The Collected Lectures of Tripitaka Master
Hsuan Hua
on
The Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra

TRANSLATED BY SINO-AMERICAN BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION
BUDDHIST TEXT TRANSLATION SOCIETY

Sutra:

      One day the Patriarch summoned his disciples together and said, “I am going to preach to you: For men in the world, the affair of birth and death is great.”

Commentary:

      The Sixth Patriarch said, "Regardless of whether you are extremely rich or bitterly poor, you cannot avoid birth and death.  Consequently, you should know how you were born.  If this question of birth and death is not resolved, life is dim and confused, and you are confused coming and going."

Sutra:

      “All day long you seek only fields of blessing and do not seek to get out of the bitter sea of birth and death. If your self-nature is confused, how can blessings save you?

Commentary:

    "You do nothing but seek merit among the gods and among men and do not know how to seek wisdom.  Thus you swirl and drift in the suffering sea of birth and death.”

      It is said that one who cultivates only wisdom and does not cultivate merit is like an Arhat with an empty bowl; he is very wise, but no one makes offerings to him. But if one cultivates only merit and neglects wisdom, he is just like a great big elephant wearing a pearl necklace; beneath the adornments of blessing, he is stupid and will never solve the problem of birth and death.

Sutra:

      “Each of you go out and look into your own wisdom and use the prajna nature of your own original mind to compose a gatha. Submit it to me so that I may look at it.”

Commentary;

    Gatha is a Sanskrit word, which means "verse".  It is composed of uniform lines which contain a set number of words.  The length of line may vary from gatha to gatha.

Sutra:

      “If the great meaning is understood, the robe and Dharma will be passed on to you and you will become the sixth patriarch. Hurry off! Do not delay! Thinking and considering is of no use in this matter. When seeing the nature it is necessary to see it at the moment of speaking. If it is like this then it is just like wielding a sword going into battle so that one can see it.”

Commentary:

"Go quickly I" said the Sixth Patriarch.  "Go as if a fire were about to overtake you.  Do not dawdle and procrastinate saying, “Oh, I cannot do it today. I will do it tomorrow instead, and then the next day saying, “Not today either, perhaps tomorrow...” Do not keep putting it off and do not try to think about it. It is useless to use your discriminating mind. If you have deep prajna wisdom, you understand the moment you hear the words spoken. Like a swordsman sees the blade flash, so one with prajna wisdom sees and uses his self-nature’s own wisdom.”

Sutra:

      The assembly received this order and withdrew, saying to one another, “We of the assembly do not need to clear our minds and use out intellect to compose a gatha to submit to the High Master. What use would there be in this?”

Commentary:

      They went away to other courts, other gardens, and other buildings, saying to themselves, "Why worry about writing this gatha?  We do not need to waste the effort."

    I believe the people who spoke this way were of Shen Hsiu's party. Why did they not write gathas?  Because Shen Hsiu's followers were trying to make him the patriarch; all his followers, disciples, brothers, friends, and relatives contrived to set up the position for Shen Hsiu.  They convinced everyone else not to write gathas, because if anyone else wrote gathas, then perhaps Shen Hsiu might not get to be the next patriarch.

Sutra:

      “Shen Hsui, our superior, is the teaching transmitter. Certainly he should obtain it. It would be improper for us to compose a gatha and a waste of effort.”

Commentary:

    They spread it down through the grapevine.  It was secretly passed around and whispered behind the scenes, like friends of a candidate for President who say, "Hey! Vote for this one! He can be President!" They spread it about and stuffed the ballot box. This kind of rigged election is what is being talked about here.

    Convinced that they had no learning, the assembly decided it was useless to write gathas.  Swayed by the rumors, they said, "The Senior Seated Shen Hsiu is second to the Abbot.  His literary skill is good, his virtue is high, and he lectures Sutras and speaks Dharma for us.  Certainly he should become the sixth patriarch.”

Sutra:

      Hearing this, everyone put his mind to rest, and said, “Henceforth, we will follow Master Shen Hsiu. Why vex ourselves writing gathas?”

Commentary:

    When the assembly heard Shen Hsiu's followers saying things like, "If we write gathas, they will be very coarse and certainly not good enough to submit," they all decided not to write gathas themselves.  They did not want to compete with their superior, Shen Hsiu.

Sutra:

      Shen Hsiu then thought, “The others do not submit gathas because I am their teaching transmitter. I should compose a gatha and submit it to the High Master.

Commentary:

    "I should be polite," thought Shen Hsiu. "They are all waiting for me to write first."

