Sutra is also known as stanza. Hui Neng spoke about Sudden Enlightenment where it takes only a moment to attain Buddhahood. In one of his discourses he told his disciples that he had a Formless stanza to recite and advised both laity and monks to put into practice. This is his stanza:

A master of the Buddhist Canon as well as of the teaching of the Dhyana School may be likened unto the blazing sun sitting high in his meridian tower. Such a man would teach nothing but the Dharma for realizing the Essence of the Mind. And his object in coming to this world would be to vanquish the heretical sects. We can hardly classify the Dharma into Sudden and Gradual but some men will attain enlightenment much quicker than others. For example, this system for realizing the Essence of the Mind is above the comprehension of the ignorant. We may explain it in ten thousand ways but all those explanations may be traced back to one principle. To illuminate our gloomy tabernacle, which is stained by defilement, we should constantly set up the Light of Wisdom.

Erroneous views keep us in defilement while right views remove us from it. But when we are in a position to discard both of them, we are then absolutely pure. Bodhi is immanent in our Essence of Mind and attempt to look for it elsewhere is erroneous. Within our impure mind the pure one is to be found and once our mind is set right, we are free from three kinds of beclouding (defilement, evil karma and expiation in evil realms of existence).

If we are treading the Path of Enlightenment, we need not be worried by stumbling-blocks. Provided we keep a constant eye on our own faults, we cannot go astray from the right path. Since every species of life has its own way of salvation, they will not interfere with or be antagonistic to one another. But if we leave our own path and seek some other way of salvation, we shall not find it, and though we plod on till death overtakes us. We shall find only penitence in the end.

If you wish to find the true way, right action will lead you to it directly; but if you do not strive for Buddhahood, you will grope in the dark and never find it. He who treads the path in earnest, sees not the mistakes of the world. If we find faults with others, we ourselves are also in the wrong. When other people are in the wrong, we should ignore it, for it is wrong for us to find faults. By getting rid of the habit of fault-finding, we cut off a source of defilement.

When neither hatred nor love disturbs our mind, serenely we sleep. Those who intend to be teachers of others should themselves be skilled in the various expedients which lead others to enlightenment. When the disciple is free from all doubts, it indicates that his Essence of Mind has been found. The Kingdom of Buddha is in this world, within which enlightenment is to be sought. To seek enlightenment by separating from this world is as absurd as to search for a rabbits horn.

Right views are called transcendental; erroneous views are called worldly. When all views, right or erroneous, are discarded, then the essence of Bodhi appears. This stanza is for the Sudden School. It is also called the Big Ship of Dharma. Kalpa after kalpa, a man may be under delusion, but once enlightened it takes him only a moment to attain Buddhahood.

According to Tao of Heaven, Hui Neng is the incarnation of Bodhisattva Ti-Tsang (the Deliverer from Hell). He was born in Canton and two days after he was born, two monks came to his home and said: Your son has great affinity with Buddha; therefore we come to give him a name. Hui means in the future he will be able to use wisdom of Buddhist teachings to help the mortals; Neng means he will be able to illuminate the Dharma of the Buddha.

Hui Nengs father died when he was only three and his childhood was poor and difficult. When he was twenty-four, while delivering a batch of fire wood to a store, he heard a guest reciting the Diamond Sutra, he was enlightened. He asked the guest where he obtained the sutra and the guest told him from a temple in Huang Mei. The guest with generosity gave him ten ounces so that he will be able to leave for Huang Mei to pay the fifth Patriarch a visit and be his disciple. Even though he did not become a monk under the fifth Patriarch Hong Yen at that time, with his true wisdom, he was chosen to become the sixth Patriarch to carry on the lineage of Tao.

This is the Sutra of Hui Neng on Prajna (wisdom):

In the future, if an initiate of my dharma should make a vow in company with his fellow disciples to devote his whole life without retrogression to the practice of the teaching of this Sudden dharma, in the same spirit and dedication as that for serving Buddha, he would reach without failure the Path of Holiness. But this righteous person must be transmitted confidentially from heart to heart the instruction handed down from the past Patriarchs; and yet no attempt should be made to conceal this method of immediacy.

The Sudden dharma is the sudden awakening taught in Tao of Heaven as the Three Heavenly Treasures. The First Treasure is to wake up our divine soul or true self and plant the seed of enlightenment. Hui Neng also said that: Sentient being who sows the seeds of enlightenment, in the field of causation will reap the fruit of Buddhahood.

Author: T.A Chew