In 667 AD, on the eighth day of the first lunar month, Huineng ended his hidden life and came to Guangzhou "Faxing Temple" and ran into a fierce "faming contest".
The "Faxing Temple" hosted Master Yin Zong, who was sitting in the hall to explain " Nirvana Sutra ". As he was speaking, the strong wind entered the room, and the prayer flags, that is, flags, were blown up and swayed by the wind. The monks under the monks were sleepy when they heard the lectures, and they were wandering in their minds and parade in the eight wildernesses. In this accident, a group of people suddenly became excited and argued loudly whether the banner was automatically or the wind blew the banner. The crowd quickly divided into two ends, each of which was known and learned, and they were fighting hard, but no one could convince anyone. The preaching meeting was like this. Even though these monks took advantage of the topic, Master Yin Zong was helpless. His disciples were not good at making a name for themselves, and the teacher said he was innocent.
Sixth Patriarch Huineng listened outside the door for a long time, finally stepped into the door and shouted loudly, "It's not the wind, it's not the banner, it's the monk's heart." A pun, like a wake-up call, everyone calmed down, looking at this person dressed in a dirty face, dressed up by a farmer. Master Yin Zong shouted loudly when he heard Huineng's body, and a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, but it was fleeting, and there was nowhere to find traces. Then a thought arises, that the person coming is unusual, so he must keep him. Hehe, there are no disciples who are incompetent, only teachers who are incompetent.
The two sat together in the backyard of the temple and talked deeply. After a few rounds, Master Yin Zong became more and more shocked. The person who came was unfathomable, and every sentence reached the mystery. Could it be that the Sixth Patriarch who had hidden himself in the south? Huineng smiled and did not hide it. He immediately took out the ancestor's mantle in his carry-on bag to display it. After seeing this, Master Yin Zong had no choice but to worship him and immediately asked the Sixth Patriarch to enter the hall to preach the Dharma. Huineng smiled and said, "Look, I haven't taken the precepts yet."
15th day of the first lunar month, Master Yin Zong gave birth to Huineng. On the eighth day of the second month, lawyer Zhiguang received the precepts for Huineng, and a city in Guangzhou was shocked. Afterwards, the Sixth Patriarch Huineng opened Zen at Faxing Temple, which started his half-life teaching of Dharma. This is the story of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng coming out of the mountain after receiving the robe and being passed down, and it is also a famous "public case".
The wind moves, the banner moves, the monk’s heart moves, what did you say? Can you say that the wind does not move, the banner does not move? Is this nonsense?
The principles of the world are always the same. Wang Yangming also had a similar story in the Ming Dynasty and said similar words. Wang Yangming traveled to the mountains with his friends, and his friends said that you always say "there is nothing outside the heart". Look at these flowers and trees, blooming and falling in the deep mountains, what does it have to do with your and me? Wang Yangming smiled and replied, "When you have not seen this flower, this flower is silent with your heart. When you see this flower, the color of this flower will be understood for a moment, and you will know that this flower is not outside your heart."
Wang Yangming said it clearly than Huineng, but it is even more confusing. If you don’t look at flowers, there will be no flowers. If you go to see flowers, you will have them. This is too idealistic , is that too much?
In fact, whether it is the Sixth Patriarch Huineng or Wang Yangming, the two stories and two passages express the same meaning, that is, the question of how we understand the world.
The objective world will certainly not change due to our subjective will. However, the objective world and the world we map into our hearts through observation are two different existences. The world we understand is not entirely an objective world, but is actually the result of the joint action of objective existence and our subjective judgment.
For example, the story of "the blind man touches the elephant". Because the blind man cannot see the full picture of the elephant, everyone makes a judgment that the bystanders laugh and cry based on the part they touch, but they themselves believe it. It is difficult for each of us to see the true appearance of things due to our own limitations, concealment and influence. For example, a leaf is born, some people see vitality, some people see lonely and dead, some people only see a leaf, some people see endless life, what is this? This is the difference between "seeing a mountain is a mountain, seeing a mountain is not a mountain, seeing a mountain is still a mountain". The world is still the same world, but it is different because of the different people you see.
So, why does the world change depending on the people you see? Because the people you see are different, because the "hearts" of people are different. It’s like facing the same epidemic, there are almost no two people in this world who think the same, and their ideas are the same, right?
Wang Yangming's "looking at the flowers" is about how we understand the world. The Sixth Patriarch Huineng's wake-up call was a pun. It not only rebukes the monks for not focusing on their attention and making trouble with the problem, but also reveals the mystery in one sentence, breaks out of the debate about "the wind moves and the banners move", and points directly to the core of the problem, that is, the problem of how to understand the world.
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