Set the two verses side by side and look at what you are wiping

Compare Shenxiu’s verse with Huineng’s, and notice whether you are carrying a cleaning project into your own practice.

Por qué funciona

The verse contest turns on two images. Shenxiu writes that the body is a bodhi tree and the mind a bright mirror’s stand, to be diligently rubbed so that no dust attracts. Huineng answers that bodhi is without any tree, the bright mirror is not a stand, and fundamentally there is not a single thing where dust could gather. The sūtra presents the first as the work of cleaning a dirty mind. Holding both verses in view turns the image of the goal into something you can examine: a project of wiping, or a premise that there is nothing to wipe.

Cómo hacerlo

1. Feel both feet on the floor, and then write both verses in two columns, from McRae’s translation or another translation you name.
2. Underline the verbs in each column. Compare “always be diligent in rubbing it” with “fundamentally there is not a single thing.”
3. Sit for a short session with one question: what am I trying to wipe clean in myself right now?
4. Notice whether the answer is a quality you feel you must achieve, or a part of yourself you have decided is dirty.
5. Write one sentence about what you noticed, and leave the question open for the next sitting. Stop if it turns into self-criticism, and return to your feet and breath.

Evidencia

Both verses and the scene in which the patriarch rubs out Huineng’s own verse are in the Account of Origins chapter of McRae’s translation. Zhang (2020) argues from the text that Huineng practically integrates gradual practice with sudden enlightenment, and that scholars often over-emphasise the sudden side; this page uses that to qualify the common mistake below, not Zhang’s Daoist framing. Columbia University Press describes Yampolsky’s translation as based on the Tun-huang manuscript, the earliest extant version. Comparing verses as a contemplative exercise is the page’s method and has not been studied. (anecdotal)

Yampolsky’s 1967 translation is of the earlier Dunhuang text, which may differ in wording from McRae’s. The verses should be read in a translation you name, since wording changes the image.

Fuentes

• McRae, John R. (trans.) (2000). The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Taishō vol. 48, no. 2008). BDK English Tripiṭaka. Moraga, CA: BDK America. Free PDF from the publisher.
• Blofeld, John (1968). Review of Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch: The Text of the Tun-huang Manuscript (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). Journal of Asian Studies 27(3): 634–635.
• Yampolsky, Philip B. (trans.) (1978). The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch: With translation, introduction, and notes. New York: Columbia University Press (paperback; publisher page lists pub. date March 1978, ISBN 9780231083614).
• Zhang, Rongkun (2020). Unique Ethical Insights Gained from Integrating Gradual Practice with Sudden Enlightenment in the Platform Sutra—An Interpretation from the Perspective of Daoism. Religions 11(8): 424.

Error común

Concluding from Huineng’s verse that practice is unnecessary. In the story the patriarch rubs out Huineng’s own verse with his sandal as well, and the sūtra describes seeing the nature as “effort,” so the contrast is about the view behind the practice.