Suzuki
2015.57108.Zen-Doctrine-Of-No-Mind.pdf
Zen Doctrine of No Mind: The Significance of the Sutra of HuiNeng
by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (Author), Christmas Humphreys (Editor)
4.1 out of 5 stars 57 ratings
Dedicated largely to the teaching of Hui Neng, this volume covers the purpose and technique of Zen training, and goes further into the depths of Zen than any other work of modern times. Here we find no reliance on scripture or a Savior, for the student isshown how to go beyond thought in order to achieve a state of consciousness beyond duality.
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Joe
4.0 out of 5 stars Zen demystified, maybe.Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 7 February 2014
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No Mind is an attempt to debunk or reverse the belief that the Zen experience is obtained by the practice of meditation, or any practice, that you start and then stop before you go back to your life. The argument is based entirely on research with no reference to the authors personal experience. I believe this is because the original intended audience were educated Buddhists who are guided, and misguided, by doctrine. The book attempts to correct a pervasive misguidance by going back to the source.
However I would not have associated the term "guidance" with ancient Zen literature. It seems to the modern, and probably to the ancient, reader that the Zen Masters deliberately encoded their message to mystify the student and thereby somehow maintain the Zen experience as virtually unattainable.
Refreshingly, starting on page 123, Suzuki addresses this perception directly and sincerely. I personally found this most valuable and unexpected.
I recommend this book if you are prepared to read it over a period of time and allow it to manifest as experience. You can't understand or express Zen directly in words. You can only experience it, however the words somehow cause the experience, and then you understand a little more than before.
I docked a star because I would have liked more of the author and maybe less of the ancients. However for the intended audience I am sure the book is perfect.
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William D George
5.0 out of 5 stars Best sixth patriarch delineation (D. T. Suzuki)Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 19 June 2022
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Essence Zen
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Keith McL
5.0 out of 5 stars Very DetailedReviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 24 April 2020
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To me, Hui Neng is one of the pivotal Zen Masters. He points to a zazen that is natural but is not quietism..
The author, D.T. Suzuki was a life long Zen practitioner. So he adds details that Waddell, Braverman, Haskel and others do not.
Still, this is not an easy read. But it is a well worthwhile read.
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cprmj
5.0 out of 5 stars Expands your AwarenessReviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 27 November 2020
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This is a challenging read, but for the serious wayfarer it can be life enriching. It is the difference between living a life of endless distraction and one where, even the most mundane task is filled with Zen.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Most interesting.Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 13 December 2019
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Possibly one of my favorite Zen books. I've read it numerous times. It's comprehensive, deep without being difficult and enlightening.
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Lhaw
5.0 out of 5 stars UNOBSCURE The Buddha You ARE!Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 17 January 2015
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This Book.. Oh how Inconceivably Relevant. If your Destiny is to Study Consciousness, this has the answers that can get you to Insights & Miracles that are Transcendental Existence in this Life. It's 'HOW' (so to speak) to transcend mind; to Intuit THE Escape from enthrallment on Samara. Just recognize that regardless of the verbiage used in this fabulous Work to describe "IT" (even though it is NOT actually an it..), whether "No-Mind", "Emptiness", "Unconscious", or several other terms it uses, they are *synonyms* for your Buddha-Nature, & you CAN Recall IT by Allowing what this work Guides you to, WITHIN THIS! Get it NOW, & One Day, when It Calls, you'll open it like a "Messiah's Handbook", & be AMAZED!
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mukunda777
5.0 out of 5 stars Like Marpa the Translator to the TibetansReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 11 October 2014
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D.T. Suzuki's enduring contribution to Zen Buddhism in the West cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Like Marpa the Translator to the Tibetans, D. T. deserves the title "Bodhisattva to the Western World". All of his writings are worth reading again and again ( as I have been doing for the past forty-five years...and will continue to do until I regain Union). This book on the Sixth Chan Patriarch, Hui Neng, clearly illumines the transition from Indian, "Tathagatha" Chan to Chinese, "Patriarch" Chan with great clarity and power. A "must read" for the serious practitioner of Zen Buddhism and a very fine introduction ( as are all his books) to this most elegant expression of religious endeavor.
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BernieM
3.0 out of 5 stars Testing...Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 26 October 2017
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Totally authentic, I have no doubt, but I find the text somewhat opaque. Zen can be difficult enough without linguistic and syntax problems. Perhaps I wasn't in the best frame of mind. If I'm honest, I get on a lot better with Alan Watts.
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John R
2.0 out of 5 stars GREAT READS DON'T READ LIKE THIS. LEAVE THIS ONE ON THE SHELF.Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 August 2016
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Weighted down by style and lack of clarity, rather than elucidating the heart of Zen. Woefully poor.
