“My master had no special instruction to give, he simply insisted upon the need of our seeing into our own Nature through our own efforts, he had nothing to do with meditation, or with deliverance. For whatever that could be named leads to dualism, and Buddhism is not dualistic. To take hold of this non-duality of truth is the aim of Zen. The Buddha-Nature of which we are all in possession, and the seeing into which constitutes Zen, is indivisible into such oppositions as good and evil, eternal and temporal, material and spiritual. To see dualism in life is due to confusion of thought; the wise, the enlightened see into the reality of things unhampered by erroneous ideas.” This was the beginning of Hui-nêng’s career as Zen master. His influence seems to have been immediate and far-reaching. He had many disciples numbering thousands. He did not however go around preaching and proselyting. His activities were confined in his own province in the south, and the Pao-lin monastery at Ts‘ao-ch‘i was his headquarters. When the Emperor Kao-tsung learned that Hui-nêng succeeded Hung-jên as one of Dharma’s spiritual descendants in the faith of Zen, he sent him one of his court officials with an imperial message, but Hui-nêng refused to come up to the capital, preferring his stay in the mountains. The messenger however wished to be instructed in the doctrine of Zen that he might convey it to his august master at Court. Said Hui-nêng in the main as follows: “It is a mistake to think that sitting quietly in contemplation is essential to deliverance. The truth of Zen opens by itself from within and it has nothing to do with the practise of dhyana. For we read in the _Vajracchedikā_ that those who try to see the Tathagata in one of his special attitudes, as sitting or lying, do not understand his spirit, and that the Tathagata is designated as Tathagata because he comes from nowhere and departs nowhere, and for that reason he is the Tathagata. His appearance has no whence, and his disappearance no whither, and this is Zen. In Zen therefore there is nothing to gain, nothing to understand; what shall we then do with sitting cross-legged and practising dhyana? Some may think that understanding is needed to enlighten the darkness of ignorance, but the truth of Zen is absolute in which there is no dualism, no conditionality. To speak of ignorance and enlightenment, or of Bodhi and Kleśa (wisdom and passions), as if they were two separate objects which cannot be merged in one, is not Mahayanistic. In the Mahayana every possible form of dualism is condemned as not expressing the ultimate truth. Everything is a manifestation of the Buddha-Nature which is not defiled in passions, nor purified in enlightenment. It is above all categories. If you want to see what is the nature of your being, free your mind from thought of relativity and you will see by yourself how serene it is and yet how full of life it is.” * * * * *