Silent Transmission

Text

Vô Ngôn Thông — whose dharma name means 'No-Word Understanding' — arrived at Kiến Sơ temple in Vietnam late in his life and spent years in silent meditation without giving formal instruction. The monk Cảm Thành came daily and sat beside him. One morning Cảm Thành asked: 'What teaching did you bring from Master Baizhang?' Vô Ngôn Thông did not answer. Cảm Thành sat. The silence held for a long moment. Vô Ngôn Thông smiled and said: 'You already received it.'

tr. Traditional exchange reconstructed from the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh; after Cuong Tu Nguyen's translation (1997)

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Vô Ngôn Thông

Lineage: Thiền

By Vô Ngôn Thông

• Wordlessproverb
• Wall-Gazing in Vietnamproverb
• School of No Wordsproverb
• When the Emperor Askedproverb

From Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen)

• On the Impermanence of Dynasties
• The Illusory Nature of Power
• Verse Composed in Vietnamese (Chữ Nôm)
• The Duty of the National Preceptor
• The King Tests the Third Patriarch
• On Receiving the Succession
• The Dharma Is Not Separate from Mind

Sources

• contentCuong Tu Nguyen — medieval Vietnamese Buddhism scholarship

  Cuong Tu Nguyen

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh, section on Vô Ngôn Thông; after Cuong Tu Nguyen (1997), pp. 26–42

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen): Silent Transmission