Zen · Chan · 638–713
Huineng
Sixth patriarch of Chan · Platform Sutra
An illiterate woodcutter who woke before the learned monks. The voice of sudden awakening.
The essence of the teaching: Prajna wisdom is innate in every being and does not come from outside. Awakening is not the suppression of thought nor empty sitting, but the direct recognition of your original nature right in the thick of life. Freedom from thought is to think without attachment, not to stop thinking.
Transmission
Huineng was a poor woodcutter and could not read. Hearing one line of a sutra one day, he saw through it in an instant. When the time came to pass on the patriarch's bowl, a learned monk wrote a verse about a mirror that must be wiped clean of dust again and again. Huineng answered: there is no mirror, no stand, no dust – where then could it settle? From the beginning there is not a single thing. He taught: do not sit with an empty head, thinking this is Zen. Let thoughts come and go freely, as space holds the whole world without being stained by a single cloud. Delusion itself is Bodhi; the only difference is whether you grasp or not.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
The tradition
Zen · Chan
This wisdom is one voice within a living world of tradition. Enter it whole: the images, the lineage, the practices.
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