its always just there.

That’s not to say that Huang Po’s message is to reject all the practices outright. Rather, the message is more not to get attached to the practices themselves.

When there is occasion for them, perform them; and, when the occasion is passed, remain quiescent. If you are not absolutely convinced that the Mind is the Buddha, and if you are attached to forms, practices and meritorious performances, your way of thinking is false and quite incompatible with the Way.

During and after high school, I played guitar with a buddy of mine who was entirely self-taught. But not self-taught in that he read books and learned on his own. No, when he was a young kid he got his hands on a guitar and just started making sounds with it, figuring out what worked and what didn’t. Basically, reinventing the wheel. He was obsessive and played constantly, but the time I was jamming with him he had been playing for probably a decade, couldn’t read music, knew a few chord names, but that was the extent of his knowledge. He was an incredible guitar player, technically proficient, but more importantly he always played with “soul” and could come up with fantastic riffs or solos or melodies like it was nothing. After jamming with him for a while, I went to college and decided to major in jazz guitar. My buddy and I often talked about whether a formalized music education was valuable, or whether the rigid structures you learn would take away the “soul” of your music.

In my jazz program, I met and played with some incredible guitar players who were the complete opposite of my buddy. They were steeped in music theory and constantly trying to push boundaries, playing off of medieval scales in solos and the like. While interesting and technically impressive, I never found what they played to be “enjoyable” to listen to. It had the flavor of someone trying to impress you with their vocabulary by throwing around a bunch of big words, with whatever message they were trying to convey being lost in the process.

I’d still go and jam with my self-taught buddy, and I’d give him little primers on theory, or show him different chord forms. He was able to take that stuff and use it in his own way. The knowledge he gained from him didn’t limit the “soul” of his playing, it just gave him new tools to play with.

I’m not sure there is a great point to this story, but I was reminded of it while chewing on this chapter. There are technical zen teachings which you can use to further your own understanding of Mind. You don’t necessarily need them, you can be self-taught like my friend. Indeed, that is what the Buddha himself did. But its reinventing the wheel, and needlessly forgoing available knowledge that can be beneficial. On the other hand, you don’t want to cling so tightly to teachings and practices, and end up missing the point. I always feel like this is a cop out response, but perhaps the “middle way” is the answer.

If we take Huang Po’s argument seriously, the only conclusion I can come to is that I should immediately put down this book and stop reading it. Because what do I have to learn from this at all, as my focus should just be on realizing the true nature of mind, not reading his sermons. Even knowledge of what I “should” be doing is probably too much. But realization is not something that is easy to come to naturally. I, like probably most people, need some kind of preparation for my mind to get to that place of realizing itself. Otherwise, I’d just go about my life concerned with the this and that of ordinary things, continuing with all the associated attachments. So, reading and thinking about and writing about this book is part of my practice, as listening to his speech here was part of his own student's practice. Perhaps I should not cling to Huang Po’s words, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use them and find value in them.

And I think that is important to keep in mind as well, that his students would have come to him having studied Buddhism in various traditions for years before seeking him out. They would have been very experienced practitioners. His message was to them, not to lay people reading his words over 1,000 years later. His audience would have been like the students I played with in college, obsessed with forms and technical knowledge. His message to them was to not lose the “soul” in their playing. But as lay people reading Hung Pao centuries later, its easy to take that message too far and think that Huang Po was saying that there is no value in practice at all, that we should avoid it at all costs.

I wanted to reflect on something that has been stuck in my head for a bit. It’s this story from Dogen’s Instructions to the Cook:

When this mountain monk [I, Dôgen] was at Tiantong Monastery, the position [of cook] was held by cook Yong, of the same province [as the monastery]. Once, after the midday meal I was passing through the east corridor on my way to the Chaoran room [where my teacher Myôzen was being nursed] when I saw the cook in front of the buddha hall airing mushrooms. He carried a bamboo staff in his hand, but had no hat on his head. The sun was hot, the ground tiles were hot, and sweat streamed over him as he worked diligently to dry the mushrooms. He was suffering a bit. With his backbone bent like a bow and his shaggy eyebrows, he resembled a crane.

I approached and asked the cook his dharma age. He said, “Sixty-eight years.” I said, “Why do you not employ postulants or laborers?” He said, “They are not me.” I said, “Venerable sir, your attitude is indeed proper, but the sun is so hot; why are you doing this [now]?” The cook said, “What time should I wait for?” I took my leave, but as I walked along the corridor, I began to realize how important an opportunity this position affords.

One thing that bothers me is that Yong is refusing to delegate, as if his practice of actually doing the work is more valuable than doing things efficiently to ensure the best and most efficient result for the monastery. Can’t Yong still practice as a manager? This work is often used as the go to when discussing how we should approach our own work from a zen point of view, and here we have a story of a guy who thinks only he can do it right, and apparently suggesting that management isn’t important work or a proper basis for practice. Maybe this is all just coming from something in my brain having been raised in a capitalist society that I haven’t let go yet. I’ll take a pass on this issues for now.

What really bothers me is Yong asks, “What time should I wait for” and Dogen apparently just walks away. It is not clear if Dogen thought this question was a sufficient answer to his initial question (it sure sounds like a Zen style of answer), or perhaps Dogen “took his leave” in adherence to societal norms so as not to further impose on an elder. I suspect the former because Dogen says “I began to realize how important an opportunity this position affords” suggesting that Yong’s response illuminated something for him.

