Dajian Huineng
638-713 · East Asian Buddhism · Prominent
Huineng was a wood-seller who could not read and became the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism, or so his school told the story. The Platform Sutra, given in his name, drops the picture of the mind as a mirror needing to be wiped. There is no mirror and no dust to collect, and you see your own nature all at once or not at all. His southern line, set against slow cultivation, became the dominant Chan.
Signature
The position Huineng is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence
- Paradox
- Koan
Positions on the 5 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (79 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Order
- mildly between Vertical and Horizontal (58 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (88 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
15 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Huineng refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- End of Things
- Final Liberation
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Paradox
- Koan
What is the status of paradox? - Primary Bond
- All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?