After he was given the advice of the Fifth Patriarch, Huineng passed through the south overnight and left Dongshan Temple. He hid the dust for 16 years before he was re-orphaned and entered Buddhism again. He was famous for the Sixth Patriarch.

with a sentence "Man has north and south, does Buddha nature still have north and south?" shocked the fifth ancestor Hongren , so he took it in as a disciple and was eventually passed down to become Zen Sixth ancestor Huineng never expected that his rebuttal would become his destiny.

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Wu Zetian

At this time, the "gradual cultivation" school advocated by Shenxiu was called "Northern School Zen", and the "Spiritual enlightenment" school advocated by Huineng was called "Southern School Zen". Since then, the Zen lineage has been divided into two schools, forming a confrontation between the north and the south. Huineng can say, "People have north and south, does Buddha nature still have north and south?" Such a deafening remark cannot stop the trend of Buddhism being divided into two, and being trapped in it, unable to escape, which makes people sigh.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 In "The south can show off the north", Caoxi Zen, which was originally cramped in , is now popular in various places.

Shenhui early in the early stages of the activity, Songshan Puji under Shenxiu's sect was particularly powerful. He wanted to set Shenxiu as the Sixth Patriarch, and Puji himself as the Seventh Patriarch, but many disciples under Shenxiu were preaching, and in order to gain territory, the inheritance seemed very complicated.

Shenhui believes that this chaos in the Northern Sect will harm Zen, because only one person is allowed to be officially inherited since Bodhidharma, and Huineng is Hongren's single pass, and Shenxiu also admits this. Buddhism spreads the Dharma internally to "certify the mind" and externally to "transmit the cassock to determine the purpose", and the cassock is in Caoxi . Therefore, according to tradition, Shenxiu's teachings are not recognized.

In the 12th year of Zhenyuan (796), the imperial court officially recognized Huineng as the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, which clarified his orthodox status.

Although the "South and North gradual" has not ended completely, with the development of the times, the north has faded rapidly and gradually declined and almost disappeared, which can be regarded as the final fulfillment of the will of the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, "Buddha does not distinguish between the north and the south."