My answer to Yong would have been, “maybe wait till the evening or early morning when the sun isn’t so hot. Or maybe put on a hat, or find some shade to do this under if there is some scheduling necessity for you to do it now.” I don’t know anything about drying mushrooms, but it seems like Yong is needlessly suffering. How would Yong have responded if Dogen had answered similar to what I suggest? Would we then have a discussion about whether Yong was properly managing his workflow as a cook? Or something else?

Beyond just the kind of absurdity of the story that bugs me, I’m more interested in what this story says about what we should be doing. Zen has plenty to say about how we do things, but much less to say about what we should do, and when, and apparently whether we should be using available protective clothing to shield ourselves from the elements. Perhaps this was not as much of an issue in ancient China, especially for monks living in monasteries. Basic survival seemed to be the primary order of the day – grow and prepare food, carry water for drinking, chop wood for heat and cooking. Monks also relied on donations from benefactors and the community. Our lives today are far more complex, if we want food or heat, we generally need to find some type of employment to obtain money which we then use to pay for it. Our work is typically not for the direct benefit of ourselves, but it is nevertheless necessary for us to engage in given the realities of our society. So what, then, should we do.

And not just professionally. While I have a fairly consistent morning routine, a few days ago circumstances resulted in me having about a half hour period with nothing I “needed” to do, so I was left with choice. I could play with my dog in the yard, which would be stimulating for the dog and tire him out to the benefit of my WFH partner. I could log into my computer and get a jump on work for the day. Or I could do some cleaning around the house. These were just the “good” options I considered, but I also could have just scrolled on my phone, played a video game, or even start drinking alcohol at 7am. I can do whatever I want, so what should I choose? In order to make a decision, I have to engage in the world of attachments and start dividing the world by my preferences.

As I am going through Huang Po’s Transmission of Mind, I mentioned the other translation by Subul Sunim. The translator’s introduction describes Sunim as emphasizing “case studies” practice, known as Ganhwa Seon, which is meant to lead to sudden enlightenment. I may discuss this in more depth later. To summarize, Sunim sets up an intensive one-week Ganhwa Seon retreat for lay people so that “great doubt” can arise and they can have a breakthrough “experience” within the confines of their busy schedules. I can’t help but be skeptical of this approach as sounding like any other new age mysticism, but that is my own bias. The following passage describes his answer to student’s at the end of such retreats:

Still, after finishing their retreats, his retreatants are often eager for instruction on what to do next. What about starting another practice like insight meditation, or mindfulness training, or visualization? Subul Sunim chides them for wanting to sample this or that technique, comparing this desire to a kid in a candy store eager to try this and that morsel. The pursuit of more practice and spiritual experiences is just another sort of attachment, which can become a hindrance in its own right. So what, his students then ask, should we do after having this “experience” in ganhwa Seon? Master Subul Sunim’s answer is cryptic: “Live well.” The usual reaction: what do you mean by “living well”? This is where Master Subul turns to Huangbo’s Essentials of Transmitting the Mind-Dharma. As Huangbo reiterates time and again throughout his text, we are already enlightened. We don’t need to do anything in order to develop our enlightenment, whether that is making merit, mastering the six perfections of the bodhisattva, or practicing different styles of meditation. There is, Huangbo says in his opening section, “not the slightest dharma that you need to attain, for this mind is in fact a genuine buddha

I raise this just to illustrate the lack of zen guidance on what to do. We are humans afterall, and we live in this society, we have relationships, and jobs, and goals, dreams, preferences, etc. How can we at once be free of attachment and still be able to move through the world? I readily admit this is most likely something I am missing. Maybe it doesn’t matter what we do. At any rate, this is one of those fundamental things with Zen I struggle with.

Now we get into the meat of things. The first line:

The Master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.

This chapter (surmon? I’m just going to call sections chapters for simplicity) is essentially definitional of the term “one mind.” What struck me as I was reading it was how it mirrored the Heart Sutra’s description of emptiness.

It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons.

Being similar to the Heart Sutra’s “all darhmas are marked by emptiness, they neither arise nor cease, are neither defiled nor pure, neither increase nor decrease.”

This chapter also warns not to reason about it or else “you fall at once into error.” The classic Zen emphasis on understanding without conceptual thought. We also get the lines about the one mind being Buddha, that the only difference between this and all sentient beings is that the latter “are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood” which is of course error as it’s the Buddha “using mind to grasp mind.”

The chapter ends with this, which Kindle helpfully let me know is a frequently highlighted passage:

They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.

I don’t want to just cut and paste the book in here, or just summarize things. I hope to add some thoughts along the way to provide some more value. Even if my thoughts are wrong or I miss the point, my misunderstanding I think can still be helpful if for nothing else as a place to start discussion.

I don’t have much to say about this chapter apart from its similarities to the concept of emptiness. I do think that is interesting, as emptiness is a foundation of zen (platform sutra) and here we’re starting the book with essentially the concept of emptiness, but expressed as one mind. Of course, if Huang Pao meant emptiness, he could have just said that.

Seon (Korean zen) master Subul Sunim has a more recent translation of this book with his own commentary, called “A bird in flight leaves no trace.” According to that book he is somewhat an expert on this book. I skimmed his commentary after writing all of this, and for what its worth I didn’t see him call out the concept of emptiness specifically at all. So that’s probably just my invention, and likely incorrect at that. Perhaps I’ll draw on Sunim’s commentary in future posts on this work. I’ll have to think on that.

