Samādhi, Prajñā, and Seated Meditation
定慧品第四・坐禪品第五
Two short chapters, combined here because the second continues the first without a real break: samādhi and prajñā are one substance, like a lamp and its light, never one producing the other in sequence — and no-thought, formlessness, and no-dwelling are named as the teaching's three pillars, each defined against a plausible-sounding misreading. Huineng then turns to seated meditation itself, and redefines both "sitting" and "chan" in terms that have nothing to do with staying physically motionless.
- This part covers
- Samādhi and prajñā as one substance, illustrated by a lamp and its light; the samādhi of one practice (一行三昧) as a constant direct mind in ordinary activity, not motionless sitting; no-thought, formlessness, and no-dwelling defined as the teaching's three pillars, each guarded against a specific misunderstanding; and Huineng's own redefinition of seated meditation and dhyāna-samādhi in terms of what happens inwardly, not outward posture.
- Why it matters
- This is the sūtra's most direct teaching on method — not what to believe, but what to actually do in practice — and its central move throughout is to strip away every plausible substitute for the real thing: sitting still is not stillness, forcing thought to stop is not no-thought, and striving after purity is not purity.
1. Samādhi and Prajñā as One Substance
師示眾云：「善知識！我此法門，以定慧為本。大眾！勿迷，言定慧別。定慧一體，不是二。定是慧體，慧是定用。即慧之時定在慧，即定之時慧在定。若識此義，即是定慧等學。諸學道人，莫言先定發慧、先慧發定各別。作此見者，法有二相。口說善語，心中不善。空有定慧，定慧不等。若心口俱善、內外一如，定慧即等。 自悟修行，不在於諍。若諍先後，即同迷人，不斷勝負，却增我法，不離四相。善知識！定慧猶如何等？猶如燈光。有燈即光，無燈即闇。燈是光之體，光是燈之用；名雖有二，體本同一。此定慧法，亦復如是。」
The Master taught the assembly: "Good friends, this teaching of mine takes samādhi and prajñā as its foundation. Everyone — do not be confused, and say that samādhi and prajñā are different things. Samādhi and prajñā are a single substance, not two. Samādhi is the substance of prajñā; prajñā is the function of samādhi. At the very moment of prajñā, samādhi is present within prajñā; at the very moment of samādhi, prajñā is present within samādhi. If you recognize this meaning, this itself is the equal study of samādhi and prajñā together. Students of the Way, do not say that samādhi first gives rise to prajñā, or that prajñā first gives rise to samādhi, as though they were separate things. To hold such a view is to make the Dharma into two separate marks — speaking good words with the mouth while the mind remains unwholesome, possessing samādhi and prajñā in name only, unequal to one another. If mind and mouth are both wholesome, and inner and outer are exactly the same, then samādhi and prajñā are truly equal. "Awakening and practicing by yourself does not depend on argument. If you argue over which comes first, this is no different from being deluded — failing to cut off the contest of winning and losing, you only increase the notion of a self and its teachings, never departing from the four marks. Good friends, what are samādhi and prajñā like? They are like a lamp and its light. Where there is a lamp, there is light; where there is no lamp, there is darkness. The lamp is the substance of the light, and the light is the function of the lamp — the names are two, but the substance is fundamentally one and the same. This Dharma of samādhi and prajñā is exactly the same."
Hanshan reads this passage as correcting a specific and tempting error — treating the well-known formula "precept gives rise to samādhi, samādhi gives rise to prajñā" as a strict sequence, with each stage a separate cause producing the next as a later effect. On his reading, Huineng is not rejecting that formula so much as rejecting a misreading of it: the lamp does not produce light as a delayed consequence, and no interval separates them. Samādhi and prajñā are named separately, the way a lamp and its light are named separately, but neither can occur even momentarily without the other already present.
Hanshan connects the closing warning against argument to the four marks named elsewhere in Mahāyāna literature — the notion of a self, a person, a sentient being, and a lifespan — reading the impulse to argue over sequence, over which practice "comes first," as itself a subtle expression of the self-notion the whole teaching is meant to dissolve. The tell, on this reading, is exactly the gap between mouth and mind the passage names: someone arguing correctly about non-duality while still needing to win the argument has already demonstrated, in the act of arguing, the very duality they are describing correctly in words.
