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"You are already enlightened" .



This is, perhaps, the central message of Zen Buddhism but also the cause of its central tension. If you’re already enlightened, then what’s the point of meditation and spiritual practice? Why should you read Zen texts or even become a student of Buddhism if you’ve already achieved (what appears to be) its core objective?



The “Platform Sutra,” a Chinese Zen scripture that dates back to the 8th century AD, discusses this paradox in a pair of “dharma verses” written by Huineng, an illiterate commoner from Southern China, and Shenxiu, the head monk of a monastery that belongs to the Northern Zen school (“dharma” refers to a teaching in Buddhism).

Shenxiu wrote,


“The body is the Bodhi tree,

The mind is like a clear mirror.

At all times we must strive to polish it,

And must not let the dust collect.”




Huineng, on the other hand, wrote,


“Bodhi originally had no tree,

The mirror also has no stand.

Buddha nature is always clean and pure,

Where can it be stained by dust?”


Huineng, despite his background and lack of formal training, was appointed to be the next Zen patriarch for the deep wisdom that he displayed in his poem. It is a mistake to wait or strive for enlightenment, Huineng thought, because we already manifest it. Nor is it the case that we have to purify ourselves in order to attain our Buddha nature, since it was never tainted in the first place. Our Buddha nature is already perfected, and it’s inherent to all of us.



These two verses represent the competing views of enlightenment that were held by the Northern and Southern schools of Zen. Northerners like Shenxiu believed that enlightenment was achieved gradually, through a prolonged process that involved a great deal of study and practice. Southerners like Huineng thought that enlightenment occurred suddenly, in a spontaneous, immediate, and direct realization of the immutably pure Buddha nature that resides inside of us.



At the outset, it may appear as though Huineng’s approach is incredibly unrealistic. Somebody who isn’t trained in meditation or spiritual practice cannot simply snap his fingers and become enlightened. Many Zen masters say that they had multiple awakenings – several glimpses at the core truth of their being – before they finally discovered the full depth of their own Buddha nature. As the Buddhist scholar Robert E. Buswell writes, “Even the most cursory perusal of Zen literature will show that few practitioners have had a single moment of sudden enlightenment in which all practices are simultaneously perfected.” Hence, a Zen monk may spend an entire lifetime in a monastery, diligently reading and re-reading texts and devoting many hours each day to meditation in order to make progress on the road to enlightenment.



Sudden enlightenment, therefore, seems like a gradual process, and Huineng acknowledges the false dichotomy that appears to exist between the Northern and the Southern methods for recognizing our Buddha nature. As he writes in the Platform Sutra, it is delusional to think that sudden and gradual enlightenment are opposite to each other. In an enlightened state of mind, it becomes clear that there is actually “no distinction” between these two methods.



How could two approaches that clearly seem antithetical to each other actually be one and the same? Huineng offers a hint when he discusses the relationship between meditation and wisdom. “Although they have two names,” he writes, “in substance they are not two,” much like a lamp and the light that it gives forth. The lamp and the light are separate from each other but they are mutually co-dependent on each other. Without the lamp, there can’t be any light; and without the light, then there wouldn’t be a lamp (in the sense that we wouldn’t ascribe the label “lamp” to an apparatus that doesn’t issue any light). (1) According to the Southern doctrine, it is necessary to meditate, but not because meditation is a means to the end of becoming wise; rather, meditation is a manifestation of the wisdom that we already have. Pure Buddha nature is not a state of mind that we achieve once we have successfully followed the prescribed techniques of meditation. It is a state that we have at all times, and yet there is the persistent illusion that something is impeding us from fully becoming aware of it. Meditation is the active, continual process of cutting through this illusion.



For example, the Zen meditation practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting,” looks on its surface like the act of sitting quietly and paying close attention to the breath with the aim of seeking sudden enlightenment. But this conception of the practice is entirely misguided. It is simultaneously more and less than just sitting – it is a process of focusing completely on everything that one is experiencing without becoming psychologically attached to any of it. In this state of deep presence, the meditator lets go of a thought as soon as it arises, such that his mind is no longer trapped by the unceasing mental monologue that runs through it. The mind suspends its reflexive tendency to judge those thoughts, to label them as “good” or “bad,” to interpret them in the context of the past and future, and to react to them emotionally, instead letting them be as they are. All the dust that bears the false appearance of obscuring our Buddha nature goes away.