to begin our study of the Platform Sutra attributed to our sixth ancestor, Huineng, or Huilong, or Dantong Huineng. How many of you have read the Platform Sutra, I mean, have not read the Platform Sutra? How many of you have never heard of the Platform Sutra? How many of you have copies of the platform? And they were supposed to come from India.

[02:02]

So when the citrus started coming into China from India from the 1st century on, mostly around 4th and 5th century, they were very, Chinese were very to each other and were purporting different things. And after some time, I think the Chinese realized that these sutras were not necessarily something that came out of, were not Shakyamuni Buddha's exact words. And because the sutras weren't really written down until about three or four hundred years after Shakyamuni Buddha's demise.

[03:05]

So sutras are something put together by people who are inspired by Buddha's dharma. And of course in India there are a lot of oral traditions and the oral traditions in India were their way of communicating. So people would remember, train themselves. in India, and people put a lot of emphasis on studying these texts.

[04:20]

But the texts were all supposed to be Buddha's words. And a text from another country was unheard of. But the Platform Sutra is respected in China as the sutra that came from China. and they considered the sixth ancestor, Daikon Ino, well known, to be China's Buddha. So this sutra has a lot of importance in Chinese Buddhism, Chinese Zen. to express the main ideas of Chan, which flowed through Bodhidharma and the five preceding ancestors up to the way we know.

[05:30]

But as modern scholarship tells us, the Platform Sutra is a kind of fabrication and expresses the ideas that were prevalent at the time of somewhere between the 7th century and the 16th century. And if we try to look for fact in history, through legend will be very disappointed. When you start looking for the facts in the legends, you become very disappointed. So scholarship tries to find the facts within the legends. And religious fanatics try to glean

[06:36]

The legends. Facts are not that important. Are we fanatics? Yeah. We're the religious fanatics. We're the religious fanatics. Where's my wife? Well... So... So for a long time, people had this idea about the sixth ancestor venerating the sixth patriarch. And as if all of the words of the Platform Sutra come are the words of the sixth patriarch. Just like some people think that all the words that come from the sutras are the words of Shakyamuni Buddha, which, as we know, is absurd.

[07:50]

So it's important for us to understand the meaning of sutras, the meaning of the written word, and the meaning of legend, so that we can appreciate the meaning of legend without being worried by factual sources. So when you read a story, any story, you get something that's conveyed. Some story is very profound, and you know that it's the truth, but you don't know who wrote it or where it came from exactly. But in Buddhism, everything should be verified. Otherwise, people just spin out their own ideas and say, this is Buddhism.

[08:54]

So Buddhism has to have some source and some, whatever we say, has to have some verification from someone. pretty hard to verify where they came from. So our verification has to come through our own experience and match the sources, whether we know where they came from or not. There's a kind of historical period of time.

[09:59]

And then there's our own understanding. So, I don't want to talk too much about this. I'd like to get into the sutra, right? There are different versions of the sutra, and the sutra that I'm going to from the Ming Dynasty in China, which is the most corrupt, but it's also the most interesting. Do you know where Dunhuang is? Dunhuang is one of the further outposts of China on the Silk Route to India. set up Buddha images and shrines and just a honeycomb of wonderful stuff.

[11:21]

By 1900, Sir Oral Stein, who was an archaeologist, stumbled onto a cave behind the cave, a secret the platform sutra from the 9th century. And it's called the Dunhuang edition, the oldest one, the oldest edition they have, which, and then matched with the one that's the popular edition, you can see the discrepancies. So that's very interesting. So, this is the Dunhuang edition, and Jan Polsky who made a very good critical analysis of the Platform Sutra several years ago, in this version called the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch,

[12:35]

the whole problem of the Platform Sutra. So, if you can read that, I think you'll enjoy it. So, the Platform Sutra has many parts, even though it's really a rather slim volume, but it starts out with So it makes it easy to read. So I'll get into the autobiography and make my comments through this autobiography. ancestor on the high seat of the treasurer of the law.