    Actually, he knew that, because of his followers' campaign, no one wanted to contend with him.  He understood what was going on! He would be the only person to submit a gatha and whether he wrote it well or not made no difference since no one would challenge his right to the patriarch position.

Sutra:

      “If I do not submit a gatha, how will the High Master know whether the views and understanding in my mind are deep or shallow?”

Commentary:

    "How will he know if I have wisdom or not?" thought Shen Hsiu.

Sutra:

      “If my intention in submitting this gatha is to seek the Dharma, that is good. But if it is the grasp the patriarch position, that is bad, for how would that be different from the mind of a common person usurping the holy position? If I do not submit a gatha, in the end I will not obtain the Dharma. Great difficulty! Great difficulty!”

Commentary:

    The Fifth Patriarch had announced that in order to obtain the Dharma one must compose a gatha.  Shen Hsiu knew that if he did not submit one the Fifth Patriarch could not transmit the Dharma to him.  He fretted and worried, "What shall I do?  This is very hard; it is just too difficult!”

Sutra:

      In front of the Fifth Patriarch’s hall were three corridors, the walls of which were to be frescoed by Court Artist Lu Chen with stories from the Lankavatara Sutra as well as with pictures intimately connected with the lives of the five patriarchs, for veneration by future generations.

Commentary:

    A court artist is one appointed as an official to the Imperial Court on the basis of his talent. The title of the Lankavatara Sutra has two meanings: First, "City"; second, "Cannot be gone to".  This city, located behind Malaya Mountain, is inaccessible to those without spiritual powers. Sakyamuni Buddha used his spiritual powers to go there and speak the Lankavatara Sutra for the benefit of those who had spiritual powers. The Court Artist was to depict the miraculous, inconceivable, wonderful transformations, which took place in the assembly on Lanka Mountain.

    He was also to paint pictures illustrating the flow of Dharma from Great Master Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch, to the Great Master Hui K'o, the Second Patriarch, and so forth, generation by generation, to the Fifth Patriarch, Great Master Hung Jen.  These paintings would remain in the world  so that future generations might receive benefit by respecting and making offerings to them.

Sutra:

      After composing his gatha, Shen Hsiu made several attempts to submit it, but whenever he reached the front hall his mind became agitated and distraught and his entire body was covered with perspiration.

Commentary:

    Shen Hsiu's students were not greedy to become patriarch, but Shen Hsiu had a great desire for the position.

    Whenever he tried to submit his gatha he went a little crazy.  "What am I going to do?  Is this gatha right or not?  Can I submit it?"  He did not know if it was right or wrong.  "Ah, maybe...is it this way or is it that way?  Maybe it isn't.  Maybe it is...more or less."  Endless questions flooded his mind, making him extremely nervous.  Every time he tried to hand it in, he broke out in a heavy sweat.  Why?  It was a huge gamble; if he failed, he would not be a patriarch, but if he passed, he would.  Fear of failure caused his extreme agitation.

Sutra:

      He did not dare submit it, although in the course of four days he made thirteen attempts.

Commentary:

    This was really suffering, really hard work! It is not easy to be a patriarch.  Look at how much effort he expended.  For four entire days and nights he never shut his eyes.  He just kept trying to submit his gatha. At night he would go as far as the Fifth Patriarch's hall, peer around, break out in a sweat, and flee back to his room. During the day he tried again. In the periods in between, he could not sit, lie down, or sleep, and when he tried to eat, he couldn’t swallow.

He went before the Patriarch's hall thirteen times and still did not submit the gatha.  Now, when I give you a quiz, you write the answers very promptly and hand them in.  Suppose I were to give you a patriarch test II think your hands would tremble so that you could not write out the answers. 

    Finally, after so many attempts, when Shen Hsiu had almost worried himself to death, he thought, "Hey! Get hold of yourself. Calm down and think this thing over. Go to samadhi!" Then, when his brain had cooled off a little, he thought of a plan:

Sutra:

      Then he thought, “This is not as good as writing it on the wall so that the High Master might see it suddenly. If he says it is good, I will come forward, bow, and say, “Hsiu did it.” If it does not pass, then I have spent my years on this mountain in vain, receiving veneration from men. What way will I have cultivated?”

Commentary:

    "That's it!" he said with relief. "I will write it on the wall and when he sees it he will say, 'This is truly a fine gatha, truly wonderful:" and I will admit that I wrote it.  But if he says, 'This is too confused. It is nothing but useless trash!' then I will know that I have wasted my time here on the mountain."