The often-quoted passage is interesting itself as it’s the closest thing to instruction in this chapter. I suppose that is what draws people to highlight it. Subul Sunim’s translation of the same passage is markedly different (as is kind of a theme between the translations):

Say one observes buddhas as having the characteristics of purity, radiance, and liberation or observes sentient beings as having the characteristics of foulness, darkness, and birth and death. One who generates such an understanding will not be able to attain bodhi [enlightenment] even after kalpas [eons] as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, because one is attached to characteristics. There is only this onemind; there is not another dharma, even as small as a mote of dust, to be attained. The mind is the buddha. Those who train in the Way these days do not awaken to the essence of this mind. They then give rise to mental states overlaying this mind, seek the buddha externally, and practice while being attached to characteristics. All these are harmful techniques, not the path to bodhi.

The message seems similar, but gone are the references to “putting a stop to conceptual thought” and letting go of “anxiety.” For what it’s worth, and to give you a taste of Subul Sunim’s writing, here is his commentary on that passage:

The difference between buddhas and sentient beings is that those who attain awakening for themselves are buddhas while those who do not are sentient beings. The difference between the two is that simple. If people know that they are originally buddhas, they will act like buddhas. But because they presume they are ignorant, they become sentient beings, who suffer and discriminate. People should be able to realize that “this is it” by turning one thought around and letting go of all discriminative thoughts, without any lingering attachment. Not knowing this, they become greedy, looking left and right. How could they not but lose their original mind?

So, that’s the first chapter. Apologies if this is kind of all over the place. Hopefully I’ll improve how I put these together as I go.

**P'ei Hsiu’s Preface **

The work itself starts with a preface from the author, P’ei Hsiu. I think it is worth looking a little in P’ei Hsiu’s background as the Huang Po’s teachings come to us as captured and interpreted by P’ei Hsiu. I consulted Bing Chat to get a little background.

P’ei Hsiu was born in the year 787 or 797 CE in the Tang dynasty. He came from a prominent family of officials and scholars, and he was well-educated in the classics, history, and poetry. He passed the imperial examination at a young age and began his career as a civil servant. He rose through the ranks and held various positions, such as minister of rites, minister of state, and governor of several provinces. He was loyal to the Tang dynasty and tried to reform the corrupt and decadent government. He also supported the suppression of rebellions and foreign invasions. P’ei Hsiu was a devout practitioner of Zen, and he praised Huang Po’s teachings for being direct, profound, and free from conceptual thought. He also described his own experience of enlightenment under Huang Po’s guidance. He is most famous for this work and the preface he wrote for it.

He was also a friend and admirer of Han Shan, a legendary poet who lived in seclusion on Cold Mountain. P’ei Hsiu visited Han Shan several times and collected his poems, which are now regarded as classics of Chinese literature. P’EI HSIU also wrote poems himself, expressing his insights on Zen and his feelings for his friends. P’ei Hsiu died in the year 860 CE at the age of 73 or 83. He was buried in his hometown of Fuzhou with a simple tombstone that bore his name and his Buddhist name, Chih-yuan. He left behind a legacy of writings that influenced the development of Zen Buddhism and Chinese culture.

As P’ei Hsiu’s preface is fairly short, and it is what he is most famous for (at least according to the AI bots), I include it here in its entirety:

The great Zen Master Hsi Yun lived below the Vulture Peak on Mount Huang Po, [From which he takes his posthumous name] in the district of Kao An which forms part of the prefecture of Hung Chou [In the modern province of Kiangsi]. He was third in the direct line of descent from Hui Neng, [Wei Lang] the Sixth Patriarch, and the pupil of a fellow-disciple of Hui Hai. Holding in esteem only the intuitive method of the Highest Vehicle, which cannot be communicated in words, he taught nothing but the doctrine of the One Mind; holding that there is nothing else to teach, in that both mind and substance are void and that the chain of causation is motionless. Mind is like the sun journeying through the sky and emitting glorious light uncontaminated by the finest particle of dust. To those who have realized the nature of Reality, there is nothing old or new, and conceptions of shallowness and depth are meaningless. Those who speak of it do not attempt to explain it, establish no sects and open no doors or windows. That which is before you is it. Begin to reason about it and you will at once fall into error. Only when you have understood this will you perceive your oneness with the original Buddha-nature. Therefore his words were simple, his reasoning direct, his way of life exalted and his habits unlike the habits of other men.

Disciples hastened to him from all quarters, looking up to him as to a lofty mountain, and through their contact with him awoke to Reality. Of the crowds which flocked to see him, there were always more than a thousand with him at a time.

In the second year of Hui Ch'ang (A.D. 843), when I was in charge of the district of Chung Lin, I welcomed him on his coming to that city from the mountain where he resided. We stayed together in the Lung Hsing Monastery where, day and night, I questioned him about the Way. Moreover, in the second year of T'ai Chung (A.D. 849), while governing the district of Wan Ling, I again had occasion to welcome him ceremoniously to the place where I was stationed. This time we stayed quietly at the K'ai Yuan Monastery, where also I studied under him day and night. After leaving him, I recorded what I had learnt and, though able to set down only about a fifth of it, I esteem it as a direct transmission of the Doctrine. At first I was diffident about publishing what I had written; but now, fearing that these vital and penetrating teachings will be lost to future generations, I have done so. Moreover, I gave the manuscript to the monks T'ai Chou and Fa Chien, requesting them to return to the Kuang T'ang Monastery on the old mountainland to ask the elder monks there how far it agrees with what they themselves used frequently to hear in the past.

