Huineng comes to a turning point when Hongren challenges all of his students to compose a verse describing enlightenment. Only one of his students, Shen-hsiu, makes an effort. He writes on the wall of the monastery: “The body is the bodhi tree. The heart-mind is like a mirror. Moment by moment wipe and polish it, Not allowing dust to collect.” Hongren tells Shen-hsiu to try harder. Huineng decides to compose his own verse. With help from someone (remember, he is illiterate), Huineng writes his response on the wall next to Shen-hsiu’s answer. He writes it anonymously. His response is: “Bodhi originally has no tree. The clear and bright mirror also has no support. Buddha-nature is constantly purifying and clearing. Where could there be dust?” Not only did Huineng give a good answer, he also tore apart the answer that Shen-hsiu had given. The story of Huineng has an important lesson for us. Because Buddha nature is our true nature, anyone can become enlightened. Even an illiterate wood chopper, like Huineng, or a poor janitor, like Will Hunting. It can become easy to get discourage on the path, but we shouldn’t. We are all enlightened already.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 22:22:22 +0000
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