Intellectual Adherents of the Chan School Are Not Mahāyāna Bodhisattvas Who Have Realized the Path of Seeing

The Sixth Patriarch said to the assembly in the Platform Sutra: "I have a thing that has no head and no tail, no name and no word, no back and no front—can you all recognize it?" The young monk Shenhui said: "It is the source of all Buddhas, the Buddha-nature of Shenhui." The Sixth Patriarch said: "I told you it has no name and no word, yet you still speak of the source and Buddha-nature. In the future you will merely be a follower of intellectual understanding."

What is meant by a follower of intellectual understanding? Both "knowing" and "understanding" are the doings of the mind consciousness; the manas neither knows nor understands, and thus it is not realization. Although the mind consciousness of the young monk Shenhui knew it was the source of all Buddhas and the Buddha-nature, he had not realized the source of all Buddhas and the Buddha-nature, so the Sixth Patriarch called him a follower of intellectual understanding, and further predicted that in the future he would also be a follower of intellectual understanding—able only to comprehend the Buddha-dharma through understanding, but unable to realize the Buddha-dharma, no matter how much dharma he taught or what dharma he taught.

The Sixth Patriarch and all the Chan masters of that time opposed intellectual understanding without earnest practical cultivation and realization; they opposed emotional thinking and intellectual interpretation, opposed failing to earnestly undertake the work of Chan investigation while instead showing off one's eloquence everywhere. Such a person can only be a follower of intellectual understanding and cannot become a genuine Mahāyāna bodhisattva. Nowadays sentient beings' spiritual faculties (indriya) are even more restless and unpractical; they simply do not cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi). Modern information technology is highly developed, and many people know everything, yet can realize nothing.

It is thus evident that no matter how much of the Buddha-dharma the mind consciousness knows, it is useless—one will still be scolded by the patriarchs, and it brings not the slightest benefit to liberation. One must put in real effort, genuinely cultivate and truly realize, earnestly cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi), cultivate śamatha and vipaśyanā, earnestly investigate Chan and awaken to the Way. Do not play clever tricks or show off Buddhist knowledge; even if one knows all of the Tripiṭaka and the twelve divisions of the scriptures, even if one can recite them all, even if one can also expound the Tripiṭaka and the twelve divisions of the scriptures, it is still not as practical and real as down-to-earth, genuine realization of no-self.