Written on the eighth day of the tenth moon of the eleventh year of T'ai Chung (A.D. 858) of the T'ang Dynasty

A couple of thoughts I had while reading that. First, it is a nice description of Huang Po’s teachings, but we’ll get to that in more depth in the text itself. Second, the existence of this work is interesting in and of itself. Huang Po was apparently not above politics, as P’ei Hsiu describes various ceremonial visits he had with him, as if it was in his official capacity as a government representative that he came into contact with Huang Po. I doubt this is in anyway unusual, but a lot of people have this image of the old masters as cantankerous adepts living alone in the woods, where in fact Huang Po understood there was some value or necessity in playing along in the game of politics at the time. Even going so far as to take P’ei Hsiu in for direct teaching (P’ei Hsiu saying at least on two occasions he studied with or questioned Huang Po “day and night”). Huang Po likely understood his teaching were being recorded as part of this and at least tacitly consented to that fact. Similarly, the final thought I had was the description of Huang Po as a teacher. Again, in contrast to the common perception of masters isolated on some mountain, P’ei Hsiu describes Huang Po as surrounded by “crowds” of “always more than a thousand” at a time. Huang Po was a man running a large and successful monastery, he had contacts with government officials and new how to play that game, so he was not some otherwordly figure who isolated himself and pursued his own practice single-mindedly. Not to say that any of this is bad or wrong, but I think there is a tendency to lionize these old masters to make them mythical figures who are “above it all.” The reality, at least from P’ei Hsiu who actually knew Huang Po, is a bit more nuanced.

I began reading “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind” translated by John Blofeld and published in 2007. I made it about half way through a different translation a few years ago, but thought I’d give it another go for the sake of content for discussion. My intention is to post summaries, selections, and thoughts as I go. You can find PDF’s of this book fairly easily online, but I won’t point to them directly for fear of angering the copyright gods. I am using an ebook copy I obtained through my local library.

We’ll start at the beginning, with the translator’s introduction. He gives a good summary of Zen’s history and his own understanding of Zen. If you reading this are a true begginer, the whole introduction is worth reading for historical context. Here is how the translator describes Huang Po’s place in the Zen tradition:

The most important of the Sixth Patriarch's successors was Ma Tsu (Tao I) who died in A.D. 788. Huang Po, variously regarded as one or two generations junior to him, seems to have died as late as 850, after transmitting the Wordless Doctrine to I Hsuan the founder of the great Lin Chi (Rinzai) Sect which still continues in China and flourishes widely in Japan. So Huang Po is in some sense regarded as the founder of this great Branch. Like all Chinese monks, he had several names, being known in his lifetime as Master Hsi Yun and as Master T'uan Chi; his posthumous name is taken from that of Mount Huang Po where he resided for many years. In Japan he is generally known as Obaku, which is the Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese characters for Huang Po.

Throughout the work, Huang Po uses the term “Mind.” Here is the translator’s take on Huang Po’s use of that specific work. I think this is worth including given how central “mind” is to the writing.

The text indicates that Huang Po was not entirely satisfied with his choice of the word 'Mind' to symbolize the inexpressible Reality beyond the reach of conceptual thought, for he more than once explains that the One Mind is not really MIND at all. But he had to use some term or other and 'Mind' had often been used by his predecessors. As Mind conveys intangibility, it no doubt seemed to him a good choice, especially as the use of this term helps to make it clear that the part of a man usually regarded as an individual entity inhabiting his body is, in fact, not his property at all but common to him and to everybody and everything else. (It must be remembered that, in Chinese, 'hsin' means not only 'mind', but 'heart' and, in some senses at least 'spirit' or 'soul'--in short, the so-called REAL man, the inhabitant of the body-house.) If we prefer to substitute the word 'Absolute', which Huang Po occasionally uses himself, we must take care not to read into the text any preconceived notions as to the nature of the Absolute. And, of course 'the One Mind' is no less misleading, unless we abandon all preconceived ideas, as Huang Po intended.

In an earlier translation of the first part of this book, I ventured to substitute 'Universal Mind' for 'the One Mind', hoping that the meaning would be clearer. However, various critics objected to this, and I have come to see that my term is liable to a different sort of misunderstanding; it is therefore no improvement on 'the One Mind , which at least has the merit of being a literal translation

Next, the translator discusses what Huang Po had to say about meditation, which wasn’t much in terms of instruction. The translator states that Huang Po would have assumed his audience would be “keen Buddhists” and not have much need for more than the tips Huang Po offers throughout. The translator also has a nice metaphor for enlightenment, which is boiling water. You heat the water and it gets hotter and hotter, that is practice, then in an instant it boils. No matter how hot the water gets, it’s not boiling until it boils.

Our translator then spends some time apologizing for Huang Po, insisting that he likely did not actually dislike other Buddhist secta, but just was convinced that his way was the best and most efficient. Interestingly, the author calls out, by using Huang Po, secta that emphasize good works and karmic merit for living otherwise selfish lives. The translator also insists that Huang Po understood the necessity of the teachings and scriptures to get to the place where one is ready for the most important teaching of mind-control. Again, his audience on his mountain would have been well versed in the teachings before even thinking it was worth coming to learn from him. For good measure, our translator defends Pure Land Buddhism and Lamaism.

