McKay, Alex, ed. Pilgrimage in Tibet.Richmond, UK: Curzon
Press, 1998.
Morinis, Alan, ed. Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pil-
grimage.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Naquin, Susan, and Yü, Chün-fang, eds. Pilgrims and Sacred
Sites in China.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives.New York:
Columbia University Press, 1978.
KEVINTRAINORPLATFORM SUTRA OF THE SIXTH
PATRIARCH (LIUZU TAN JING)
The Liuzu tan jing(Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patri-
arch) is the capstone text of the early CHAN SCHOOLof
Chinese Buddhism. The sutra resolves hotly contested
issues of earlier decades in a charmingly instructive
narrative. At its heart is a verse competition between
Shenxiu (ca. 606–706) and HUINENG(ca. 638–713), in
which the latter becomes sixth patriarch in spite of be-
ing an illiterate and socially declassé layman from the
far south of China. The entire story is fictional—
Shenxiu had long since left the “fifth patriarch”
Hongren’s (601–674) monastic training center when
the events supposedly took place—but the text’s imag-
inative dramatization of Chan spiritual training has
been almost universally accepted. Composed originally
around 780 (the approximate date of the DUNHUANG
version), the Platform Sutrais an important source for
understanding both the Chinese monastic institution
and the state of evolution of Chan mythology at that
time. Although the text did not remain universally
popular throughout the medieval and premodern
period—the Japanese Zen master DOGEN(1200–1253)
was particularly critical of it—it is widely read and
cited throughout East Asian Buddhism today.
In the opening anecdote, Hongren instructs his stu-
dents to compose verses demonstrating their under-
standing of Buddhism, with the author of the best verse
becoming his successor. After some consternation,
Shenxiu submits:
The body is the bodhi tree.
The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand.
At all times we must strive to polish it
and must not let dust collect.The response by Huineng, a menial laborer at the
monastery for the preceding eight months, reads:Bodhi originally has no tree.
The mirror also has no stand.
The buddha-nature is always clear and pure.
Where is there room for dust?The Dunhuang manuscript actually contains two
slightly different versions of Huineng’s response. Fur-
ther editorial adjustment is shown in later versions
from the tenth and thirteenth centuries, which reduce
this contribution to a single verse with a famous third
line, “Fundamentally there is not a single thing.”
The Platform Sutrahas generally been misread as a
clear-cut validation of a subitist “Southern school” as-
sociated with Huineng. However, the text actually out-
lines a three-level movement from an initial assertion
about Buddhist practice, through a deconstruction of
that assertion using the rhetoric of S ́UNYATA(EMPTI-
NESS), to a profoundly nuanced restatement of the ini-
tial assertion. Shenxiu taught the constant or perfect
practice of the PATHof the BODHISATTVA, by which he
meant that one should always remain in meditation
and always work to help other SENTIENT BEINGS. If he
had actually used the metaphor of the mirror as given
here, polishing the mirror would be a standard proce-
dure of ethical training, not a gradualistic device for
progressing toward enlightenment.
Huineng’s verse contains no reference to sudden-
ness, but is rather a deconstructive move implying a
more profound understanding of Shenxiu’s initial
“perfect teaching.” The balance of the Platform Sutra
explains this more profound understanding using such
expressions as the “formless precepts” and metaphoric
reinterpretations of “sitting in meditation.”Bibliography
McRae, John R. The Northern School and the Formation of Early
Ch’an Buddhism.Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1986.PLATFORMSUTRA OF THESIXTHPATRIARCH(LIUZU TAN JING)