Huineng
Chinese Buddhist monk (638–713), traditionally venerated as the Sixth and last Patriarch of Chan Buddhism (the Chinese origin of what in Japan would become known as Zen), a figure surrounded by legend in tradition but who marked a decisive turning point in the history of this school. According to the traditional account, he was an illiterate, poor woodcutter from southern China who, on hearing the Diamond Sutra recited in the marketplace, had an immediate awakening and travelled to the monastery of the fifth patriarch Hongren, where he was initially assigned to humble kitchen work; there, in a famous poetry contest to choose the successor, his verse —replying to that of the learned monk Shenxiu, who compared the mind to a mirror that must be continually wiped clean of dust, affirming instead that 'the Buddha-nature is ever pure and clear, so where could the dust alight?', that is, that 'from the first not a thing is'— led Hongren to transmit to him in secret, by night, the insignia of the patriarchate and the robe of Bodhidharma, fearful of the envy and violence of the other disciples, after which Huineng had to flee and hide for years. This narrative, whatever its actual historical basis (much disputed by modern scholarship), embodies the central doctrinal dispute of early Chan: whether enlightenment is a gradual process of cultivation and progressive purification (the 'Northern School' attributed to Shenxiu) or a sudden and immediate awakening to the Buddha-nature already present and complete in every mind (the 'Southern School' that Huineng represents and that ultimately prevailed as orthodoxy). His teachings, gathered by his disciples in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch —the only Chinese Buddhist text elevated to the rank of 'sutra' despite not being the word of the historical Buddha— set the later orientation of all Chan and Zen Buddhism toward the immediacy, naturalness and suddenness of enlightenment, and toward distrust of ritualism, purely scholastic study and attachment to external forms.