The rest of the introduction address some translation and organizational concepts, and there are a few words on the author, P’ei Hsiu being a great scholar of the day and so forth.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2818869

I found an interesting book, Zen's Chinese Heritage, The Masters and their Teachings by Andy Ferguson. It goes through the 1st twenty-five generations of Chan masters, beginning with Bodhidharma and ending with Foyan.

The main source material for this book is the Wudeng Huiyuan (Compendium of Five Lamps), dating from the mid-1200s. This excerpt is about Shenhui, the student of Huineng, also the one believed to have written the Platform Sutra.

HEZE SHENHUI (670–762) was an eminent disciple of the Sixth Ancestor. He strongly supported and promoted Huineng’s place in Chinese Zen history. Shenhui championed the Southern school of Zen, and vociferously attacked what became widely known as the Northern school, the school associated with Yuquan Shenxiu.

Shenhui put forward two reasons for his attack on the Northern school. The first was, “The (ancestral) succession is spurious.” Attacking Shenxiu’s legitimacy as the Dharma heir of Hongren was an extension of Shenhui’s proposition that that honor belonged exclusively to Huineng. Obviously, the argument was self-serving as well, since Shenhui could thus make a claim to be the true Seventh Ancestor of the Bodhidharma line.

The second reason for attacking Shenxiu was, “(His) Dharma gate is gradual.” By this, Shenhui meant that the various “gradual” spiritual practices employed by Shenxiu, as well as other disciples of Hongren, were fundamentally at odds with what Shenhui regarded as the genuine Zen of his teacher, Huineng.

Shenhui’s life and teaching are at the center of the most hotly debated questions of Zen history and thought. He is a controversial figure who set a standard of teaching that emphasized sudden, unmediated enlightenment. This characteristic of Chinese Zen distinguishes it from other Buddhist schools. The idea of nonmediated, sudden enlightenment clearly took solid root as a centerpiece of Chinese Zen during Shenhui’s era and suffused the teachings of subsequent generations of the Southern school.

Shenhui’s Zen, expounded in the name of the Sixth Ancestor, castigated the idea of “gradual” enlightenment achieved through meditation and religious practices that were meant to realize and maintain “pure original mind.” Shenhui’s proposition, in effect, attacked not only the Northern school, but many of the practices that were part and parcel of Daoxin and Hongren’s East Mountain Zen tradition as well, including their basic outlook on meditation practice.

Scholars have documented that Daoxin, Hongren, and Hongren’s disciples variously used “gradualist” practices, practices that set religious life distinctly apart from secular life, in their practice centers. One example was Hongren’s disciple Zishou Zhishen, the founder of the Sichuan Zen school, who is believed to have heavily emphasized chanting Buddha’s name over all other practices.

Yet Shenhui has been shown to have tampered with, not to say subverted, the historical facts surrounding Huineng’s life to gain ascendancy for his “sudden” Zen ideology. Shenhui’s account of Huineng’s life contains self-serving inconsistencies. Moreover, his writings about earlier Zen development, particularly the succession of Zen ancestors beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha, contain blatant errors and contradictions.

The “Northern” school was the name applied by Shenhui to the most politically dominant and powerful stream of Zen of his era. This stream was a continuation of the East Mountain school of Hongren, as taught by his disciple Shenxiu, and by Shenxiu’s own many disciples who were spread through northern areas of the country. Shenxiu obtained unprecedented influence at the imperial court during the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Shenxiu’s disciples Puji and Yifu then carried on this influence until events overcame the school around the year 755.

Shenhui’s main attack on the Northern school occurred at a conference he staged at Great Cloud Temple in Huatai in the year 734. In that meeting, Shenhui put forth the “Exposition on Determining Right and Wrong [with respect to] Bodhidharma’s Southern school.” The conference staged a debate between Shenhui and a certain “Dharma master Chongyuan,” who defended the Northern school. Although the influence of this conference on the imperial court and public opinion is disputed, the meeting clearly laid out lines of battle between the doctrines of the southern and northern currents of Zen.

After the conference at Huatai, Shenhui proceeded to live in the northern capital city of Luoyang, where he directly confronted the Northern school by inciting opinion in public gatherings. Eventually, Shenhui was banned from Luoyang as a rabble-rouser. During the period of his banishment, historical events transpired that helped his cause. The An Lushan uprising, a catastrophically destructive rebellion against the Tang dynasty, led to the destruction of the twin capital cities of Luoyang and Changan. The areas suffering devastation were important regions of Northern school predominance. This direct destruction of the Northern school led to a vacuum of court influence that Shenhui’s followers managed to fill. Thus, the Southern school gained social and political ascendancy not simply due to a preferred religious doctrine, but as the unforeseen result of a civil war that wracked northern China during that era.

Shenhui thus founded what became known as the Heze (in Japanese, Kataku) school of Zen. The branch largely died out during the early ninth century and is not remembered as a major school. Nevertheless, the doctrine of sudden enlightenment remained a central characteristic that defined the teaching styles and cultural flavor of later Chinese Zen. In the next Zen generation, Mazu Daoyi’s Hongzhou school vigorously adopted a teaching style that expressed the “sudden” Zen outlook. That school displaced Heze’s school in influence during the ninth century, but the doctrine espoused by Shenhui had lasting influence on all subsequent generations of Zen teachers.