2. The Samādhi of One Practice
師示眾云：「善知識！一行三昧者，於一切處行住坐臥，常行一直心是也。《淨名》云：『直心是道場，直心是淨土。』莫心行諂曲，口但說直；口說一行三昧，不行直心。但行直心，於一切法勿有執著。迷人著法相、執一行三昧，直言：『常坐不動，妄不起心，即是一行三昧。』作此解者，即同無情，却是障道因緣。善知識！道須通流，何以却滯？心不住法，道即通流；心若住法；名為自縛。若言常坐不動是，只如舍利弗宴坐林中，却被維摩詰訶。善知識！又有人教坐，看心觀靜，不動不起，從此置功。迷人不會，便執成顛。如此者眾，如是相教，故知大錯。」
The Master taught the assembly: "Good friends, the samādhi of one practice is simply this: in every place, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, constantly practicing a single, direct mind. The Vimalakīrti Sūtra says, 'A direct mind is the very site of awakening; a direct mind is itself the pure land.' Do not let your mind conduct itself with flattery and crookedness while your mouth speaks only of directness; do not speak of the samādhi of one practice while failing to practice a direct mind. Simply practice a direct mind, and hold no attachment to anything at all. There are deluded people who become attached to the mark of this teaching, holding to the samādhi of one practice, and say plainly, 'Sitting constantly without moving, letting no false thought arise in the mind — this itself is the samādhi of one practice.' To understand it in this way makes a person no different from something insentient, and is instead itself an obstruction to the Way. "Good friends, the Way must flow freely through — why should it become stagnant instead? When the mind does not dwell on any thing, the Way flows freely through; when the mind dwells on some thing, this is called binding yourself. If sitting constantly without moving were truly the Way, then consider how even Śāriputra, sitting quietly in the forest, was rebuked by Vimalakīrti for it. Good friends, there are also those who teach sitting by watching the mind and contemplating stillness, never moving and never stirring, and make this the whole of their effort. The deluded, not understanding this, become fixed in it and turn it into a sickness. There are many such people, and many who teach one another in just this way — you should know this is a great mistake."
Hanshan reads "direct mind" as less exotic than it sounds — a mind that acts before self-interested calculation has time to intervene, the kind ordinary people already experience in a genuine impulse of compassion before any second thought reshapes it. His concern in this passage is with the gap that opens once the mouth learns to describe that directness while the mind quietly stops practicing it — a teaching about spontaneity that has itself become a rehearsed performance is, on his reading, exactly the "flattery and crookedness" the passage warns against.
The citation of Śāriputra — foremost of the Buddha's disciples in wisdom, rebuked by Vimalakīrti for sitting in silent forest meditation, in the sūtra this site's own Vimalakīrti Sūtra project translates in full — is not incidental. Hanshan reads it as deliberately chosen to close off the easiest misreading of "one practice": if even a senior arhat's motionless sitting could be judged inadequate, then stillness of the body was never what the samādhi of one practice actually meant. The Way, on this account, is like a river — valued for flowing, not for holding still — and a mind that has stopped moving in order to imitate that river has mistaken the image for the thing itself.
3. No-Thought, Formlessness, and No-Dwelling
師示眾云：「善知識！本來正教，無有頓漸，人性自有利鈍。迷人漸修，悟人頓契。自識本心，自見本性，即無差別，所以立頓漸之假名。善知識！我此法門，從上以來，先立無念為宗，無相為體，無住為本。無相者，於相而離相。無念者，於念而無念。無住者，人之本性。於世間善惡好醜，乃至冤之與親，言語觸刺欺爭之時，並將為空，不思酬害，念念之中不思前境。若前念今念後念，念念相續不斷，名為繫縛。於諸法上念念不住，即無縛也。此是以無住為本。善知識！外離一切相，名為無相。能離於相，即法體清淨。 此是以無相為體。善知識！於諸境上，心不染，曰無念。於自念上，常離諸境，不於境上生心。若只百物不思，念盡除却，一念絕即死，別處受生，是為大錯。學道者思之。若不識法意，自錯猶可，更誤他人；自迷不見，又謗佛經，所以立無念為宗。善知識！ 云何立無念為宗？只緣口說見性，迷人於境上有念，念上便起邪見，一切塵勞妄想從此而生。自性本無一法可得，若有所得，妄說禍福，即是塵勞邪見，故此法門立無念為宗。善知識！無者無何事？念者念何物？無者無二相，無諸塵勞之心。念者念真如本性。 真如即是念之體，念即是真如之用。真如自性起念，非眼耳鼻舌能念。真如有性，所以起念；真如若無，眼耳色聲當時即壞。善知識！真如自性起念，六根雖有見聞覺知，不染萬境，而真性常自在。故經云：『能善分別諸法相，於第一義而不動。』」
The Master taught the assembly: "Good friends, the true and correct teaching has, from the very beginning, no sudden or gradual — it is only that people's own natures are, of themselves, sharp or dull. The deluded cultivate gradually; the awakened realize it suddenly. But once one recognizes one's own fundamental mind, and sees one's own fundamental nature, there is no difference at all between them — it is only for this reason that the provisional names 'sudden' and 'gradual' are set up. Good friends, this teaching of mine has, from the very beginning, first established no-thought as its doctrine, formlessness as its substance, and no-dwelling as its root. Formlessness means: within marks, to be free of marks. No-thought means: within thought, to be without thought. No-dwelling is the fundamental nature of a