Sutra:

      That night, in the third watch, holding a candle he secretly wrote the gatha on the wall of the South corridor, to show what his mind had seen.

Commentary:

    He crept stealthily, like a thief in the night. He carried just a little candle, for, if the light were too bright, someone might have seen him.

Sutra:

The gatha:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
The mind like a bright mirror stand.
Time and again brush it clean,
And let no dust alight. 

       After writing this gatha, Shen Hsiu returned to his room and the others did not know.

Commentary:

    He bounded back to his room two steps at a time, as if he were being chased, but quietly, taking great, silent leaps like an expert military spy.  He was afraid that if anyone saw him, they would know he wrote the gatha.  But nobody saw him, nobody knew. Not even the ghosts and spirits knew.

Sutra:

      Then he thought, “If the Fifth Patriarch sees the gatha tomorrow and is pleased, it will mean that I have an affinity with the Dharma. If he says that it does not pass, it will mean that I am confused by heavy karmic obstacles from past lives, and it is not fitting that I obtain the Dharma. It is difficult to fathom the sage’s mind.”

Commentary:

    "If he likes this gatha," thought Shen Hsiu, "then I must have conditions with the wonderful mind-to-mind seal of the Buddhas, and it is my destiny to be patriarch. But if it does not pass, my confusion from the karma created in past lives must be a heavy obstruction. It is hard to figure out what he will say. There is just no way to know.”

Sutra:

      In his room he thought it over and could not sit or sleep peacefully right through to the fifth watch.

Commentary:

      Actually, his gatha was not bad, but he had not fully understood. So after he returned to his room, he was still uneasy.

Sutra:

      The Patriarch already knew that Shen Hsiu had not yet entered the gate and seen his own nature. At daybreak the Patriarch called Court Artist Lu Chen to fresco the wall of the south corridor. Suddenly he saw the gatha and said to the Court Artist, “There is no need to paint. I am sorry that you have been wearied by coming so far but the Sutra says, ‘Whatever has marks is empty and false.’ Merely leave this gatha for people to recite and uphold falling into the three evil paths and will attain great advantage.”

Commentary:

    “If you cultivate according to the principles contained in this gatha," said the Fifth Patriarch, "you will not fall into the three evil paths of the hells, animals, or hungry ghosts, but will receive many benefits."

Sutra:

      He then ordered the disciples to light incense and bow before it, and to recite it, thus enabling them to see their nature. The disciples all recited it and exclaimed, “Good indeed!”

Commentary:

    The Patriarch chose the same hour at which Shen Hsiu had written the gatha on the wall the night before. He secretly called him in and said, "Psst! Was it you who wrote that gatha?"

Sutra:

      Shen Hsiu said, “Yes, in fact, Hsiu did it. He does not dare presume the patriarch position, but hopes the High Master will be compassionate and see whether or not this disciple has a little bit of wisdom.”

Commentary:

    "Yes, yes," Shen Hsiu whispered back, "yes, in fact, I, Hsiu, wrote it.  I do not dare seek the status of the Patriarch..."

Sutra:

    The Patriarch said, “The gatha which you wrote shows that you have not yet seen your original nature but are still outside the gate. With such views and understanding you may seek the highest enlightenment (bodhi), but in the end will not obtain it. Highest enlightenment must be obtained at the moment of speaking (the gatha). Recognizing the original mind, one sees that the original nature is neither produced nor destroyed. At all times, in every thought, you yourself will see that all external objects are, of themselves, “thus”, just as they are. The thusness of the mind, only this is true reality. If seen in this manner, just this is the self-nature of highest enlightenment.”

Commentary:

    "Your gatha shows that you are still an outsider," said the Fifth Patriarch. "You have not yet seen your nature.  As soon as you speak the words, know your original nature!"

    When you understand the mind and see the nature, you know that the nature is not produced and not destroyed, for at all times, all dharmas are perfectly fused, without the slightest bit of obstruction.  There is no place where all dharmas are not identical.

    When you understand one truth, all truth is understood. The ten thousand externals are all produced from the state which is "thus, thus, unmoving", and within the mind which is "thus, thus, unmoving" true reality is to be found.  If you see it this way, just this is the original nature, just this is the highest enlightenment.  And so, in response to Shen Hsiu, I wrote a gatha:

Because of the Way ten thousand things are born;
He who obtains himself penetrates the magic.
Awakened, the basic substance fathomed;
Bodhi does not swell or fade.

“Endless questions flooded his mind, making him extremely nervous.”
(see page 11)