[13:56]

Once, when the ancestor had arrived at Paolong Monastery, Prefect Wai of Xichao and other officials went there to ask him to deliver public lectures on Buddhism in the hall of Tai Fon Temple in the city of Canton. In due course, and Confucian scholars, about 30 each, and bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, Taoists, and laypeople, to the number of about 1,000. After the ancestor had taken his seat, the congregation in abiding paid him homage and asked him to preach on the fundamental laws of Buddhism, whereupon His Holiness delivered the following address. learned audience, our essence of mind, literally self-nature, which is the seed or kernel of enlightenment, bodhi, is pure by nature.

[15:07]

And by making use of this mind alone, we can reach Buddhahood directly. I talk about essence of mind a lot. Now let me tell you something about my own life and how I came into possession of the esoteric teaching of the Dhyana or the Zen school. My father, a native of Phan Yon, was dismissed from his official post and banished to be a commoner in Sun Chau in Guangdong. I was unlucky in that my father died when I was very young, leaving my mother poor and miserable. We moved to Quang Chau, Kampong, and were then in very bad circumstances.

[16:09]

I was selling firewood in the market one day when one of my customers ordered some to be brought to his shop. Upon delivery being made and payment received, I left the shop outside of which I found a man reciting a sutra. As soon as I heard the text of this sutra, my mind at once became enlightened. So, it's interesting. recited this particular sutra. He replied that he came from Dung San Monastery in the Wong Mui district of Kee Chau, that the abbot in charge of this temple was Huang Yan, the fifth ancestor, that there were about 1,000 disciples under him, and that when he went there to pay homage to the ancestor, he attended lectures on this sutra.

[17:24]

He further told me that His Holiness used to encourage the laity as well as the monks to recite this scripture, as by doing so they might realize their own essence of mind and thereby reach Buddhahood directly. It must be due to my good karma in past lives that I heard about this, and that I was given ten tales for the maintenance of my mother by a man who advised me to go to Wong Mui, interview the fifth ancestor. So people said he was very auspicious, you know. He heard the sutra and someone gave him some money, you know. And so you could start to see the direction of his life. So after arrangements had been made for my mother, I left for a long movie which took me less than 30 days to reach.

[18:27]

It took a long time to travel in those days in China. I then went to pay homage to the ancestor and was asked where I came from and what I expected to get from him. He had an interview. And I replied, I am a commoner from Sun Chao in Guangdong. I have traveled far to pay you respect, and I ask you for nothing but Buddhahood." He was a southerner, and southern Chinese were considered by the northern Chinese to be barbarians. You are a native of Guangdong, a barbarian?

[19:31]

How can you expect to be a Buddha?" asked the ancestor. I replied, although there are northern men and southern men, north and south make no difference to their Buddha nature. A barbarian is different from your holiness physically. Dogen ordered me to join the crowd to work. Now, Dogen takes this conversation and makes it into something, into a real conversation, into a real koan of no buddha nature. You have no buddha nature, and no buddha nature becomes the non-dualistic And I'll present that at some point, but not now. May I tell your holiness, said I, that a prajna, which is transcendental wisdom, often arises in my mind when one does not know.

[20:55]

When one does not go astray from one's own essence of mind, one may be called the field of merits. I don't know what work your holiness would ask me to do. This barbarian is too bright. Go to the stable and speak no more. I then withdrew myself to the backyard and was told by a lay brother to split more than eight months after the ancestors saw me one day, and said, more than eight months after the ancestors saw me one day, and said, I know your knowledge of Buddhism is very sound, but I have no, I have to refrain from speaking to you, lest evildoers should do you harm.

[22:10]

Do you understand? Yes sir, I do, I replied. To avoid people taking notice of me, I dare not go near your hall. So he stayed in the background. He stayed in the back of the mosh and never went to the front. And he stayed in the rice mill. And there are a lot of stories about him in the rice mill, or some stories about him in the rice mill. But the point here is that the ancestor noticed his understanding. and felt that if he came out, you know, people recognized him, they would get jealous, you know, and push him around. And especially since he just arrived, he wasn't a monk, never been ordained, and just, you know, nobody.

[23:11]

doesn't know how to read or write. How old is he this kid? Well, I don't know. 32, 18, 16, something. You know, there's various dates for how old he is. But he's not, he's young. And yet merits will be of no help if your essence of mind is obscured.

