Shen-hui 神會
In the year 734, when P'u-chi was still at the height of his power and prestige, a Southern monk by the name of Shen-hui 神會 stood up at a large gathering in a monastery in Huatai 滑臺 in modern Hunan and openly challenged the line of descent claimed by Shen-hsiu and his school as not true and not historical.
And he declared that the teaching of Shen-hsiu and P'u-chi was false, because it recognized only Gradual Enlightenment, while "the great teachers of the School, throughout six generations, have all taught 'the sword must pierce directly through,' directly pointing to the sudden realization of one's nature: they never talked about gradations of enlightenment. All those who want to learn the Tao (Way) must achieve Sudden Enlightenment to be followed by Gradual Cultivation. It is like child-birth, which is a sudden affair, but the child will require a long process of nurture and education before he attains his full bodily and intellectual growth."
Note the phrase here of the way that became the Southern Budism which is practiced today.
Sudden Enlightenment to be followed by Gradual Cultivation.
It is like child-birth, which is a sudden affair, but the child will require a long process of nurture and education before he attains his full bodily and intellectual growth."
Now we will see what the Eastern Mountain school of Shen-hsui suggested.
And he condemned the formula of dhyana practice taught by P'u-chi and his fellow students of the great Shen-hsiu -- a fourfold formula of "concentrating the mind in order to enter dhyaana, settling the mind in that state by watching its forms of purity, arousing the mind to shine in insight, and finally controlling the mind for its inner verification." Shen-hui said all this is "hindrance to bodhi (enlightenment)."
The East Mountain school used :
1. Concentrating the mind in order to enter dhyaana.
2. Settling the mind in that state by watching its forms of purity
3. Arousing the mind to shine in insight
4. Controlling the mind for its inner verification."
Then he swept aside all forms of sitting in meditation (tso-ch'an 坐禪, Japanese zazen) as entirely unnecessary. He said: "If it is right to sit in meditation, then why should Vimalakiirti scold Saariputta for sitting in meditation in the woods?" "Here in my school, to have no thoughts is meditation-sitting, and to see one's original nature is dhyaana (ch'an)."
This is then root of what was later written in the Platform sutra as coming from Hui Neng.
Thus Shen-hui proceeded from denunciation of the most highly honored school of the empire to a revolutionary pronouncement of a new Ch'an which renounces ch'an itself and is therefore no Ch'an at all. This doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment he does not claim as his own theory or that of his teacher, the illiterate monk Hui-neng of Shaochou, but only as the true teaching of all the six generations of the school of Bodhidharma.
The doctrine of Sudden Enlightenment was first taught by the philosophical monk Tao-sheng 道生, who died in A.D. 434. See Hu Shih, "Development of Zen Buddhism in China," The Chinese Social and Political Science Review, Vol. XV, no. 4, 483-485.
All this, according to the newly discovered documents, took place in 734 in a monastery in Huatai, which was a provincial capital fairly far away from the great cities of Changan and Loyang. In 739, the Ch'an master P'u-chi died. In his biographical monument written by the famous Li Yung 李邕 (678-747), the genealogical line from Bodhidharma to Shen-hsiu was repeated with the significant statement that, before his death, he told his disciples,
"I was entrusted by my deceased Master with the transmission of the Secret Seal of the Law," which had come down from Bodhidharma.
This is not saying that there was a single line of Dharma heirs, but that that particular Master was entrusted (among others).
What is important here then is to present the East Mountain path of meditation which was not Gradual but relied upon what in Mahamudra is Support or Preparation.
1. Concentrating the mind in order to enter dhyaana.
2. Settling the mind in that state by watching its forms of purity.
3. Arousing the mind to shine in insight
4. Controlling the mind for its inner verification.
We shall see precisely how this is accomplished as a base for the Sudden entry and why it is completely different from the Gradual Path.
The first three elements are the preparation. For some with a rapid mind, they are indeed not necessary and one can move directly to the the inner verification of the Primordial State; there is no other, for all verification must be and is internal. The use of the word "controlling" is also misleading, for one does not control the pure mind. The control is simply the eternal vigilance to prevent impediments to the arousing. Thus it is not really an active control, but a sort of antivirus control.
In both cases, that of the East Mountain School and Huei -neng's school, the Awakening is not the final point. As the word suggests, it is an Awakening. After that awakening there must be refining and tuning of the experience to meld that Awakened experience with the illusions of Samsara. This is precisely the same in the Awakening of Dzogchen and Mahamudra.
Ref. THE NORTHERN CH'AN SCHOOL AND SUDDEN VERSUS GRADUAL ENLIGHTENMENT DEBATES IN CHINA AND TIBET, by Gary L. Ray . INSTITUTE OF BUDDHIST STUDIES
"Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method," by Hu Shih. Philosophy East and West V. 3, No. 1 (January, 1953)