Within yourself you will find the Trikaya [the Three Bodies of Buddha] which, being the manifestation of the Essence of Mind, are not to be sought from without.
Sutra of Hui Neng
The Essence of Mind
Theme: Eternal Truth
Within our Essence of Mind the Three Bodies of Buddha (Trikaya) are to be found, and they are common to everybody. Because the mind labors under delusions, he knows not his own inner nature; and the result is that he ignores the Trikaya within himself, erroneously believing that they are to be sought from without. Within yourself you will find the Trikaya which, being the manifestation of the Essence of Mind, are not to be sought from without.
Sutra of Hui Neng
Wilson, Andrew, editor. World Scripture - a Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. Paragon House, 1991, p. 73 [Sutra of Hui Neng 6]
Theme: Eternal Truth
Sutra of Hui Neng 6
‘Essence of Mind’ as Hui Neng uses the term denotes the original mind which is intrinsically the same as Buddha nature. But ‘Essence of Mind’ is Tathata, which can also be translated Essence of all things. These indeed are not different, as the essence of things can be grasped only by mind.
H.H. The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng
(638 – 713)
His Holiness Hui Neng, who became the great Sixth Patriarch of Ch’an (Japanese Zen) was a poor illiterate peasant boy from Hsin Chou of Kwangtung. One day, after he had delivered firewood to a shop, he overheard a man reciting the following line from the “Diamond Sutra” – “Depending upon no-thing, you must find your own mind.” Instantly, Hui Neng became Enlightened. The full verse said: “All Bodhisattvas (Compassionate Ones) should develop a pure mind which clings to no-thing whatsoever; and so he should establish it.”
–The Diamond Sutra and The Sutra of Hui Neng, Translated by A.F. Price and Wong, Mou-Lam, Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1985.
[See Resources for the rest of this passage (The Sixth Patriarch Huineng).]
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