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HF Perlmutter
5.0 out of 5 stars ReliableReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 2 February 2021
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As described, quick shipper
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 19 reviews
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Anthony Buckley
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January 17, 2009
Hui-Neng, known as the Sixth Zen Patriarch, established the idea that enlightenment came suddenly and that it should not be sought by slowly and progressively cleaning the mirror of one's mind. Suzuki's free-flowing exploration of the Sutra of Hui-Neng is not nearly as obscure as one might expect. I read it a long time ago, and in looking at it again, I find that it had more of an impact on me than I had realized.
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Lysergius
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July 14, 2019
Suzuki's writings have a clarity that helps to illumine what is a difficult subject. Well worth the effort. This is an intro to the more complex Essays.
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J Benedetti
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September 16, 2013
Fu kicked a dog which happened to be there, and the dog gave a cry and ran away. The monk made no response, whereupon Fu said: 'Poor dog, you were kicked in vain.'
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Frank Thompson
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July 1, 2020
I first read this book over fifty years ago, as a student. In those days Zen was a very trendy thing, and there were many writers popularizing various more or less half baked views of Zen. I liked this book because although it was no more comprehensible than the rest, it seemed to have been long enough in the oven, and even had a cherry on top.
The book ostensibly concerns the famous gatha of Hui Neng, by means of which he ascended to the position of the sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen Buddhism. But I’ve come tot the conclusion that it is actually a not too subtle diatribe against certain tendencies which linger in Zen down to the present day.
If you read this book, you will probably feel that it leaves you no wiser about what “no-mind” really is. In fact the notable thing about Hui Neng’s gatha, and the view of Zen he promulgated, is not so much what it is, but what it isn’t. Suzuki points out time and time again that Hui Neng and his followers were deeply opposed to the “gradual” school of Zen, to the idea that performing ritual meditations for year after year would finally lead one to Buddhahood. Quoting Huangbo Xiyun he says “If you wish to attain Buddhahood by practising the six virtues of perfection and all the ten-thousand deeds of goodness, this is prescribing a course, and since beginningless time there have never been Buddhas graduating from a prescribed course.”
From this standpoint, the view of Hui Neng and his school might easily be compared to the school of protestantism founded by Martin Luther as a reaction to the Catholic teaching that by giving donations to the church salvation might be attained. And just as the Catholic church still thrives in some parts of the world so the “dust-wiping” gradualist tendency still exists in some schools of Zen, and as you can imagine, such cults are a lot easier to get into than to get out of.
What Suzuki actually means by “no-mind” is harder to fathom than what he doesn’t mean. But a glimpse might be found in a quotation from Shen Hui, “Prajna is spoken of when it is seen that this body is unattainable, remaining perfectly quiescent and serene all the time, and yet functioning mysteriously in ways beyond calculation.” This certainly points to a very dynamic view of the unconscious, and something very far from simply a mirror from which impure thoughts have been erased. It reminds me strongly of the famous Einstein quote, “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.”
If you are vaguely curious about Zen you might not get a lot from this book, but if you plan to venture into Zen training you should definitely read it, and ponder it well.
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Ryan
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October 27, 2019
Buddhism holds appeal for me, though I know little about it. What I understand of it has enticed me to look deeper. While reading The Zen Doctrine of No-mind, a bit by a favorite comedian kept coming to mind. Tim Minchin is an Aussie musical comedian. The bit? “If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out.” It seems to me that it both captures my more cynical, ironic reading of the book, and an earnest, concise synopsis of the philosophy espoused in it.
On the cynical side, the book is impenetrably dense. Some of this is linguistic. Buddhism originated in India, the book is written in the early twentieth century by a Japanese scholar about a Chinese Zen master from over a millennium ago. The author is self-aware about this barrier:
"I sometimes find myself at a loss to present the exact meaning of the Chinese writers whose translations are given… The Chinese sentences are very loosely strung together, and each component character is not at all flexible. While read in the original, the sense seems to be clear enough, but when it is to be presented in translation more precision is required to comply with the construction of the language used, in our case English. To do this, much violence is to be practiced on the genius of the original Chinese."
But language is not the only limitation. The Zen worldview denies that enlightenment is to be had by intellectual examination. It follows then that a book trying to illuminate that perspective may struggle. A good number of pages are dedicated to anecdotes and dialogues usually involving a student and a master. As often as not, the anecdotes end with the master striking the student. I would be lying if I claimed any clarity from these pages. The author himself opines at the end of one such story, “…the trouble with Zen is that it always refuses to remain ordinary, though claiming to be ordinary.”
You tell me.
On the more earnest side, Zen is an acceptance of dichotomy and a rejection of classification. Which is to say, a thing is any two diametrically opposed characterizations and neither of those things all at once. The eponymous doctrine of no-mind is a rejection of the mind’s role in enlightenment. It would thus not be demeaning to say, “if you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out.”
That is the best I got. I cannot pretend to understand but I’m not sure any great Zen master would celebrate if I claimed that I did.
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