person: amid the good and evil, the beautiful and ugly of this world, and even amid enmity and kinship, and at times of harsh words, provocation, and deceitful strife, to take all of it as empty, and not to think of repaying any harm. In thought after thought, do not dwell on what has just passed. If the former thought, the present thought, and the next thought continue on, one after another without break, this is called bondage. Not to dwell, thought after thought, upon any of the ten thousand things is to be without bondage at all — this is taking no-dwelling as the root. "Good friends, to be free of every mark whatsoever, outwardly, is called formlessness. Being able to be free of marks, the very substance of the Dharma becomes pure — this is taking formlessness as the substance. Good friends, not to be stained by mind amid any circumstance is called no-thought. Within your own thought, constantly remain free of every circumstance, and do not let the mind arise on account of any circumstance. But if you think of nothing at all, and remove every single thought entirely, the moment thought itself is cut off, you die, and are reborn in some other place — this is a great mistake. Students of the Way, consider this carefully. If you fail to recognize the true meaning of this teaching, it is one thing to be mistaken yourself, but it is worse to mislead others as well — deluded and unable to see your own error, you slander the Buddhist scriptures besides. This is exactly why no-thought is established as the doctrine. "Good friends, why is no-thought established as the doctrine? It is only because, though people speak with their mouths of seeing their own nature, the deluded still give rise to thought upon encountering circumstances, and upon that thought, wrong views at once arise, and all manner of worldly dust and false imagining are born from this alone. Self-nature fundamentally has not a single thing that can be obtained; if you suppose there is something to be obtained, and speak falsely of fortune and misfortune, this is itself worldly dust and wrong view — and it is for this reason that this teaching establishes no-thought as its doctrine. "Good friends, of 'no,' what is it that is negated? Of 'thought,' what is it that is thought? 'No' means without the mark of duality, without any mind of worldly dust. 'Thought' means thinking of one's own true suchness-nature. True suchness is itself the substance of thought; thought is itself the function of true suchness. It is the self-nature of true suchness itself that gives rise to thought — it is not the eyes, ears, nose, or tongue that are capable of thought. Because true suchness possesses this nature, thought is able to arise; if true suchness were not present, the eyes and ears, forms and sounds, would all perish on the spot. Good friends, it is the self-nature of true suchness that gives rise to thought; though the six sense-faculties may see, hear, feel, and know, they are stained by none of the ten thousand circumstances, and the true nature remains constantly at ease and free. Thus the sūtra says: 'Being able to skillfully discern the marks of all things, and yet remaining unmoved with respect to the ultimate truth.'"
Hanshan reads this passage as the doctrinal counterpart to the discourse on prajñā two chapters earlier — the same teaching approached from a different angle, and best read against it rather than in isolation. His sharpest warning here concerns the single most common misreading of Chan meditation: that no-thought means an absence of all mental activity. The text's own language could hardly be more direct — "the moment thought itself is cut off, you die" — and Hanshan takes this literally rather than as hyperbole. No-thought describes a quality of thought (unstained, non-dwelling) rather than its absence; a mind that has genuinely stopped functioning has not attained the teaching, only mimicked its outward stillness.
On why "sudden" and "gradual" are called "provisional names," Hanshan notes that the distinction describes a difference in the deluded person's path toward recognition, not a difference in what is finally recognized — sharp and dull faculties travel at different speeds, but arrive, if they arrive at all, at the identical fundamental nature. He reads no-dwelling as the most practically demanding of the three pillars named here, since it applies specifically to memory and grievance: not forgetting what happened, but declining to let any one thought — including the thought of an old wrong — chain itself to the next thought in an unbroken sequence. Bondage, on this reading, is never the past event itself, only its uninterrupted continuation into the present.
