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Whenever we pretend to explain Chan in terms of lineal successions from one great master to another, we run the risk of committing the “string of pearls” fallacy, in which the evolution of Chan Buddhism is described in terms of a sequence of individual masters like pearls on a string. In terms of Zen studies, this tendency is starkly apparent in the way Dunhuang manuscripts have been used to supplement rather than radically transform the appreciation of Chan in many writings. A trove of cultural treasures similar to the Dead Sea scrolls, the Dunhuang manuscripts provided a cross-section of Chan documents from the eighth to the tenth centuries, just before the great editorial homogenization of the Song dynasty took place. Scholars have used Dunhuang manuscripts in conjunction with other evidence to devise more vivid portraits of Bodhidharma, Huineng, and others as individual figures. The picture of Song-dynasty Chan is not complete without looking closely at the style of meditative introspection advocated by Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157) and other members of the Caodong lineage.

This chapter looks at three texts that reworked the figure of Huineng for new purposes: the Biography of the Great Master of Caoqi, the Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch, and the Record of the Dharma-Jewel through the Generations. What is particularly impressive about these three texts is that they take the trope of conspiracy and shift it from a direct charge leveled against the competition—Shenhui's strategy—and turn the accusation into an objective-looking history in which an invisible and omniscient narrator gradually gets the reader to “see” that a conspiracy has been perpetrated. Thus, each of these three “histories” reveals not only a new version of the Bodhidharma family but also how and why someone else's history came to be accepted into the public record. Hence, these narratives count as a kind of metawriting in which one of the key elements of the story is to show how someone else tried to write the Bodhidharma story.

This chapter focuses on the Platform Sūtra. Composed sometime in the late eighth century, Platform Sūtra picks up and works over a number of claims regarding the Bodhidharma clan that had been put forth in earlier Chan works. The text opens with an unusually creative “autobiography” of Huineng, one that circles around an involved conspiracy supposedly orchestrated by master Hongren. As the details of the conspiracy come into focus, the reader learns that Hongren's chosen heir was not Shenxiu, but rather Huineng. With that startling “history” newly revealed roughly one hundred years after the events supposedly took place, the narrative turns to show Huineng giving a formal dharma teaching that, in places, appears to negate many of the building blocks of the Buddhist tradition, while also emphasizing the innate presence of perfect tradition within each person in the form of the buddha-nature.

This chapter discusses the Chan school in the Song. By the twelfth century, the understanding of the Song Chan school was that the Chan lineages descending from Huineng—the sixth patriarch—divided into five different branches known as “families” or “traditions.” The nature of the transmission shared by the lineages descending from Huineng is described as “a separate transmission outside the teachings.” This conception of a “separate transmission” represented an extremely powerful claim to legitimacy and authority by the Song Chan school and was at the very center of its self-understanding. The implication was that those who had received this transmission possessed an insight that was, in principle, identical to that of the historical Buddha itself. In a very real sense, then, the members of the Chan lineage were living Buddhas, and only through association with one of them could a person gain the same special insight and receive the transmission.

This chapter discusses the Platform Sūtra, one of the most celebrated works in the vast literature of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, representing the “autobiography” and the recorded sayings of the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, the Chinese master from whom all later Chan derives. The Platform Sūtra is distinctly a Chan work; it champions a Chan teacher and emphasizes a particular meditative tradition. Yet at the same time it is characteristically Buddhist, very much in the tradition of other works of the time. Elements common to all Buddhism, such as liturgy, refuges, repentances, vows, acceptance of the precepts, and various standardized formulae are evident in the Platform Sūtra. The text is composed of various layers: an autobiographical section, the basic sermons attributed to Huineng, and a number of miscellaneous independent pieces: verses, stories, the genealogy of the school, and admonitions and exhortations to students of Chan.

This chapter examines the Platform Sūtra, considering the reasons why it is a Chinese classic. There is, first of all, the autobiographical account of Huineng, which is itself selective enough to highlight certain pointed messages. Then there are texts identified as formal sermons or special literary genres and still others that address, more or less at random, issues raised in the religious controversies of the time, some of which might be labeled partisan or polemical. The chapter then presents a summary of the text that may point out certain tendencies that give a degree of coherence to an otherwise rather disjointed narrative. It argues that the spiritual ideal of Huineng, as found par excellence in the Platform Sūtra, challenged the Neo-Confucians to match Chan praxis with its own “quiet sitting.” Thus something of Chan survived by transmigrating and being reborn through a more substantial adaptation to Chinese tradition.

The chapter argues that Chan Buddhism is plausibly interpreted as a self-cultivation philosophy (specifically Bodhidharma, Huineng, and Linji—and texts such as the Platform Sutra). Chan’s self-cultivation philosophy is partly similar to other forms of Buddhism. The existential starting point is suffering rooted in attachment based on ignorance about our true nature. The ideal state of being is freedom from suffering, that is, a life of wisdom (realizing no-self and emptiness), compassion, and tranquility. A distinctive feature is the analysis of our true nature as Buddha-nature. Chan is also noteworthy for its suspicion of rational understanding, its emphasis on distinctive forms of awareness, its stress on living non-dually without attachment, and its use of unusual techniques for cultivating enlightenment such as shouting, beating, and reflecting on strange conundrums known as gong’an (kōan). Chan is a philosophy that understands Buddhist Dharma through the proper development of awareness.