Customer Reviews

The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I eagerly anticipate any new book from Red Pine (Bill Porter), and this is another wonderful achievement from this great translator and seasoned Zen practitioner.

The text of the master Hui-neng's teaching is clear and straightforward, and Red Pine's notes bring great value as in his past books. He's a master of translation, but also of interpreting ancient Chinese culture, as he's shown in his brilliant translations of ancient Chinese poems.

Hui-neng's teaching on thoughts and thinking during meditation (section 17) are particularly helpful, in a time when Zen meditation is so often misunderstood as an escape from thoughts.

This will easily replace Yampolsky's translation both in clarity and, at least to this non-scholar, in accuracy, since it's based on a more ancient and reliable source text.

Red Pine is simply the best translator of and commentator on Chinese Buddhist texts that I have encountered. I heard him describe his translation process in the following terms (though my paraphrase from faulty memory will only do it faint justice): "I dance with the original text: I need to know it intimately, to move and breathe with it, but if I get too close, try to control it, I step on its toes and we fall over."

His translation is always exquisite, his commentary clear, and he always brings a fresh and challenging perspective top the text. Wonderful - keep it up!

Award-winning translator Red Pine has rendered the work of the controversial Sixth Patriarch of Zen into English in The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-Neng. Red Pine's commentary illuminates this classic; unlike other sutras, which transcribe the teachings of Buddha himself, The Platform Sutra transcribes the spiritual and practical teachings of Hui-Neng, whose seventh-century school of Direct Awakening still thrives today and whose wisdom continues to influence the Rinzai and Soto schools of modern Zen. The full, original Chinese text with an accompanying list of Chinese names for texts, places and the like along with extensive notes enhances this essential Mahayana reference enthusiastically recommended for Zen Buddhism reference shelves. "Fellow students of the Way, be careful. Don't think that meditation comes first and then gives rise to wisdom or that wisdom comes first and then gives rise to meditation or that meditation and wisdom are separate. For those who hold such views, the Dharma is dualistic: If the mouth speaks of goodness, but the mind doesn't think of goodness, meditation and wisdom aren't the same. But if goodness pervades both the mouth and the mind, if what is external and internal are alike, then meditation and wisdom are the same."

Most of the reviews make this a good reference book, not a translation you'd want to use more personally. I doubt it will replace Yampolsky's translation. For my money, I prefer Cleary's translation of the later verison of the Sutra. Cleary's translation is much cleaner and easier to read.
I think fan's of Red Pine will, like me, find it disappointing, mostly because the notes, in this case, make it rather confusing. Red Pine has made this approach work seamlessly, elsewhere, but not here. Still, I look forward to his Lanka, after all, this is the guy who gave us Han Shan and for that I'll be forever grateful! Let us not forget his Bodhidharma and Diamond, either!

I like this translation a lot. The translation into English is clear. But Red Pine's commentary is what makes this a valuable resource as it gives those not so familiar with Buddhist technical terms a clear understanding of the text. Moreover, I really like the classical Chinese in the appendix, so I can compare my translation efforts to that of Red Pine, thereby improving my own skills in reading classical Chinese. A very valuable and necessary resource. When reading it one really feels that the 6th Patriarch, HuiNeng is right there next to you extolling you to experience your mind directly.

Red Pine's translation, and to me more importantly, his commentary, is in an unalloyed language of working people who just do their jobs without fancy talk or arrogance. I feel Hui-neng, not as a wizened Ch'an master trained in a monastery and educated in the Buddhist cannon, but as an individual who was just a worker, `awakened' by a phrase, who realized the Dharma straight out and taught with a worker's directness. This is a wonderful translation and commentary that doesn't miss.

I really enjoyed this translation of the Platform Sutra, and while Red Pine occasionally over-indulges in cleverness, I found his commentary very valuable. Worthwhile for someone who may not be a Buddhist scholar but is a serious student of Zen.

Hui-Neng's wisdom is straightforward and goes to the heart of enlightment. Red Pine (Bill Porter) does a wonderful job with his commentary. He provides context and illumination that I found incredibly helpful. I highly recommend this text to all serious Dharma practitioners.

Zen students (and anyone else interested in Buddhism) will be grateful for Red Pine's excellent translation of The Platform Sutra.

As is his custom, Red Pine has done a thoroughly masterful job in supplementing this classic Zen record with tons of additional translated commentary from the masters, lucid explanations, and in-depth notes. This book exceeds the highest standards of scholarship, yet remains clear and accessible to average readers without straying from the original (and liberating) message of Hui-neng.

Thank you Red Pine!

Among all schools of Buddhism, Zen is the one that the western rationalist mind-set finds most mind-boggling, and frustrating. The quiescence Zen style of communication, on the surface, is like a simple play on words. Red Pine explained this difficulty as follows:

"Hui Neng's teaching is not a teaching of concepts, just the opposite. It is, instead, a teaching of no concepts.....every word he speaks is directed at freeing people of whatever concepts block their awareness of their own nature."

Therefore to have at least a mere appreciation of Hui Neng's teaching, a reader has to try hard to imagine what was supposed to be behind the mind of the audience, and then to postulate (think hard!) how the master was trying to enlighten his audience by deconstruction.

However, if we read this important sutra carefully, in addition to conceptual (verbal) wittiness, there are two other practices mentioned in Hui Neng's Zen-Buddhism.

The first one is meditation that can be practiced by his average followers. Though his actual meditative practice was not clearly laid out, one important clue is that his meditation is with the objective of cultivating wisdom (certainly including the wisdom of deconstructing other people's concepts). The master even mentioned his meditative practice to be equal to wisdom (A good comparison will be the meditative method of the Dalai Lama: analytical meditation followed by single-pointed meditation, interested reader can refer to relevant books by DL, like "How to Practice : The Way to a Meaningful Life").

Another one is, more important, what exactly is the Dharma that was transmitted in private to Hui Neng from his master the Fifth Patriarch, Master Hung-jen? What makes it so important that the Dharma has to be transmitted in private? Some Buddhists like to interpret it as a quick method of enlightenment like striking the student's head with a stick (well, Zen-masters are definitely no sadist!). But that begs the question of why it has to be in private. Interested readers can try to find the various clues appear in different places in this sutra. My speculation is that this is some deep meditative practice similar to Deity Yoga (as practiced in Tibetan Buddhism) or Taoist Yoga (cultivation of immortal soul), where the energy of the libido (or a sublimation of one's sexual energy) is used. Interested readers of this practice can refer to a book called "Taoist Yoga" (a famous Taoist classic, one of the teachers of the writer was actually a practicing Zen-master) translated by Charles Luk, a disciple of the late famous Zen (Ch'an) master Hsu Yun in China (through a line of direct lineage from Master Hui Neng himself).