The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

Though I disavow all prior knowledge of it, I was apparently assigned The Platform Sutra at some point in SLE.  As usual, I dutifully read something I had no hope of understanding; though surprisingly there are actually a (very) few perceptive notes in the margin of the Yampolsky edition I had on the shelf.  I can't imagine why anyone would ask a freshman to read this particular text, since it's really only of historical interest even for someone with (now) some modicum of experience with Asian philosophy in general and Zen in particular.  It's lousy as an introduction to Zen thinking or practice.  It's a bastard piece of literature that clearly doesn't hang together to compose a coherent whole.  And this particular edition includes more poorly written scholarly apparatus than actual sutra.  I give this classic of world literature a 3.

Nevertheless, as I said, there were some points of historical interest.  The Platform Sutra turns out to be the founding document of early Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism.  The earliest version we still have was probably compiled around 800, though Yampolsky makes clear in his introduction (in exhaustive detail) that this date and the manner of compilation are both up for debate.  As the title suggests, the teachings in the text are attributed to the Sixth Patriarch Huineng.  Alongside this most legendary dharma talk, we also get his autobiography, a quick list of Buddhist lists (6 of these and 3 of those makes 18 of that, etc ...) and a brief Q&A session.  Of course, it's clear that none of this was written by Huineng, not least because the guy identifies himself as illiterate!  

While it's not clear exactly who did write it, the overall goal of the Platform Sutra seems relatively straightforward.  The intent is to retroactively establish a particular sect as the real Ch'an Buddhism.  To accomplish this, the author(s) need to construct the authenticity of an unbroken line of transmission stretching all the way back to the Buddha himself.  Even more importantly, they need to deal with a recent schism in their community between the Northern and Southern schools of Ch'an, associated with the ideas of gradual and sudden enlightenment, respectively.  So the text represents not only the creation myth of the Sixth Patriarch, but of the idea that there were five that preceded him to form a school leading up to him.  With these historical considerations in mind, many of the peculiarities of the text make better sense.  Huineng was an illiterate country bumpkin who attained enlightenment suddenly at an early age.  His talent was later recognized only in secret by the Fifth Patriarch, when Huineng asked another monk to write down the brilliant poem he had composed in response to a rival as part of an epic rap battle.  

First, the impostor Sixth patriarch dropped:

The body is the Bodhi tree,

The mind is like a clear mirror.

At all times we must strive to polish it, 

And must not let the dust collect.

To which our man Huineng replied:

Bodhi originally has no tree, 

The mirror also has no stand.

Buddha nature is always clean and pure;

Where is there room for dust.

I'm sure you can see who ended up with mom's spaghetti on their sweater.  Huineng goes on to preach that all one has to do to attain an enlightenment equal to his own is to see one's true nature even for just an instant.  This makes a lot of sense for a guy who came from nowhere to secretly become the Sixth Patriarch.  The real dharma is available to all of us and already inside each of us, just waiting to be revealed.  The iconoclastic individualism (if that's the appropriate term) that still characterizes Zen today can be seen right here in its founding myth.  At the same time, you can see the problem this creates from an institutional perspective.  If every individual can suddenly realize their fundamentally equivalent enlightened self-nature at any moment, how are we supposed to know who should be in charge?  Turns out the Platform Sutra is designed to answer precisely this question -- not because of something it says though, but because of what it is.  Since Huineng supposedly only gave these teachings to his closest disciples, the text claims that merely to possess a copy of it authenticates the holder's enlightenment.  In other words, the text not only creates the Patriarchy as already five generations deep, but also itself becomes the instrument by which this Patriarchy can be further extended.  It's a pretty canny political and rhetorical strategy when you think about it.  Especially considering they didn't have NFT's back then.

Finally, I did find one passage particularly interesting from a philosophical point of view.  Huineng gives an interesting twist to the Bodhisattva vow.

Good friends, when I say 'I vow to save all sentient beings everywhere,' it is not that I will save you, but that sentient beings, each with their own natures, must save themselves.  What is meant by 'saving yourselves with your own natures'? Despite heterodox views, passions, ignorance, and delusions, in your own physical bodies you have in yourselves the attributes of inherent enlightenment, so that with correct views you can be saved.  (pg. 143)

I had previously heard this vow conceived as some sort of ultimate self-sacrifice.  You agree to delay your own enlightenment until everyone gets theirs.  But what can self sacrifice mean in a world of no-self?  To save all sentient beings everywhere is to see that these beings are already naturally saved, already constitutive of Buddha nature all on their own.  So 'saving' these other sentient beings in this way is the same as seeing Buddha nature everywhere, which is identical to saving yourself.  The Bodhisattva vow isn't meant to be the compassion of a subject for all the objects (in this case other subjects).  It's meant to illustrate how the salvation of both subject and object are one and the same.