[24:30]

This is the same theme as Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu. Emperor Wu says, is there any merit in doing certain things? Bodhidharma says, no merit. You should just uncover your essence of mind. But this is the main thing. mind about acquiring merit. The main thing is to bring forth essence of mind, discover your own mind essence. So he says, yet merits will be of no help if your essence of mind is obscured. Go and seek for prajna in your own mind and then write me a stanza or gatha He who understands what the essence of mind is will be given the robe, which is the robe of succession, and the dharma, which is the teaching.

[25:50]

And I shall make him the sixth ancestor. Whoever wins this contest will become the sixth patriarch. Go away quickly. Delay not in writing the stanza, as deliberation is quite unnecessary and of no use. Just write down what you understand, because if you think about it, it won't help you. The man who has realized the essence of mind can speak of it at once, as soon as he has spoken to about it, and he cannot lose sight of it even when engaged in battle. Sounds like a samurai. Having received this instruction, the disciples withdrew and said to one another, it is no use for us to concentrate our mind to write this stanza and submit it to His Holiness, since the Patriarchate is bound to be won by Xinqiao. energy.

[27:08]

Upon hearing this, all of them made up their minds not to write, and said, why should we take the trouble? Hereafter, we will simply follow our instructor, Hsinchu, wherever he goes, and look to him for guidance. was at that time an old man, and everyone considered him to be very wise and felt that he was actually the person who was going to be successful, no matter what anybody did. So, you know, it didn't seem to them that they would rather, they felt that they would like him to be their teacher.

[28:15]

So anyway, they relinquished, and they said, we'll see what he says. Meanwhile, Hsinchu reasoned this way with himself. Considering that I am their teacher, none of them will take part in the competition. I wonder whether I should write a stanza and submit it to his holiness. If I do not, how can the ancestor know how deep or superficial my knowledge is? If my object is just to get the Dharma, my motive is a pure one. In that case, my mind would be that of a worldling, and my action would amount to robbing the ancestor's holy seat.

[29:26]

with pictures from the Lankavatara Sutra depicting the transfiguration of the assembly and with scenes showing the genealogy of the five ancestors for the formation and veneration of the public. When Sheng Xu had composed his stanza, he made several attempts to submit it to the ancestors. But as soon as he went near the hall, his mind was so perturbed that he sweated all over. He did not screw up enough courage to submit it, although in the course of four days he made altogether fifteen attempts to do so. Then he suggested to himself, it would be better for me to write it on the wall in the corridor and let the ancestors see it for themselves. If he approves of it, I shall come out to pay homage and tell him that it was done by me. right?

[31:19]

Our body is the Bodhi tree and our mind is a mirror bright. Carefully we wipe them hour by hour and let no dust alight. So this is considered the stanza of the dust wiping school. Bodhi tree is a bright mirror. Carefully he wiped them hour by hour and let no dust fly. It's really a good poem. As soon as he had written it, he left it once for his room so nobody knew what he had done. In his room he again pondered, when the ancestor sees my stanza tomorrow and is pleased with What an excuse, which strictly befouled my mind.

[32:44]

It is difficult to know what the ancestor will say about it. In this vein, he kept on thinking until dawn, as he could neither sleep nor sit at ease. But the ancestor knew already that Hsinchu had not entered the door of enlightenment and that he had not known the essence of mind. In the morning he sent for Mr. Lowell, the court artist, and went with him to the South Corridor to have the walls there painted with pictures. By chance he saw this stanza. I'm sorry to have troubled you to come so far, he said to the artist. The walls may not be painted now, as the sutra says. All forms or phenomena are transient and elusive. It will be better to leave this stanza here so that people may study it and recite it. If they put its teaching into actual practice, they will be saved from the misery of being born in these evil realms of existence. The merit gained by one who practices it will be great indeed. He then ordered incense to be burnt, and all offered disciples to pay homage to it and to recite it so that they might realize the essence of mind.

[33:52]

After they had recited it, all of them exclaimed, Well done! At midnight, the ancestor sent for Hsinchou to come to the hall and asked him whether the stanza was written by him or not. It was, sir, replied Hsinchou. I dare not be so vain as to expect to get the patriarchate, but I wish your holiness would kindly tell me whether my stanza shows the least grain of wisdom. Your stanza, replied the ancestor, shows that You have not yet realized the essence of mind. So far you have reached the door of enlightenment, but you have not yet entered it. To seek for supreme enlightenment with such an understanding as yours can hardly be successful. To attain supreme enlightenment, one must be able to know spontaneously one's own nature or essence of mind, which is neither created nor can it be annihilated.

