Platform Sutra: No-Thought, No-Form, No-Abiding

Text

Good friends, in this teaching of mine, from ancient times up to the present, all have set up no-thought as the main doctrine, no-form as the substance, and no-abiding as the basis. No-form is to be separated from form even when associated with form. No-thought is not to think even when involved in thought. No-abiding is the original nature of humankind. Successive thoughts do not stop; prior thoughts, present thoughts, and future thoughts follow one after the other without cessation. If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical body. In the midst of all thoughts, do not abide in any thought. If you abide in thought, it is bondage. If in regard to all things you do not abide, that is freedom.

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Dajian Huineng

Lineage: Early Chan

By Dajian Huineng

• A Beardless Foreignerkoan
• Do Not Think Good, Do Not Think Not-Goodkoan
• Not The Wind, Not The Flagkoan
• Your Original Faceproverb
• It Is Your Mind That Movesproverb

From Platform Sutra

• Your Original Face
• It Is Your Mind That Moves
• Platform Sutra: On Self-Nature
• The Robe and Bowl Transmission to Huineng
• Think Neither Good Nor Evil
• There Is No Mirror Stand
• Without Thinking Good or Evil
• Not the Flag, Not the Wind
• Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Liùzǔ Tánjīng)

Sources

• contentWikisource — English-language free library

  Platform Sutra, section on No-Thought

  Platform Sutra: Platform Sutra: No-Thought, No-Form, No-Abiding