A Critical Study Of The Formless Precepts In The Platform Sutra

Hui Neng (638-713), whose family name was Lu, was born in Fangyang orgin (now Beijing Zhuoxian). After ShenHui invited the famous poet Wang Wei to write the tombstone, namely, "The tombstone of Ch'an master Neng, the Sixth Patriarch", HuiNeng officially becomed the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese ch'an, who was also the founder of the South Ch'an School of China, and the character significantly affecting the history of thought in China. His ideas were written in the book named "The Platform Sutra"by Fa Hai. "The Platform Sutra" was also the first collection of Chinese monk, which is called as "Sutra" of China. The content in the collection indicated the South Ch'an School founded by Hui Neng originated from Indian Buddhism and integrated in the Chinese Traditional Culture, it is the symbol of China in Buddhist, and it was also strongly recommended by Qian Mu as one of the books must-read in order to learn China.Regarding the teaching of the Precepts, HuiNeng inherited from Ch'an of DaoXin and HongRen, using basic procedures accepted by Bodhisattva Precepts as a framework, integrating the thoughts of the Prajna thoughts and Tathagatagarbha, absorbing the thoughts of remarkable ideas of Buddhist in Sui and Tang Dynasty, and forming "The Formless Precepts" with his self-creation. The characteristic of "The Formless Precepts" included "Change the general rule into the own rule", from the conversion to Buddhism to the conversion to self, completely destroyed the external forms and external worship, and melt ring phase and Commandment into one". Therefore, Qi Song said that "The Formless Precepts is the highest level of commandment". Indeed, "The Formless Precepts" really helped the forming of "Accepted the precepts at the heart", the Code of Mahayanist Rules in the commandment of the precepts of China Buddhist. The quick development and extensive influence of "The Formless Precepts" made it becomes a valuable research subject.The research on "The Platform Sutra" is a lot, but research on "The Formless Precepts" is relatively few. On the basis of the analysis and study of former researchers, the author makes an analysis and discussion of " The Formless Precepts", including the basic thoughts of Buddhist Precepts from the time Buddhism into China to Tang Dynasty and the meaning and origin of "The Formless Precepts". The level of influence is so breadth, it should also write book to discuss, therefore, the fourth chapter of this paper is to describe the impact of "The Formless Precepts" on future generations. During those achievements of research on "The Platform Sutra", it is very difficult for posterity to break through. Therefore, the author hopes that through the written of this paper, it could make the future generations understand the deep and wide meaning of "The Platform Sutra", ease the misunderstanding of "The Formless Precepts" and have a little bit change of the idea for Ch'an.