[34:57]

From moment to moment, one should be able to realize the essence of mind all the time. All things will then be free from restraint or emancipated. Once the suchness or tatata, another name for essence of mind, is known, one will be free from delusion forever. And in all circumstances, one's mind will be in a state of us-ness. Such a state of mind is absolute truth. If you can see things in such a frame of mind, you will have known the essence of mind, which is supreme enlightenment. You'd better go back to think it over again for a couple of days, and then submit me another stanza. If your stanza shows that you have entered the door of enlightenment, I will transmit you the robe and the dharma. So Hsinchu made obedience to the ancestor and left. For several days he tried in vain to write another stanza.

[36:01]

This upset his mind so much that he was ill at ease, as if he were in a nightmare, and he could find comfort neither in sitting nor in walking. Two days after, it happened that a young boy, who was passing by the room where I was pounding rice, recited loudly the stanza written by Xin Shao. As soon as I heard it, I knew at once that the composer of it had not yet realized the essence of mine. although I had not been taught about it at that time, I already had a general idea of it. What stanza is this? I asked the boy. You paused barely, then you replied. Don't you know about it? The ancestor told his disciples that the question of incessant rebirth was a momentous one, that those who wish to inherit his robe and dharma should write him a stanza, and that the one who had an understanding of the essence of mind would get them, and he made the sixth ancestor.

[37:03]

So Elder Hsien-Chu wrote this formless stanza on the wall of the South Corridor, and the ancestor told us to recite it. He also said that those who put his teaching into actual practice would attain great merit and be saved from the misery of being born in the evil realms of existence. I told the boy that I wished to recite the stanza too, so that I might have an affinity with his teaching in future life. I also told him that although I had been pounding rice there for eight months, I had never been to the hall, and that he would have to show me where the stanza was to enable me to make obeisance to it. The boy took me there, and I asked him to read it. A petty officer of the Kong Chao district named Chang Tat Yung, who happened to be there, read it out for me. When he had finished reading, I told him that I also had composed a stanza and asked him to write it for me.

[38:07]

Extraordinary indeed, he exclaimed, that you also can compose a stanza. Don't despise the beginner, I said. If you are a seeker of supreme enlightenment, you should know that the lowest class may have the sharpest wit, while the highest may be in one of intelligence. If you slight others, you commit a very great sin. Dictate your stanza, said he. But do not forget to deliver me, should you succeed in getting the Dharma. My stanza read, there is no Bodhi tree, nor stand of a mirror bright, since all well-known gathas, these two gathas. So these two gathas, one by Hsuan Hsu and the other by the illiterate rice ponderer, Hui Nung, are supposed to show the superiority of Hui Nung's understanding.

[39:31]

over Hsinchu. And this whole story is used as a kind of propaganda by the so-called perpetrators or organizers of the Southern School of Zen against the Northern School of Zen, which when It's a kind of propaganda. Zen propaganda. One school trying to gain dominance over another. school, while the seventh school was considered to be the sudden school, sudden enlightenment, renounced, sudden enlightenment school.

[40:51]

The Dune long text differs a little bit from this. And in the Sondokai, which we chant, the merging of different communities in English, the Sekito says, there is no ancestor of North or South, so it's referring to this He's saying, you guys are perpetrating some kind of egotistical problem into our Zen, and we should stop this.

[42:04]

His stanza read, there's no golden tree, there's no stand, nor stand of a mirror bright. Since all is void, where can the dust alight? Where can the dust, you know? Shenshu said, you should wipe the dust off the mirror. And we all said, what mirror? There's no place for the dust to settle. But both are correct. People, the propaganda tries to say this one is correct and the other one is wrong. And this Citra, I think that Huinan represents the Buddha arising in China.

[43:17]

In other words, Buddhism came into China starting around the first century and developed in a lot of ways, many different ways, but still has Indian cast to it, Indian coloration. And Huineng represents the Chinese grasp of the Dharma without the Indian influence. Of course, he's always commenting on the Indian sutra, but it's like if we said, This is the main thing about Sixth Ancestor.

