The Laws of Great Enlightenment by Ryuho Okawa

Author:Ryuho Okawa [Okawa, Ryuho]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-942125-62-4
Publisher: IRH Press
Published: 2019-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

The “sudden enlightenment” of Southern Zen and the “gradual enlightenment” of Northern Zen

After that, Hung-jen did not come out to give any sermons to the disciples in the temple, so they visited the master to find out if anything was wrong. To their surprise, however, Hung-jen told them that he had retired. The disciples asked him what this meant and he explained that the robe and bowl that symbolized his office had already been passed on to Hui-neng.

With this news, the temple was thrown into an uproar. “That rice-pounder has taken the robe and bowl and escaped! Shen-hsiu was supposed to become the next master. Master Hung-jen must have lost his mind to give the symbols of office to that rice-pounder. We can’t let him get away!” cried the disciples and set out in pursuit of Hui-neng.

Among the disciples was a man named Hui-ming, who had been a general before joining the priesthood, and he went after Hui-neng to bring back the robe and bowl. However, he eventually became converted by Hui-neng and failed to retrieve them.

Hung-jen had told Hui-neng to travel south and live a quiet life in the mountains for about twenty years, so it was some time before he returned to the world. Regarding the length of time he hid in the mountains, there are various accounts of the story, some saying about fifteen years. [Other sources say that the master had told him to hide for three years and that he actually had hidden for three years, while others say five.] When he escaped from the temple he was about twenty-four years old, so he became active when he was in his forties. Then the Southern sect of Zen began.

For his part, Shen-hsiu founded the Northern sect of Zen and it flourished. He gained the respect of three Emperors, including Empress Wu Tse-t’ien, and was even granted the posthumous title, Ta-t’ung Ch’an-shih [meaning Greatly Penetrating Dhyana Master]. Although his sect produced the great masters P’u-chi and I-fu, it did not last for long.

This is how Zen Buddhism became split between the belief in “sudden enlightenment” of the Southern sect and the “gradual enlightenment” of the Northern sect. The “sudden enlightenment” of the south then gained more followers to become the mainstream belief of Chinese Zen. It was this style of Zen that was later introduced into Japan.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.