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Who was the man who attained Enlightenment without practice?,He apparently just heared a chant!
He just heard a passing-by monk chanting a sutra and he immediately became enlghtened.
He didnt even practice Buddhism apparently! ?
He didnt even practice Buddhism apparently! ?
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Anyone know his name??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huineng
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/50-00-1/as-elo5.htm
What he did next was seek out a Master and a temple, in order to deepen his understanding. It was this thirst for comprehension that distinguished him, the effort we talk about in Zen that requires total dedication. Some eight months of listening to the lectures and contemplating the Dharma later, Huineng proved his awakening had blossomed to a deeper comprehension when he wrote the famous anonymous poem.
You could be right there of course. But the traditional story is that Huineng really did not receive much education. The fifth Patriarch saw – on their first encounter - that Huineng was ahead of his other students in understanding and attainment and felt he needed to protect him from them. So he just put him to work and did not ordain him as a monk.
In his autobiography (chapter one in the Sutra of Huineng) Huineng explicitly says that when he composed his famous poem, he had received no education from the Fifth Patriarch at all. In fact he needed help to find the Hall where the (inferior) poem of Shen-hsiu was written on the wall, because Huineng had never been inside the place before.
When the fifth Patriarch appoints Huineng as his successor, still there has not been any formal training. The fifth Patriarch says: “For someone who does not know his own mind it is pointless to study Buddhism. When someone however knows his own mind and intuitively touches upon his true nature, then he’s a hero, a teacher of gods and men, a Buddha”.
(I translated that back into English myself, and I hope it’s close enough to the original text.)
So I’d say the story of Huineng is not designed to illustrate the importance of study, meditation and formal training under the guidance of a Teacher.
It is saying the opposite.
That one happened the only time he (secretely) met with Hongren for some instruction, the third nights after the Poetry-contest.
It says the Fith Patriarch expounded the Diamond Sutra to him on that occasion.
And when he came to the passage, "to use the mind yet be free from any attachment," Huineng came to great enlightenment.
He exclaimed: "How amazing that the self nature is originally pure! How amazing that the self nature is unborn and undying! How amazing that the self nature is inherently complete! How amazing that the self nature neither moves nor stays! How amazing that all dharmas come from this self nature!"
It basically is too convenient to be true.
According to John Jorgensen, Huineng was a marginal and obscure historical figure, and the hagiography around him that subsequently developed was an invention of Shen-hui (684-758)Jorgensen writes:
The position of Huineng is crucial in the Zen tradition.
If the story of his life is a fake, this makes the whole zen-idea of lineage doubtful.
That’s kind of relevant – I think.
:scratch:
For instance, much is made of Hui Neng being illiterate, but so were most people in China at the time unless you were of the upper class or came from a family of scribes who made a living copying official documents. You would hear the sutras recited by the monks at public ceremonies, like everyone else. There were no public schools and no reason for the peasant class to read. So when Hui Neng went to the temple, why didn't he just put on a robe, shave his head, and become just another one of the monks? Because as a peasant, he would not be accepted by the other monks, who were the sons of more well-to-do families making a career in the temples. In that society, only people who could afford private schooling could send one son into the civil service and another into the temples to be a monk.
The Chinese people hearing this story would understand it as a "rags to riches" story in a society where if you are born a peasant, you stayed a peasant. Peasants farmed the land or toiled and died for the royal officials. It wasn't a Democracy, you know. Was it entirely accurate? Well, to the reactions of the other monks to this unwashed ignorant peasant having the gall to claim he understood the Dharma, yes it was.
Sort of like, in America we hear about Pres. Lincoln being raised in a log cabin, and splitting rails, and educating himself and such. It's remarkable only because the other Presidents came from the upper class and were sent to college and raised in mansions. Otherwise, Lincoln was just like most of Americans at that time on the frontier, and his story was embellished to prove a point.