[44:25]

He's illiterate, you know, and he doesn't have any training, and he's not even a priest, he's not anybody, you know, and he hears the sutra and understands it. China without any influence from any place else. And this is the beginning of the golden age of Zen and his disciples are perpetuating the Dharma. And Hsinchu, although his understanding is just as good as we know him, represents the school, represents everything up to that point. And they're kind of back to back, maybe. One's looking this way and the other one's looking this way. So these two gathas actually complement each other.

[45:30]

It's true. There's nothing but emptiness. That's the absolute side. And what Shin Shin Shu is talking about is the practice side. How you practice. How you actually practice. The body is the Bodhi tree. The mind is the mirror. Wiping dust doesn't mean gradual practice. It means practice on each moment. How we practice on each moment is, although the mirror is there, even if it's dirty, even if it's all covered up, water is water, right? And when you purify water, it's just water. The various ideas that people, that the monks and practitioners were talking about and concerned with appear in the sutra.

[46:35]

and what they were concentrating on, because this changes through time. Knowing that I had realized the essence of mind, the ancestor said, quote, one who does not know their own essence of mind, there is no use learning Buddhism. On the other hand, if he knows his own mind and sees intuitively his own nature, Thus, to the knowledge of no one, the Dharma was transmitted to me at midnight, and consequently I became the inheritor of the teaching of the sudden school as well as of the robe and the begging bowl. You are now the sixth ancestor, he said. Take good care of yourself and deliver as many sentient beings as possible. Spread and preserve the teaching and don't let it come to an end.

[47:49]

Take note of my stanza. to sow the seeds of enlightenment in the field of causation will reap the fruit of Buddhahood. Inanimate objects, void of Buddha nature, sow not and reap not." He further said, when the ancestor Bodhidharma first came to China, most Chinese had no confidence in him, and so this robe was handed down as a testimony from one ancestor to another. As to the Dharma, This is transmitted from heart to heart, and the recipient must realize it by his own efforts. From time immemorial, it has been the practice for one Buddha to pass to his successor the quintessence of the Dharma, and for one ancestor to transmit to another the esoteric teaching from heart to heart. As the robe may give cause for dispute, you are the last one to inherit it.

[48:51]

Should you hand it down to your successor, your life would be in imminent danger. Now leave this place as quickly as you can, lest someone should do you harm." So he says, the robe should stop being transmitted. But actually, it didn't. And it's hard to know how this got into there. And there are a lot of things in the sutra that people wonder, How did that get into there? And as you read the older version, you can see how things become added. People add things to the sutra as time goes on to express their own understanding. So actually, Kuinan had quite a number of successors, according to our legend. Yoshi was one, and Mangaku, Eijo, was the other of the two most prominent disciples.

[50:04]

And one is the Rinzai line, the other is the Soto line. So where should I go, I asked. At Ue, you stop, and at Ui, you seclude yourself, he replied. Upon receiving the robe and the bowl, in the middle of the night, I told the ancestor that being a southerner, I did not know the mountain tracks, and that it was impossible for me to get to the mouth of the river to catch a boat. You need not hurry, he said, worry, he said, I'll go with you. He then accompanied me to Kwik Kyong, and there, ordered me into a boat. As he did the rowing himself, I asked him to sit down and let me handle the oar. It's only right for me to carry you across," he said, an allusion to the sea of birth and death, which one has to go across before the shore of Nirvana can be reached. To this I replied, while I am under allusion, it is for you to get me across, but after enlightenment I should cross by myself.

[51:12]

Now that you've transmitted it down to me, Although the term to go across is the same, it is used differently in each case. As I happen to be born on the frontier, even my speaking is incorrect in pronunciation. But in spite of this, I have had the honor to inherit the Dharma from you. Since I am now enlightened, it is only right for me to cross the sea of birth and death myself by realizing my own essence of mind. Quite so, quite so, you read. Beginning from you, Buddhism, meaning the Zen school, will become very popular. Three years after your departure from me, I shall leave this world. This is his prediction. Zen masters are always predicting their own demise.

