Shenguang (later Huike) and BodhidharmaShenguang (later Huike) and Bodhidharma
A middle-aged monk named Shenguang has been told by divine spirits that Bodhidharma can liberate him from confusion. He stands outside the cave for days in the snow to demonstrate his resolve. Bodhidharma scolds him but Shenguang won’t leave. He asks Bodhidharma to pacify his mind. Bodhidharma says, “Show me this mind.” Shenguang says, “I look for it, but I cannot find it.” Bodhidharma says, “I have pacified your mind.” Shenguang is accepted as Bodhidharma’s student and receives the Dharma name Huike.
Bodhidharma eventually has four students: Daofu, a nun named Congzhi, Daoyu, and Huike. He Transmits his skin, meat, bone, and marrow to them. In a kuden or oral Teaching regarded as inauthentic, the nun Congzhi was also known as Dharani and was Bodhidharma’s tantric consort. This is probably an attempt to come up with some explanation of what a woman was doing there. Huike becomes his principal Dharma-heir and receives his robe and bowl as a sign of the Transmission.
He also recommends to Huike the study of the Lankavatara sutra. There is a variant legend by a few early branches of the Lineage in which Bodhidharma was considered the heir of Gunabhadra, a translator of the Lanka.
Bodhidharma then makes several prophecies about the future of Dharma. He is repeatedly attacked and poisoned by monks who only lecture on the sutras and resent him. Finally, he allows himself to poisoned to death. He is buried on Mount Xionger.
A variant is that the coffin was opened and inside there was only a single shoe. A traveler reports having met him at a Western border pass, on his way back to India. Another minor variant has him appearing in Japan as an old beggar who receives generosity from Prince Shotoku, dies, and then whose body mysteriously vanishes.
I don’t want to trace the course of the development of the legends in too much detail. But I think it will be useful for us to look at the earliest strokes on the scroll. When one examines a sho, a work of brush calligraphy, one always looks at the quality of the first stroke. The moment of brush meeting paper reveals a great deal.


- Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi continuing teisho 3: “No Text, No Trace, No Corpse” on October 9, 2000 and the series “Bodhidharma’s Eyes.” If strange characters instead of 漢字 hanji or kanji appear this means that you need to enable UTF-8 in your Character Encoding settings.)

Wherever You Stand 14: Yoka daishi's (Yongjia) Shodoka: Song of Freedom part 3

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, April 13th, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

we looked into the verses of the “Shodoka: Song of Freedom”,
which was written 1300 years ago by Yoka daishi.

Freedom from what?

Freedom from the
nagging,
bitching,
whining,
pushing,
complaining
of self-image,

those random stories of habitual patterning that,
let's face it,
do get human beings into all sorts of trouble,
not just sleeping in
but all sorts of devastation
violence
raping
killing
pillaging
blowing up,
like

Komyozo Zanmai: The Practice of the Treasury of Luminosity

Ejo zenji - Zenga by Anzan Hoshin roshiEjo zenji - Zenga by Anzan Hoshin roshi

by Koun Ejo zenji (1198-1282)

translated by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi and Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi

Wherever You Stand 13: Yoka daishi's (Yongjia) Shodoka: Song of Freedom part 2

Wherever You Stand 13: Yoka daishi's (Yongjia) Shodoka: Song of Freedom part 2

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, April 6th, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

We've looked at and followed in the footsteps of
Bodhidharma
Huike
Sengcan
Daoxin
Hongren
and
Huineng...

to end up
looking at the “Shodoka: The Song of Freedom”,
written by Yoka daishi,
somewhere around 713 C.E., Common Era,
and
the translation we are using
which appears in “The Treasury of Luminosity”, a Great Matter Publication,
the translation

Wherever You Stand 12: Yoka daishi's (Yongjia) Shodoka: Song of Freedom part 1

Wherever You Stand 12: Yoka daishi's (Yongjia) Shodoka: Song of Freedom part 1

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, March 30th, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

...we've followed the flow of Teachings from
Bodhidharma
to Huike
to Sengcan
to Daoxin
to Hongren
to Huineng...

and to Yoka daishi, which is Japanese for Yung-chia Hsuan-chueh or
Great Master Chen-chio
also known as, in Japanese, Yoka Gengaku,
who was a scholar and a monk

Wherever You Stand 10: Who: Dajian Huineng Part 3

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, March 2nd, 2013

“Wherever You Stand” is a phrase from Yoka daishi's “Shodoka”,
and what we're doing is looking into the history,
looking into what was taught
by the five preceding Chan Ancestors,
the five preceding
Huineng.

Now as a student said, there were Chinese Ancestors, there were Chinese Masters after Huineng, but the six that are referred to as the Founding Chan Ancestors were deemed so because there may be or there is a direct connection to Bodhidharma's pointing, the direct pointing to mind.

Wherever You Stand 11: Who: Dajian Huineng Part 4

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, March 16th, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

we were looking into the life of Huineng.

Now remember Huineng:
he was born of a poor family,
he was illiterate,
he woke up upon hearing the “Diamond sutra”
and somehow, in spite of being illiterate,
he gave rise to “the mind that dwells nowhere”
which is of course in the Lineage of Bodhidharma.

Wherever You Stand 9: Who: Dajian Huineng Part 2

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, February 2nd, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

We've begun looking into Huineng,
the Sixth and last of the founding Chan, Chinese Zen, Ancestors.

He was of the stream which came from Bodhidharma,
through
Huike,
Sengcan,
Daoxin,
Hongren.

Wherever You Stand 8: Who: Dajian Huineng Part 1

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, January 19th, 2013

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

We've been introduced to the “Shodoka” by Yoka daishi, the verses that we're looking into by looking into the six Chinese Chan Ancestors, their ways of thinking, their travels, what they were looking for.

So we've looked at Bodhidharma,
and the snow today coming down softly
reminded me of Huike,
who it is said waited outside
Bodhidharma's cave
to be accepted as a student
after travelling goodness knows how far.

We have
Sengcan,
Daoxin,

Wherever You Stand 7: Who: Daman Hongren

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, January 5th, 2013

Previously in “Wherever You Stand”...

We were looking at the four Chinese Ancestors,
starting with Bodhidharma,
Huike,
Sengcan,
Daoxin,

and now, today:
Daman Hongren,
who was born in 601 C.E.,
died in 674 C.E.

Wherever You Stand 6: Who: Dayi Daoxin

Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei
Dainen-ji, December 29th, 2012

Previously on “Wherever You Stand”...

We've looked at Bodhidharma,
who came from the West to China and sat,
gave transmission to
Huike,
who practised and studied and sat,
who gave transmission to
Jianzhi Sengcan,
who sat,
who apparently died sitting.

Now, I know a lot of us may have thought from time to time
that we were going to die if that gong didn't sound,
but that's not what I'm talking about,
I'm talking about actually sitting down
and dying in that posture,

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