--- mooreharmony2002 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> Okay, I shall do some homework and read the Sutra.
> It seems that
> if Hui-neng was doing Zazen ferouciously, how does
> he know that his
> results did not come from Zazen ? Not sure what
> else he was doing yet.
The 'problem' with Hui-neng is that he had received
his results before he even knew what Budhadharma,
dhyana, sitting meditation or any of these things
were.
As a poor illiterate young man making his living by
selling firewood to the city folk, Hui-neng one day
came across a Buddhist monk who was reciting Diamond
sutra in the city square. Upon hearing the line: "One
should give rise to the mind that dwells nowhere",
Hui-neng suddenly experienced enlightenment!
Thereafter he formed the Southern School of Sudden
Enlightenment, which teaches that enlightenment and
liberation are not conditioned by anything. Regardless
of the circumstances (i.e. whether one is sitting,
standing, walking, lying down, swimming, snorkeling,
falling off one of the now defunct World Trade Center
towers, or whatever), one can experience sudden
enlightenment.
According to Hui-neng, all these things are only in
the mind, and as such are not subject to conditions
and circumstances.
So he effectivelly discouraged people from becoming
attached to any particular form of practice. He
advocated the 'methodless method', meaning that any
method will do. To a practitioner with a correct state
of mind, any method is as good as any other method.
As such, seated meditation is no superior to any other
form of human behavior, when it comes to Buddhist
practice.
This, as I've already mentioned, was severely disputed
by the 'sitting only', or 'just sitting' crowd, as it
drastically and radically cuts into their rationale.
But keep in mind that Hui-neng is the only Chinese
master who got honored to have his biography stand
shoulder to shoulder with the Buddha's. All other
Buddhist sutras (with only one exception -- the
Vimalakirti sutra), are strictly the recordings of the
Buddha's own words.
Alex
=====
No karma was produced during the composition of this letter
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