One day, the Fifth Patriarch, Hung Jen assembled all his
disciples and said,"Go and seek for Prajna in your own mind and write
me a stanza (gatha) about it. The one who understands the reality
of Buddhist nature will be the Sixth
Patriarch."
The head disciple, Shin Shau composed his stanza and wrote it on
the wall of the corridor, so that the Patriarch might know what
spiritual insight he had attained. The stanza read:
Our body is the Bodhi
tree,
And our mind is like a bright mirror with stand,
Diligently we wipe them all the time,
And let no dust alight.
Shen shih p'u t 'i shu
Hsin ju ming ching t'ai.
Shih shih ch'in fu shih,
Mo shih jo ch 'en ai
Later, Hui Neng who worked in the kitchen heard a young man
reciting the stanza. At once, he realized that the stanza did not
reveal the reality of Buddhist nature.
As he was illiterate, he asked people to scribe his stanza, which
reads:
There is no Bodhi
Tree
Nor the stand of a bright mirror,
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?
P'u t 'i pen wu shu
Hsin ching i fei t'ai
Pen lai wu i wu,[s]
He ch 'u jo ch 'en ai
Eventually, Hui Neng received the robe and Dharma from Hung Jen,
and became the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Sect in China