4. What Seated Meditation Actually Is
師示眾云：「此門坐禪，元不著心，亦不著淨，亦不是不動。若言著心，心元是妄，知心如幻，故無所著也。若言著淨，人性本淨，由妄念故，蓋覆真如。但無妄想，性自清淨；起心著淨，却生淨妄。妄無處所，著者是妄。淨無形相，却立淨相，言是工夫。作此見者，障自本性，却被淨縛。善知識！若修不動者，但見一切人時，不見人之是非善惡過患，即是自性不動。善知識！迷人身雖不動！開口便說他人是非長短好惡，與道違背。若著心著淨，即障道也。」 師示眾云：「善知識！何名坐禪？此法門中，無障無礙，外於一切善惡境界，心念不起，名為坐；內見自性不動，名為禪。善知識！ 何名禪定？外離相為禪，內不亂為定。外若著相，內心即亂；外若離相，心即不亂。本性自淨自定，只為見境，思境即亂。若見諸境心不亂者，是真定也。善知識！外離相即禪，內不亂即定。外禪內定，是為禪定。《菩薩戒經》云：『我本元自性清淨。』善知識！ 於念念中，自見本性清淨，自修自行，自成佛道。」
The Master taught the assembly: "This teaching's approach to seated meditation does not, from the outset, fixate on the mind, nor does it fixate on purity, nor is it a matter of not moving. If it fixated on the mind, the mind is fundamentally false — knowing the mind to be like a phantom, there is nothing there to fixate upon. If it fixated on purity, human nature is fundamentally pure already; it is only false thoughts that cover over one's true suchness. Simply be without false thought, and your nature is pure of itself; but if you give rise to a mind that fixates on purity, you thereby give rise instead to a false notion of purity. Falseness has no fixed location — to fixate upon anything is itself already falseness. Purity has no form or mark at all — yet to set up a mark called 'purity,' and call this one's spiritual effort, is, for anyone who holds such a view, itself an obstruction to their own fundamental nature, and they become instead bound by purity itself. Good friends, if you wish to cultivate not-moving, simply, whenever you see any person at all, do not see that person's rights and wrongs, good and evil, faults and failings — this itself is self-nature not moving. Good friends, the deluded, though their bodies may not move, open their mouths and at once speak of others' rights and wrongs, strengths and weaknesses, good and bad qualities — this runs directly against the Way. To fixate on the mind, or to fixate on purity, is itself an obstruction to the Way." The Master taught the assembly: "Good friends, what is meant by 'seated meditation'? In this teaching, there is no obstruction and no hindrance at all: outwardly, with respect to every good or evil circumstance, for no thought to arise in the mind is called 'sitting'; inwardly, to see one's own nature as unmoving is called 'chan.' Good friends, what is meant by 'dhyāna and samādhi'? To be outwardly free of marks is dhyāna; to be inwardly undisturbed is samādhi. If outwardly you become attached to marks, the mind within is at once disturbed; if outwardly you remain free of marks, the mind is undisturbed. One's fundamental nature is, of itself, already pure and already settled — it is only because of seeing circumstances, and thinking about those circumstances, that disturbance arises. If, seeing every circumstance, the mind remains undisturbed, this is true samādhi. Good friends, to be outwardly free of marks is itself dhyāna; to be inwardly undisturbed is itself samādhi. Dhyāna outwardly and samādhi inwardly together are what is called dhyāna-samādhi. The Bodhisattva Precepts Sūtra says, 'My own fundamental nature is, from the very origin, pure of itself.' Good friends, in thought after thought, see for yourself that your own nature is pure, cultivate yourself, practice for yourself, and accomplish the buddha-path for yourself."
Hanshan gives particular weight to the paradox this chapter names directly: a meditator who works hard to fixate on purity does not thereby become purer, but produces "a false notion of purity" — a new object of attachment standing exactly where the old attachments used to stand. Purity, on his reading, was never a state to be manufactured through effort; it is what remains once false thought stops covering it, the way clear water was never made clear by anyone, only left undisturbed. A student straining to hold onto purity as an achievement has, in Hanshan's phrase, become "bound by purity itself" — trading one kind of bondage for another that merely looks more respectable.
On the redefinition of "not moving," Hanshan reads Huineng as deliberately relocating the target of meditative stillness from the body to social conduct: "self-nature not moving" is demonstrated not by an unmoving posture but by declining to see — and therefore declining to announce — other people's faults. He reads the immediately following line about the deluded, whose bodies stay still while their mouths run through everyone else's shortcomings, as this chapter's own proof that physical stillness and the stillness actually being taught are not even correlated, let alone identical. The whole chapter's definitions of "sitting," "chan," and "dhyāna-samādhi" follow the same pattern: each is redefined away from outward form and toward an inward condition no observer could verify by watching.