Sublime

Hui-neng says, “If people can hear this sutra and realize its truth, both self and other suddenly vanish, and they at once become buddhas. Renouncing the body has limited merit and cannot compare with the unlimited wisdom of upholding this sutra.”

Han-shan.

Teishin,

Although the ch’iang-hsing (striving hard) of line six seems at odds with Lao-tzu’s dictum of wu-wei, “doing nothing/effortlessness,” commentators are agreed that here it refers to inner cultivation and not to the pursuit of worldly goals.

Note: According to the biography of the ninth-century poet-recluse Lu Kuei-meng , as recorded in the Hsintangshu (New History of the T’ang Dynasty),

Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng, the two contenders to become the Fifth Patriarch’s successor, had written their competing poems on the monastery wall previously scheduled for scenes from the Lanka that the patriarchship and the future direction of Zen was decided.

Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng, the two contenders to become the Fifth Patriarch’s successor, had written their competing poems on the monastery wall previously scheduled for scenes from the Lanka that the patriarchship and the future direction of Zen was decided.

WU CH’ENG says, “The sage seeks without seeking and studies without studying. For the truth of all things lies not in acting but in doing what is natural. By not acting, the sage shares in the naturalness of all things.

five dharmas: appearance, name, projection, correct knowledge, and suchness; the three modes of reality: imagined, dependent, and perfected; the eight forms of consciousness: one