[52:18]

Three years after your departure from me, I shall leave this world. You may start on your journey now. Go as fast as you can toward the south. Do not preach too soon, as Buddhism of the Dhyana school is not so easily spread. So he said, just go and seclude yourself and develop your understanding for maybe 10 or 15 years. It's nice that someone after they have Dharma After saying goodbye, I left him and walked towards the south. In about two months' time, I reached the Tai Yu Mountain. There I noticed that several hundred men were in pursuit of me, with the intention of robbing me of my robe and begging bowl.

[53:21]

When people heard about this, they thought, what? And they went off in pursuit of him. And then we wondered, well, what kind But, you know, this is like in the 7th century. And there are all kinds of people in the monastery for all kinds of different reasons. And their understanding is on the ultimate level. So, after saying, among them there was a monk named Wei whose lay surname was Chen. He was a general of the fourth rank in lay life, and his manner was rough and his temper was hot. Of all the pursuers, he was the most vigilant in search of me. When he was about to overtake me, I threw the robe in the begging bowl on a rock, saying, This robe is nothing but a symbol.

[54:32]

What's the use of taking it away by force? I then hid myself behind a bush. When he got to the rock, he tried to pick them up, but he found he couldn't do it. Like the sword in the stone. Same story, actually. It's interesting that Western and Eastern stories parallel each other. Then he shouted out, lay brother, lay brother, for the Patriarch had not yet formally joined the Order. I come for the Dharma, not for the robe. Whereupon, I came out from my hiding place and squatted on a rock. Squatted means sitting down. Sometimes people say, Well, you clasped your hands, meaning you bowed.

[55:37]

You didn't know how to say that. So this is translated by a really wonderful Chinese translator. And sometimes he didn't quite know what to say, how to say something. So he just squatted. But he means he sat down and clasped his legs. He made obeisance and said, lay brother, preach to me, please. Since the object of your coming is the Dharma, said I, refrain from thinking of anything and keep your mind clear. It's blank here. But I don't like it when it's blank. Refrain from thinking of anything. I will then teach you. Empty your mind, and then it will teach you.

[56:40]

Some other version says, sit, sit, they sat down, cross-legged with each other, and then, in sadhana. And then, that's how he cleared his mind. When he had done this for a considerable time, I said, when you are thinking of neither good nor evil, What is at that particular moment, venerable sir, your real nature, literally original faith? As soon as he heard this, he at once became enlightened. But he further asked, apart from those esoteric sayings and esoteric ideas handed down by the ancestor from generation to generation, are there any other esoteric teachings? What I can tell you is not esoteric, I replied. It's case number 23 of the Mumangkan.

[57:54]

So I recommend you studying this case 23 of the Mumangkan. As soon as, let's see, in spite of my staying in Wang Mui's city, I did not realize myself Wang Mui's I did not realize my self-nature. Now, thanks to your guidance, I know that as a water drinker knows how hot or cold the water is. Labrador, you are now my teacher." I replied, if that is so, then you and I are fellow disciples of the fifth ancestor. He was very humble. He said, well, okay, if I may be your teacher, but we're both disciples of In answering his question where he should go thereafter, I told him to stop at Yuen and take up his abode in Mong.

[59:03]

These names, these places have some symbolic significance that I've known there. He paid our mention and departed. Sometime after I reached Tsok Khe, that's is the monastery of St. Francis. There was the evildoers. There, the evildoers began persecuting me. And I had to take refuge in Sui, where I stayed with a party of hunters for a period as long as 15 years. Occasionally, I preached to them in a way that befitted their understanding. They used to put me to watch their net, but whenever I found living creatures there, then I set them free. You wonder how he hung out with them for 15 years.

[60:08]

It seems like after 15 years they would have cried. At mealtimes, they put vegetables in the pan in which they cooked their meat. Some of them questioned me about it, and I explained to them that I would eat the vegetables only after they had been cooked for the meat. So one day I thought to myself that I ought not to pass a secluded life all the time, and that it was high time for me to propagate the law. Accordingly, I left there and went to the Fat Ching Temple in Can Thong. At that time, Bhikkhu Yen Chung, master of the Dharma, was lecturing on the Maha Aranavana Sutra in the temple. It happened that one day, when a pennant was blown about by the wind, two bhikkhus entered into a dispute as to what it was that was in motion, the wind or the pennant, the wind or the flag.

