One can hardly disagree with Red Pine when he says, in so many words, that the hallmark of Zen, which is a sub-school of Buddhism, is that it is “pointing directly at the mind” (The Lankavatara, 3). The mind, of course, that it points to is unpacked more clearly in the Lankavatara Sutra than in any other Buddhist Sutra. This is also the Sutra that made Zen what it is, even today. It was the Sutra that the legendary Bodhidharma handed to his Chinese disciple Hui-k’o into which was poured the ultimate mystery of Buddhism, hopefully, to take root in the already fertile soil of Chinese Buddhism.
Whether or not Bodhidharma really existed can not be answered with any degree of confidence. But we can say that the Zen lineage begins with the Lankavatara Sutra and no other. It even fostered a school called the Lanka School the head of which was Gunabhadra who died in 468. It is Gunabhadra’s translation that Bodhidharma transmitted to hui-k’o.
Judging from the recondite quality and depth of the Lankavatara Sutra, modern Zen seems extraordinarily distant from the early formation of Zen. Modern Westernized Zen appears to have lost itself in a world of pop psychology and sitting therapy which in no way can help the average practitioner to get closer to seeing the world from the standpoint of the Lankavatara Sutra which, I must say, is quite extraordinary.
To speak in somewhat of a Hegelian manner, the Lankavatara Sutra culminates in a perfect synthesis. Just how this synthesis is achieved is remarkable. Mind, unbeknownst (avidya) to itself, like a womb (garbha), has given birth to itself such that it becomes something, external and alien. In other words, it confronts itself as 'other'. What stands before it, including the psychophysical body, is imaginal but seemingly real and concrete. Mind, as a result, becomes dependent upon the imaginal; locked into a relative, dependent existence with it. This is its disharmony (duhkha). Mind does not know that what appears before it is nothing more than phenomenalizations of itself. In itself, it is the absolute substance which is never other than unconditioned, looking at its own compositions, as infinite as the stars in the heavens, this being the conditioned world.
Being a witness to the mysterious synthesis, as in the example of water with its waves, requires the help of the Buddhas which is called in the Lankavatara Sutra the Light of Mahayana. The Buddhas impart to the adept their sustaining power displayed with the body, mouth, and words. This is the real transmission which must always be from Buddha to the Buddha-to-be.
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