The monk Fa-ta was a man from Hung Province. He had left home at the age of seven, and constantly recited the Lotus Sutra. When he came [to Huineng], he bowed to the Master without his head touching the ground.
The Master chided him, "If you bow without reaching the ground, how does that compare to not bowing at all? You must have something on your mind. What have you learned?"
He said, "I have recited the Lotus Sutra as many as three thousand times already."
The Master said, "If you recite it ten thousand times and get the meaning of the sutra without considering this to be superiority, then you are a fellow traveler with me. At present you are conceited about this formal practice, totally unaware of your error.
[For brevity I skip two verses and a pithy one-liner from Huineng]
After listening to [those verses], Fa-ta apologized and said, "Hereafter I will be modest and respectful toward all. I have been reciting the Lotus Sutra without having understood the meaning of the scripture, and have always had doubts in my mind..."
- From Cleary's The Sutra of Huineng, Key Events
The rest of that exchange is worth reading but extends beyond my point. This is one account, though there's a shorter one preceding this one in the section, of Huineng dealing with students who saw ritualistically reciting sutra as the path to enlightenment. It's probably a safe assumption that there were those who felt the same way of koans, verses, and sayings as well, and that this was not unique to the sixth patriarch's time. When you see "transmission outside the teachings" and "not based on the written word," this sort of blind ritualism is what you are meant to avoid. It's admonishment of those who obsessively repeat and mindlessly practice without understanding, not indictment against those who work to understand what is written/taught.
Submitted December 22, 2017 at 05:10AM by MizarsAsterism http://ift.tt/2kYyD9U
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