[61:16]

As they could not settle their difference, I submitted to them that it was neater, and that it would actually move with their own mind. The whole assembly was startled by what I said, and B. Ku Yen Chung invited me to take a seat of honor and questioned me about various naughty points in the citrus, of which I had not read. people would ask him questions about the sutras. Seeing that my answers were precise and accurate, and that they showed something more than book knowledge, he said to me, lay brother, you must be an extraordinary person. I was told long ago that the inheritor of the sixth ancestor's robe and dharma had come to the south. Very likely you are the person He immediately made obeisance and asked me to show the assembly the robe and begging bowl which I had inherited.

[62:28]

He further asked what instructions I had when the fifth ancestor transmitted me the Dharma. Apart from a discussion on the realization of the essence of mind, I replied, and emancipation. Why not, he asked. Because that would mean two ways, I replied. And there cannot be two ways in Buddhism. There is only one way. Now, there are passages in the Platform Sutra which seem to imply that he's saying have to be able to understand what he's talking about and not what it looks like he's talking about.

[63:46]

So here he says he didn't refer to dhyana and emancipation. In other words, he didn't refer to zazen and freedom because that would mean two ways. Zazen and Emancipation are not two different things. Dhyana and Emancipation are not two different things, actually. And later he talks about Prajna and Samadhi in the same way. Anyway, he asked me, what was the only way? And I replied, the Maha Parinirvana Sutra, which you are expounding, explains that Buddha-nature is the only way. For example, in that sutra, King Kho Khoi Tak, a bodhisattva, asked Buddha whether or not those who commit the four prajnaka acts of misconduct, or the five deadly sins, and those who are icchantika, heretics, would eradicate the element of goodness in their Buddha-nature.

[65:08]

Do you know what Ekshantika is? There was a question around that time as to whether or not there were people who actually had the Buddha nature. could not actually be counted in the human race. The Parinirvana Sutra, the famous passage in the Parinirvana Sutra, it says all sentient beings without exception have Buddha nature. And so this kind of cleared up

[66:11]

to describe Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is a great ecchantika, no buddha nature. And Dogen takes up this no buddha nature in a non-dualistic way, again, and calls people, you know, Bodhisattva is a Zen master, great ecchantika, meaning, turning the term around, to me, they have great understanding. So, it's an interesting term. And a parajika offense, in the Vinaya, there are 250, 300 rules for monks and 500 for nuns. But there are four parajika offenses, which are the most severe. which means expulsion from the sangha, and lying, stealing, sex, any kind of sexual conduct, and bragging about your enlightenment or claiming that you have some kind of enlightenment which you don't have.

[67:46]

Causing dissension. Causing dissension, yeah. So, for example, in that sutra, the Pranayama Sutra, this quoting from the sutra, he seems to know it. King Koh Kortak of Bodhisattva asked Buddha whether or not those who commit the four parajita, or the five deadly sins, and those who are icchantika, would eradicate their element of goodness in their buddha-nature. And Buddha replied, there are two kinds of element of goodness, the eternal and the non-eternal. Here we're using the word eternal, but we have to use this word. And it's the closest we can get to endless.

[69:03]

Therefore, the element of goodness is not eradicated. Oh, I'm sorry. There are two kinds of element of goodness, the eternal and the non-eternal. Since Buddha nature is neither eternal nor non-eternal, Therefore, the element of goodness is not eradicated. Now, Buddhism is known as having no two ways. So he's always talking about the no two ways is like the middle way. And he's always bringing the polarities together. So this is a big emphasis on non-duality. essence of mind is found when there is no duality. From the point of view of ordinary folks, the component parts of a personality, that is the skandhas and the factors of consciousness, the

[70:16]

But enlightened people understand that they are not dual in nature. Buddha nature is non-duality. Thich Nhat Hanh was highly pleased with my answer. Putting his two palms together as a sign of respect, he said, my interpretation of the sutra is as worthless as a heap of debris, while your discourse is as valuable as genuine gold. Subsequently, he conducted the ceremony of hair-cutting for me, the ceremony of initiation into the order, and asked me to accept him as my pupil. So he cut my hair and asked me to be his disciple. Therefore, this was under the Bodhi tree, I preached the teaching of the Dung-Shan Since the time when the Dharma was transmitted to me in Dingshan, I have gone through many hardships, and my life often seemed to be hanged by a thread.