I've read elsewhere about more modern scholarship casting some doubt on Huineng, and the division of Northern/Southern schools. I think John McRae has written about it, but I'm going to have to search for some of his articles.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2593059

I found some interesting articles from the Journal of Chan Buddhism. This is volume 1, there is a volume 2, but it's behind a paywall, or you can possibly get them if you have an institutional login...

I've only read the Repositioning Xinxing 信行 (540–594) in the Chinese Meditation Tradition. It was interesting, but I've yet to find any more information on Xinxing, but it seems he was pretty early in the Chinese Chan record.

Also I've been wanting to find more peer-reviewed journal articles on Chan, if anyone has any suggestions on where to look!

The peer-reviewed Journal of Chan Buddhism: East Asian and Global Perspectives is the first of its kind in English to specifically present academic research about Chinese Chan, Korean Sŏn, Vietnamese Thìên, and Japanese Zen Buddhism. The Journal of Chan Buddhism is an interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary journal and will accept submissions from all academic disciplines related to the study of Chan/Sŏn/Zen Buddhism, including, but not limited to: the history of religions, literary studies, Dunhuang Chan studies, Tibetan and Tangut language Chan studies, doctrinal studies, art historical perspectives, institutional history, anthropological research, and comparative, philosophical studies. The journal also offers book reviews and translations into English of innovative research articles by eminent scholars in East Asia. The Journal of Chan Buddhism has separate area editors (e.g., Chan, Sŏn, Zen) to facilitate broad but still multifaceted coverage of Chinese Chan Studies, Korean Sŏn Studies, Vietnamese Thìên Studies, and Japanese Zen Studies.

The journal is hosted by the Buddhist Studies Forum at the University of British Columbia (UBC), funded by the Tianzhu Charitable Foundation of Guangdong Province, China, and facilitated by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) project on Buddhism and East Asian Religions (frogbear.org) at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

I was going through the Zen books and writings I’ve added to my "to read" list so I could find things to read, summarize, comment on, etc to create some content. I came across the below translator’s introduction to “Opening the Hand of Thought” by Kosho Uchiyama. What the translators, Shohaku Okumura and Tom Wright, wrote I think better encapsulates what I was trying to express with my last post on Dogen’s Instructions to the Cook. The basic thought is that Zen needs to adapt to being in the West in the 21st century. The fundamental teachings are as true and relevant as they’ve always been, but Zen has always adapted to different cultures and circumstances as it's been transmitted around the world and through time, and here and now should be no different. I think there is an unfortunate tendancy to imitate the old ways and to read the old masters as if their words are infallible truth, without an attempt to translate or understand their teachings in our current world. That is where I feel Zen often falls flat, it doesn’t meet people where they live. At best, there have been efforts to bring Zen more into things like the social and environmental justice movements. While I think that is overall a positive development, I can’t help but feel like it misses the mark by focusing on symptoms rather than causes. At worst, self-help gurus and the like will peel off teachings or phrases and repackage them for their own grifts. To be clear, that is not what I mean by adapting to the modern world. And then there are those that cling to the words of masters without bother to deeply examine the meaning. At any rate, this is part of why I created this community, one that will not say “this is Zen, that is not” and devoutly read the same limited set of teachers ad nosium without giving any thought as to how those old teachings (and others in the long and varied tradition of Zen) apply to the world we live in. My hope is not only to study Zen and get a greater understanding of the teachings, but to also to explore how those teachings apply here and now.

That’s enough from me. Here is the translator’s introduction. And keep in mind, this was written over 20 years ago, so our current world is different from even the world they lived in then.

If Buddhism in general, and Zen in particular, is ever to lay deep roots in the mainstream of Western culture and civilization and not relegated to being simply one of those quaint or odd Oriental traditions in the religious supermarket or our day, then Zen, or the so-called practioners of it, while studying the examples of past teachers, will have to be able to see the problems modern people are faced with, as well. Indeed, if Zen is to play any role, much less a leading role, in the future direction of humankind, then those who profess to be Zen followers will have to be able to articulate clearly the problems we are facing in the world today. Moreover, a Zen that clings to the traditional garments of Zen without grasping the essence will surely end up being regarded as one of the religions of antiquity – and only that. What is that essence? To be sure, it is much easier to talk and write about what it isn’t than about what it is. Yet, if no attempt is made and Zen is left only to be understood by silence, under the guise of profundity, then surely Zen will be silently left behind.

So, then, what can be said? One expression that accurately points to that essence is, ironically, an expression predating the Buddhist tradition. This is Araniyake’s statement: “All that can be said is, ‘not this, not that.’” But unless such statements are put into the overall context of Buddhism and Buddhist practice, we’re afraid they will be poorly understood or ignored. Perhaps the best statement that we can make about Zen comes in the form of a question we have to ask ourselves continually no matter how long we study Buddhism or sit zazen. That is, with zazen as the center of our lives, how can we go about living fully and freely in our day-to-day lives? [The translators go on to explain how the present book goes about addressing that question, the history of the talks that make the book up, how it was translated, etc]

The Instructions to the Cook (“ITTC”) is a work by Dogen which describes how we can engage in Zen practice through everyday activity. The main lesson is to conduct your activity with your full authentic self, and particularly without judgement. I wanted to write a critique of sorts of this work because there is something about it that has been bothering me for some time. I recently listened to a dharma talk about ITTC that held it in such high regard, unquestioningly, that I wanted to write about why I think that attitude may be less than ideal. The translation I referred to for this is available here. If you haven’t read it, it is only about 7 pages and definitely worth your time.

