Huineng

Huineng is revered as the Sixth Patriarch of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. According to the Platform Sūtra, the text that tells his story, he was a poor, illiterate seller of firewood from the south of China who heard the Diamond Sūtra recited and at once understood it. He went to the monastery of the Fifth Patriarch, Hongren, where he worked threshing rice.

When Hongren asked his monks to write verses showing their understanding, the senior monk Shenxiu wrote that the mind is like a bright mirror stand that must be constantly wiped clean; Huineng answered, through a helper who could write, that there is no mirror stand and that, since originally there is not one thing, there is nowhere for dust to alight. Hongren secretly gave him the robe and bowl of the patriarchate, and he fled south, later teaching at Caoxi.

Scholars, beginning with the discovery of an early manuscript of the Platform Sūtra at Dunhuang, have shown that much of this story was shaped after his death, especially by his disciple Shenhui, who from the 730s attacked Shenxiu’s Northern school and championed a “Southern school” of sudden awakening. Whatever its historical basis, the story of Huineng became the founding narrative of later Chan and Zen.