![]() From the beginning: not one thing.
Where can dust alight?
Then, the Denkoroku says that Hongren secretly came to the mill to meet
with Huineng.
That night the Zen Master comes in secret to Huineng and says, Is
the rice clean yet?
Huineng says, It is clean but needs to be sifted.
The Master strikes the mortar three times with his staff.
Huineng shakes rice in a sieve three times and enters the Zen Masters
room. The Master said to him, Due to the one great matter of manifesting
enlightenment within the world the Awakened ones guide beings according to
their capacities. There thus came about the Teachings of the ten stages, three
vehicles, sudden and gradual enlightenment. As well, the Buddha transmitted
the subtle and highest secret Treasury of the Eye of Utter Reality, the
luminous Awareness beyond reference point to his senior student, the
Venerable Mahakasyapa. This was transmitted through twenty-eight
generations to Bodhidharma who then came to China and found the Great
Master Huike. It has continued thus until it has come down to me. I now pass
on to you the treasure of the Dharma and the robe that has been passed to
successors. Maintain the Dharma well and do not let it cease.
It is from this that one of the three aspects of Shiho, the ceremony of Denbo,
the Transmission of Dharma, takes place at midnight privately between Master and
Dharma-holder.
Dogen says in Gyoji:
Even after receiving the Dharma, he carried the same mortar on his back and
pounded rice for eight years. Even after he emerged in the world and became
the abbot of a monastery
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and taught the Dharma for the people, he did not
discard the mortar. This is truly rare continuous practice in this world.
Now this part I dont really understand although I know what he means.
Although Huineng emerged in the world and became a major figure, he never
wavered in his continuous practice. He did not become someone else but was still the
miller of rice. But I doubt that he stole the monasterys mortar and carried it around
on his back, especially when he was fleeing Huiming and the posse that were
tracking him down to claim the robe and bowl symbolizing the Transmission. He did
however follow his Masters instructions and receive ordination as a monk and ripen
his practice unknown in the mountains for almost a decade before he began to
accept his own students.
The Sixth Chinese Ancestor Huineng was a great Teacher who profoundly
affected the Transmission of the Dharma. Many famous mondo and koan are
associated with him and the text ascribed to him, the Platform sutra, is the only
record of someones Teachings other than Sakyamuni Buddhas that was called a
sutra. All of the Chan, Zen, and Son monks throughout the world are his
descendants.
Does the continuous practice of someone like Huineng have to be rare?
In closing, I would just like to let you hear Keizan Jokin zenjis teisho on
Huineng from the Denkoroku. Keizan was just Huineng being Keizan and is speaking,
as all of the Awakened Ancestors do, from within who you all are.
At the time of the Transmission of the Dharma, Zen Master Hongren
said, Is the rice clean yet? These grains of rice are the sprouting of the
Dharma of the Ruler of Dharma. This is the life-root of both sages and
common beings. Growing wild in the fields, they need no ploughing. Husked
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Shusse. To emerge in the world means becoming visible as the abbot of a large monastery.
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