ITTC appeals to me, probably as it does to many others, because of its focus on work as a form of practice. In our modern society, particularly in the west, we have been conditioned to view our work as fundamental to our identity and the most important aspect of our lives, perhaps only second to caring for our families (and that point is debatable). It makes sense then that Dogen’s work on the topic is so popular, as we are drawn to search for a deeper meaning in (or at least the tools to tolerate) our jobs.

My critique here is less about ITTC itself, which I do like very much, but about how zen practioners tend to treat it. Specifically, I think practioners tend to view ITTC as the “answer” for how to do work, and ignore its limitations in application to modern life.

The Instructions to the Cook were written just a few years shy of exactly 1,000 years ago. Dogen himself had come to and was writing about a Zen (Chan) tradition that existed for centuries before him. While I don’t doubt there are lessons, and wisdom, and teachings to be gained from these ancient writings (why else would I be here), I do think it's worthwhile to have a critical eye toward some of these writings and to examine where there are weaknesses in its application to modern life.

There is the common Zen saying, “cut wood, carry water.” Many Zen practioners refer to this phrase, likely without ever having cut wood or carried any water in their lives, and certainly not on a regular basis. We have central heating and A/C now, and indoor plumbing. Our lives look markedly different from Dogen’s time and earlier. Even the more modern Zen figures of note, like the two Suzukis, talked of their complicated and busy modern world, witing in the 1950s and 60s. Needless to say, life has gotten more complicated and busy since even then.

And this is true of work as well. Most obviously, modern work is much more likely to be “knowledge work” rather than manual labor. Many, if not most, are more likely to make spreadsheets than stews. I think this modern work poses some unique problems that Dogen did not have to deal with when instructing the cook. The carrot that needs to be chopped is right in front of the cook, they hold it with their hand and cut it with the knife in their other hand. It is easier to engage in this activity without chasing thoughts. When the office drone works, we are necessarily engaged in thinking about concepts and abstract ideas. In order to work, we must enter a world of heavy delusions about quarterly profits, and marketing campaigns, and accounting figures, and the like. So much that is so very important, to the point of causing us great stress, but which does not exist outside our minds. Another fundamental difference is our relationship to work – for Dogen’s tenzos the work was to feed the sangha, for us the work is to satisfy shareholders. Much has been said about the devaluing of work in the past few decades, so I won’t dwel on the point.

There is still much in ITTC that I think we can and should use in our own work practice, whatever that work may be. And there is certainly an argument that the fundamental teachings in ITTC are equally applicable to our own work now, that the differences I cite are not as great as I make out. Maybe so. Nevertheless, I think we also need not take Dogen or any ancient Zen master as a source of perfect instruction on how to live our lives. Our world is far different. While we can take the wisdom of the past and carry it forward, we also need to work out what Zen means for us here and now.

Summary of Instructions to the Cook

For those who haven’t read it, and for whatever reason decide not to, the following is my very abdriged sumamry. Dogen begins by describing the various “officers” in Buddhist monasteries and describes the tenzo (head cook) as “an all-consuming pursuit of the way” which was held be great ancestral teachers throughout history. Dogen then describes the duties of the cook with great specificity (obtaining ingredients, meal planning, cooking). Sprinkled throughout are quotable concepts that can and should be taken as advice on how to approach work:

• Having obtained the ingredients, “protect and be frugal with them, as if they were your own eyes.”

• “When washing rice, preparing vegetables, and so on, do so with your own hands, with close attention, vigorous exertion, and a sincere mind. Do not indulge in a single moment of carelessness or laziness. Do not allow attentiveness to one thing result in overlooking another. Do not yield a single drop in the ocean of merit; even a mountain of good karma can be augmented by a single particle of dust.”

• “If you pay careful attention to detail, watching when coming and watching when going, then your mind cannot be scattered, and [the food] will naturally be replete with the three virtues and endowed with the six flavors.”

• “Treat utensils such as tongs and ladles, and all other implements and ingredients, with equal respect; handle all things with sincerity, picking them up and putting them down with courtesy.”

• “Treat utensils such as tongs and ladles, and all other implements and ingredients, with equal respect; handle all things with sincerity, picking them up and putting them down with courtesy.”

• “Of old it was said, "When steaming rice, treat the pot as one's own head; when rinsing the rice, know that the water is one's own lifeblood."”

• “When ordinarily preparing ingredients, do not regard them with ordinary [deluded] eyes, or think of them with ordinary emotions. "Lifting a single blade of grass builds a shrine;10 entering a single mote of dust turns the great wheel of the dharma."11 Even when, for example, one makes a soup of the crudest greens, one should not give rise to a mind that loathes it or takes its lightly; and even when one makes a soup of the finest cream, one should not give rise to a mind that feels glad and rejoices in it. If one is at the outset free from preferences, how could one have any aversions? Even when confronted with poor ingredients, there is no negligence whatsoever; even when faced with scanty ingredients, one exerts oneself. Do not change your mind in accordance with things. Whoever changes his mind in accordance with things, or revises his words to suit the person [he is speaking to], is not a man of the way.”

