1. Life inevitably involves “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness” (dukkha).   2. Suffering/unsatisfactoriness is ultimately due to attachment and desire. 3. Suffering/unsatisfactoriness can only be stopped by the cessation of attachment and desire. . . 4. This can be accomplished by a life of discipline, meditation, and moral behavior—especially when pursued with uninterrupted focus by a monk or wandering ascetic. [cf. MOF, 115]

 

Bodhidharma
 

Chan/Zen Buddhism

In the final, fully developed version of the transmission of the Chan teaching, it was supposed to have begun when the Buddha himself silently held up a flower. Only one disciple smiled, and it was that disciple who transmitted this knowledge beyond words to his disciple, and so on through more than twenty generations until a monk named Bodhidharma brought the teaching to China in the early 500s....When a disciple told him he had not found peace of mind, Bodhidharma told him to bring him his mind and he would pacify it for him. The disciple thought for a long time and then admitted that he could not find his mind. “There,” said Bodhidharma, “I have pacified it for you.” He summarized Chan teaching in this way:

 

“A special transmission outside the scriptures; no reliance upon words and letters; direct pointing to the very mind; seeing into one’s own nature.”

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When he assembled his disciples to test their attainment and see which would succeed him as patriarch of Chan, he was much impressed by the wisdom of several replies but bestowed his robe, symbolic of the transmission of the true teaching, on a disciple who simply bowed to him silently. [MOF, 118-9]

 

 
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
Hui Neng (638-713)

You disciples make offerings all day long and seek only blessings in the next life, but you do not seek to escape from the bitter sea of birth and death. Your own self-nature obscures the gateway to blessings; how can you be saved? All of you return to your rooms and look into yourselves. Men of wisdom will of themselves grasp the original nature of their spiritual insight. Each of you write a verse and bring it to me. I will read your verses, and if there is one who is awakened to the cardinal meaning, I will give him the robe and the Teaching and make him the Sixth Patriarch. Hurry! Hurry! [MOF, 121]

Shenxiu’s Poem Our body is the bodhi tree, Our mind a mirror bright. Always strive to polish it, And let no dust alight. [cf. MOF, 121] Hui-neng’s Response Originally no bodhi tree, Nor stand of a mirror bright. Since neither of these things exist, Where can the dust alight. [cf. MOF, 122]

The Evolving Koan

 
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Hui Neng Tearing Up a Sutra
 
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Mazu Daoyi (709-788)
 

Nanquan Kills the Cat Once the monks of the Eastern Hall were disputing about a cat.  Nan-ch’üan [i.e. Nanquan; J: Nansen], holding up the cat, said, “Monks, if you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat.  If you cannot, I will kill it!”  No monk could answer.  Nan-ch’üan finally killed the cat.  In the evening, when Chao-chou came back, Nan-ch’üan told him of the incident.  Chao-chou took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off.