According to traditional sayings, Buddhist Zen Buddhism was introduced from India. In India, from Mahakasyapa to Bodhidharma, "the teacher inherits the same teachings", the so-called "Twenty-Eight Generations of the West" said the ancestor.

Reading Mr. Guo Peng's "Explanation of the Platform Sutra" was shocked by his concise words and refreshing insights at the beginning.

According to traditional sayings, Buddhist Zen Buddhism was introduced from India. In India, from Mahakasyapa to Bodhidharma, "teachers inherited", the 28 generations, which is the so-called "Twenty-Eight Generations of the West" said the ancestor. In China, from Bodhidharma to Huineng, there were six generations of "teachers inherited from each other", which is the so-called "Six Generations of the East" of the ancestors (so Huineng is called " Sixth Patriarch ").

But Mr. Guo said that in fact, the above statement is just a religious legend. He believes that the arrangement of the twenty-eight generations of historical figures into the "Platform Sutra" as the Zen lineage was added by later generations and could not have been said by Huineng. Verification, Chinese Buddhist Zen Buddhism was "founded" by Huineng. Huineng was the founder of Zen Buddhism. Before Huineng, there was only Zen Buddhism, but no Zen Buddhism.

Mr. Guo said that Huineng's Zen is simple and unwritten, without any decoration, and directly advocates "understanding the mind and seeing the nature", which is the so-called "directly pointing to the heart and becoming a Buddha". Although the Zen Buddhism after Huineng still emphasized "understanding the mind and seeing the nature", it added many branches.

He said that although the five Zen schools of the late Tang Dynasty and five generations of also claimed to be "understanding the mind and seeing the nature", they have different styles of sects and different families. Things like "machine" and "bangkong" that are full of ignorance gradually replaced the simple "direct point" of Huineng's world with the rise of the five schools. Zen thoughts and its sect style changed.

He said that after entering the Song Dynasty, there were many Confucian scholars and literary monks who turned to Zen. Not only did the quotes become more and more frequent, but large-scale lantern records also appeared one after another. The Zen Buddhism that "does not establish words" has changed into a Zen Buddhism that "does not leave words". Zen thought and its sect style changed again. At the same time, the so-called "picking the ancients" and "songing the ancients" appeared - various "pinning" and "songing" ancients (the total number is called "thousands and seven hundred lines", and generally "picking" and "songing" are "hundred lines") replaced "direct fingering" and "censoring". Zen thought and its sect style changed again. Northern Song Keqin created and sang, causing Zen to evolve from "pointing directly to people's hearts" to "taking the way to talk about Zen" (Keqin's words). Zen thought and its sect style changed again. The Southern Song Dynasty Zong Gao advocated "Looking at Zen" ("Calligraphy" - the "Calligraphy" of Zen did not start with Zong Gao, but Zong Gao was just promoting it with added meaning), leading Zen to a more ignorant path. Zen thought and its sect style have changed a lot.

He said that although the main schools of Zen in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties were still barely maintaining their sects, they were mostly following the footsteps of the previous generations and picking up the spits of the ancients. The situation was getting worse and worse. Even changing "scientific" Zen to "mind" Zen (that is, changing "scientific" koan to "mind" koan), and finally he went from the Zen person to Pure (to completely move towards the opposite of Huineng Zen), and he was only known as Zen.

Mr. Guo said that in terms of the world view, Huineng's thought is a "true mind" monist (i.e., the "true mind" is "true nature". It is inconsistent with the theory of "empt nature and dependent origination" in Prajna); in the theory of liberation, he is a Buddha nature theory, that is, he believes that all sentient beings have Buddha nature, and all sentient beings can become Buddhas; in religious practice, he is an advocate of the "sudden enlightenment" idea, that is, he believes that as long as he "sees the nature", he can "suddenly enter the Buddha's realm".

Reading Guo Peng makes people feel refreshed. Good, happy!