• “Throughout the day, as you prepare the meals, do not pass the time in vain. If your preparations are true, then your movements and activities will naturally become the deeds of nurturing the womb of the sage. The way to put the great assembly at ease is to step back and transform yourself”

• “ If there is a matter that can be valued, you should value the matter of awakening to the way. If there is a time that can be valued, surely you should value the time of awakening to the way!”

Dogen also tells two stories about his interactions with tenzos while traveling to China. The first was an old monk working in the sun who refused to employ laborers to do the work in the hot sun because “they are not me” and did not wait for a cooler time of day to do the work. The other was another old tenzo who would not have dinner with Dogen because the tenzo had to return to his monestary and explains to Dogen why he chose to pursue the way as a cook and about the way more broadly:

In the ensuing conversation that I had with him I brought up the karmic conditions of written words and pursuit of the way that we had discussed previously on the ship. The cook said, "The study of written words is to understand the purpose of written words. Exertion in pursuit of the way requires an affirmation of the purpose of pursuing the way." I asked him, "What are written words?" The cook answered, "One, two, three, four, five." I also asked, "What is pursuit of the way?" He said, "In the whole world, it can never be hidden."

Dogen spends the rest of the work by addressing the same concepts in different ways and then engages in some “old man yells at the clouds” type rhetoric aimed at the lazy and dissatisfactory attitudes and practices of the time, particularly with respect meal preparation. --

There were two good friends, Chokei and Hofuku. They were talking about the Bodhisattva’s way, and Chokei said, “Even if the arhat (an enlightened one) were to have evil desires, still the Tathagata (Buddha) does not have two kinds of works. I say that the Tathagata has words, but not dualistic words.” Hofuku said, “Even though you say so, your comment is not perfect.” Chokei asked, “What is your understanding of the Tathagata’s words?” Hofuku said, “We have had enough discussion, so let’s have a cup of tea!” Hofuku did not give his friend an answer, because it is impossible to give a verbal interpretation of our way. Nevertheless, as part of their practice these two good friends discussed the Bodhisattva’s way, even though they did not expect to find a new interpretation. So Hofuku answered, “our discussion is over. Let’s have a cup of tea!”

That is a very good answer, isn’t it? It is the same for my talk – when my talk is over, your listening is over. There is no need to remember what I say; there is no need to understand what I say. You understand; you have full understanding within yourself. There is no problem.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind

This is the first substantive post on this community, so I thought it would be good to start with this as a reminder and tone setter. What should someone expect to gain when engaging with Zen content on Lemmy? What should someone expect to gain from Zen in general? I suppose the answer is, nothing really.

Talking about Zen is not Zen. Having an intellectual understanding of the teachings can certainly be helpful, but your own practice and understanding are what is important. Reading, discussing, and arguing about Zen will not lead to enlightenment. Neither, for that matter, will Zen practice. “You understand, you have full understanding within yourself. There is no problem.”

This is something I know I always have to remind myself of from time to time. I have observed that when my life is particularly hectic or stressful I often think “I need to get back into a good Zen practice.” And then I throw myself into Zen, sitting frequently, reading as much Zen literature as I can, in hopes that if I just do enough Zen, if I can just “get it,” that will solve all my life’s problems. But that just makes me busier and more stressed. At some point I remember that Zen is not a means to an end, and give up engaging with Zen for a specific purpose. Eventually, the stress in my life fades, whether because I made some peace with my circumstances or just because in life stress tends to come and go naturally. Typically, my practice also begins to fade at that point until the next life crisis. In the past year or so I have broken this cycle and have been maintaining and expanding my practice naturally, which seems to be the better approach.

But I think its an important reminder that you don’t get anything out of Zen. You will not become enlightened and magically overcome all of life’s challenges. Zen, at most, is a means to understanding things how they are, without judgement or adding anything extra. But it is not important, you will not gain anything new. It is good to always keep that in mind.

And so, here, in this community we should engage in learning and discussions and arguments for their own sake, without expectations that doing so will lead to some great realization. “You understand, you have full understanding within yourself.” So, when our engagement with Lemmy is done, that should be it. We go about our days and continue our practice in other ways. That is it. There is no problem.

Welcome. And thank you for stopping by.

My intention is to create an inclusive zen community. That means all levels of practice and knowledge are welcome here and treated with equal respect, whether you’ve just come across the term “zen” for the first time and want to learn more about what it means, whether you’re a practitioner whose bounced around sanghas and residencies for fourth years, or whether you’re a bonafide bodhisattva on your umpteenth kelpa trying to free us and all myriad beings from suffering. All of us have something to learn from each other, so we should all treat each other with the same dignity and respect.

Similarly, the word “zen,” despite its Japanese origin, in the west has come to be understood in a broader sense to encompass all schools or the teachings as removed from any particular orthodoxies. My intention is not to gatekeep what zen is, so all schools in the tradition, chan, seon, thein, and zen, and all subschools, are welcome here, as well as whatever westernized versions that have come into being. What is important is that the bottom of your bucket drops out, I’m in no position to judge the method you go about that, and I'd want this community to welcome and tolerate all variations of finding the path.

All content is welcome, discussion is encouraged as is arguments so long as they are respectful. I’m committing here and now to start putting some content out to get things started. Here is hoping this can be a good resource and place to explore the dharma, whatever that means to you.