[71:46]

Today I have had the honor of meeting you in this assembly, and I must ascribe this to our good connection in previous Kelpas, as well as to our common Otherwise, we should have had no chance of hearing the above teaching in a sudden school, and thereby laying the foundation of our future success in understanding the Dhamma. This teaching was handed down from the past ancestors, and it is not a system of my own invention. Those who wish to hear the teaching should first purify their own mind, and after hearing it, they should each clear up their own doubts, in the same way as the sages did in the past. At the end of the address, the Assembly felt One of the main parts of the sutra is an ordination. An ordination ceremony, actually.

[73:00]

A certain kind of ordination ceremony is conducted in which he presents many good things. So the sutra is loaded with things that that people who studied Zen have venerated and used and worked with for centuries. And yet it's a kind of synthetic thing. And the story, the autobiography is not an autobiography. It's a story. We don't know if it actually was a sixth ancestor, but we have this photograph. There it is. Well, as you know, Mao Zedong is well preserved. and Chinese habit to preserve famous people as the Egyptians did.

[74:20]

Only I think that the Chinese did it better than the Egyptians. Although the Egyptians lasted longer, the Chinese are in better shape. And there are several of these people at that monastery. Took some pictures, gave them one. So he is there. There's somebody called Kuinon who is there. And you know Sekito, they have the mummy of Sekito. And he was in Japan not long ago. Somehow he got to Japan. Everyone moves in mysterious ways. So it's, there probably was just way none, you know, but Shen Hui was the youngest disciple of the fifth ancestor.

[75:37]

And Shen Hui, was considered the one who probably put most of this together as the main, the original platform sutra, as a way to express certain ideas of the southern, so-called southern school, and to disparage the northern school of Hsuan Hsu. Hsuan Hsu actually became the Not the teachers themselves. Hui Nang and Hsuan Hsu actually never quarreled with each other, but their disciples, like Hsuan Hui and some of the other disciples, they had this kind of competitive thing going.

[76:46]

And Hsuan Hui appears that he was really vociferously trying to promote his put together a lot of the ideas that were in this sutra, which are not bad ideas. They're ideas that were in prominence at the time, which actually are not different from the Northern school. But he propagandized it to make it look like the Northern school was doing the gradual approach, and that they were inferior. But actually, a lot of the stuff that appears in the Platinum Sutra are ideas or practices of the Mormon school. So scholarship is uncovering all of this stuff. So it's interesting to kind of look at this sutra and know something about it, and know what were the prevalent ideas of the time, which have come down to us, which are taught to everybody.

[77:58]

And you should have some understanding of the Sutra because it's the kind of touchstone for Zen ideas. And be able to sort it out. as to what's correct and what's not correct, and what's expressed in a good way and what's not. So it's a good kind of challenge for us. So I have some books here, which people are side three under 25th John, 31.

[79:42]

Is that okay? Um, could people, let me try this book has a number, of course, thank you. My aunt here, a magician, who is a magician, will bring this. Can I stand down? same idea. Do you think maybe we could keep the books, ask the people to keep the books in the dining room? Yeah, maybe we keep them in the dining room, and the problem with that is... We could still write down who's got it, so we can track them, but it'd be nice to be able to have access to them and stuff. Yeah, I think that's right. Write down who's got them so we can track them, but keep them in the dining room so somebody can come in and read them at a different time, or, you know, I was thinking that it's like D.T.

[80:49]

Suzuki has a translation in Manual of Zen Buddhism. I'm not sure if it's complete. And Master Hua has the Sixth Ancestor Dharma Platform Translation Commentary. His commentary, though, is kind of addressed to 8th graders. It's not bad. There's some other translations, but you might look in the library. These two are probably in the library. And if you want any help with finding anything, you can ask me about it. And oh yeah, Charles Luck in Chan and Zen teaching, second series. Third series. as a translation.

[81:49]

So those are three other translations. The one I have read from long to long, and long to long, I like the translation because it really believes in the platform scripture. And it's the first translation, actually. And somehow its translation has a lot of heart. That's why I like it. before that came out. Older than that, so the language was different. Christmas Huntry wanted to clean it up. So that's what he did.

[82:46]

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