Order Member Study Day
Order Member Study Day Event with Paramatha
"Whenever I read the text I would be thrown into a kind of ecstasy.” Urgyen Sangharakshita The Rainbow Road
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, [Huineng], is a central text of Zen (in China known as Chan), a school of Buddhism based on the powerful claim that enlightenment can only be attained through a flash of direct, intuitive understanding. As well as being an (if not the) seminal scripture of the Chan/Zen tradition it also has a significant place in our own tradition.
In the early years of the Second World War, Bhante discovered, in John Watkins bookshop, a copy of the first English translation of the Platform Sutra by Wong Mou-Lam. It was this text, along with the Diamond Sutra, that led Sangharakshita not only to realise that he was a Buddhist but that he had, in fact, always been one.
Paramartha will lead a study on Chapter 1 of the Platform Sutra - the story of Huineng’s life and awakening. Reference will be made to both Bhante’s 1975 seminar on the Sutra of Huineng as well as Paramartha’s personal notes from a study he did with Bhante in the late 1980s.
Please bring lunch to share on the day
This is an event for Order Members