On Hui-neng’s Ontology That Regards Xin as the Origin

Abstract

Hui-neng, the sixth patriarch of Chinese Ch'an (Zen), traced the origin of the world where human beings exist, and made the explanation with unique Chinese cultural characteristics. He put forward the ontological thought of Xin (mind or heart), which can be reduced to the following two aspects. (1) Human Xin creates the world, which means "the world where human being lives and everything in it are created by human mind." It does not mean that people's Xin create the universe, but creates the world in which they live or the universe in their mind. In other word, the world where everyone lives and all things in it are created by his Xin. Because everyone's Xin is unique, the world created by his Xin is particular. In other words, anyone has his own unique world. (2) "Human Xin is empty". Hui-neng took "Xin is Buddha, Buddha is empty" and "all dharmas are empty" as the core and foundation of his thought, and attributed the Xin down to emptiness. Because he attributed the world's origin to the Xin that was originally empty, the world's origin is able to be come down to emptiness at long last. It is the reason that Xin was empty, so that it is so large enough to hold (or accept) everything and produce everything. Because everything is empty, people do not have to pursue them, they are only external objects. Anyone who thinks in this way would not be troubled by external things. As the result, he keep his mind peaceful and ethereal.

Mortality Anxiety Management of Chinese Undergraduates in the Horizon of Cultural Psychology

“…This is consistent with the ontology of Xin (mind) in Zen culture. As Hui-neng said, human self-nature or original Xin is neither born nor died, neither increasing nor decreasing (Li, Du, & Zhang, 2019). Everyone is born in the original Xin or self-nature, and returns to the original Xin or self-nature after death (Li, Zhang, Ye, et al, 2019;Li, Du, & Zhang, 2019;Lomas, Etcoff, Gordon, et al, 2017).…”