35 Facts About Huineng

Dajian Huineng or Hui-neng, commonly known as the Sixth Patriarch or Sixth Ancestor of Chan, is a semi-legendary but central figure in the early history of Chinese Chan Buddhism.

Huineng is regarded as the founder of the "Sudden Enlightenment" Southern Chan school of Buddhism, which focuses on an immediate and direct attainment of Buddhist enlightenment.

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is attributed to a disciple of Huineng named Fahai, and purports to be a record of Huineng's life, lectures and interactions with disciples.

Huineng's customer paid his ten silver taels and suggested that he meet the Fifth Patriarch of Chan.

Huineng reached Huangmei thirty days later, and expressed to the Fifth Patriarch his specific request of attaining Buddhahood.

Since Huineng came from Guangdong and was physically distinctive from the local Northern Chinese, the Fifth Patriarch Hongren questioned his origin as a "barbarian from the south", and doubted his ability to attain enlightenment.

Huineng impressed Hongren with a clear understanding of the ubiquitous Buddha nature in everyone, and convinced Hongren to let him stay.

Huineng was told to split firewood and pound rice in the backyard of the monastery and avoid going to the main hall.

Huineng decided to pass down his robe and teachings to the winner of the contest, who would become the Sixth Patriarch.

Two days later, the illiterate Huineng heard Shenxiu's stanza being chanted by a young attendant at the monastery and inquired about the context of the poem.

Huineng asked to be led to the corridor, where he could pay homage to the stanza.

Huineng asked a low-ranking official named Zhang Riyong from Jiangzhou to read the verse to him, and then immediately asked him to write down a stanza that he composed.

Huineng's verse apply the rhetoric of emptiness to undercut the substantiality of the terms of that formulation.

Huineng explained to Huineng that the Dharma was transmitted from mind to mind, whereas the robe was passed down physically from one patriarch to the next.

Huineng immediately responded with a clear understanding of Hongren's purpose in doing so, and demonstrated that he could ferry to "the other shore" with the Dharma that had been transmitted to him.

Huineng helped him reach enlightenment and continued on his journey.

The earliest and most important source for the teachings of Huineng is the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.

Rather, for Huineng, non-attribute has a this-worldly orientation which affirms human experience and the world of characteristics.

Huineng says rather than attach to characteristics and obstruct the Way, one should not abide in things.

Huineng discusses nonabiding in terms of not dwelling in any experience in the past, present, or future.

Again, like non-thought and non-attribute, non-abiding for Huineng means all thoughts and phenomena are allowed but not clung to, similar to space.

However, as Ziporyn points out, Huineng's teaching of non-abiding puts a spin on the motionlessness of the spacelike self-nature.

That is, unlike the traditional Buddhist emphasis on stillness and quiescence, which are inactive and register no characteristics or attributes; for Huineng, non-abiding means that true motionlessness is "a kind of hyperintense motion" that never dwells or stays in a single place.

For Huineng, wisdom is the function of meditation, while meditation is the essence of wisdom.

Huineng uses an analogy of a lamp and its light to illustrate this point.

Huineng defines zuochan, seated meditation, in a non-literal way as follows.

Huineng says "sitting" means for the mind not to be activated in regards to various good and bad realms externally, while "meditation" means to see the motionlessness of the self-nature internally.

Huineng criticizes mere motionlessness of the body, as well as the practices of concentrating on mind and on purity.

Huineng claimed Huineng to be the successor to Hongren, instead of the then publicly recognized successor Shenxiu:.

Shenhui was the first person to claim that Huineng was both a saint and a hero.

An epitaph of Huineng inscribed by the established poet Wang Wei reveals inconsistencies with Shenhui's account of Huineng.

Ricci told the European readers the story of Huineng, describing him as akin to a Christian ascetic.

Huineng holds an ax in his right hand, and extends his left arm to steady a stalk of bamboo while scrutinizing it.

Huineng wears a shirt with sleeves rolled up, which is suggested by the crease at the edges of the shoulders.

Similarly, The Sixth Patriarch Tearing a Sutra adopts a similar style in portraying the same figure, Huineng, performing a different mundane action.