Huìnéng 惠能 / 慧能 (638–713), the Sixth Patriarch (六祖) of the Chinese Chán lineage in the canonical narrative of the tradition, founder-exemplar of the Southern School (南宗) of Chán. Posthumous title Dàjiàn chánshī 大鑑禪師 (conferred Yuánhé 10 = 815, more than a century after his death, at the urging of the poet Liú Yǔxí 劉禹錫 who composed the second tomb-inscription); later elaborated to Dàjiàn Zhēnkōng Pǔjué Yuánmíng chánshī 大鑒真空普覺圓明禪師. Colloquially Lǎolú 老盧 (“Old Lú”), from his lay surname.
Native of Xīnxīng 新興 / Xīnzhōu 新州 in Lǐngnán 嶺南 (modern Guǎngdōng 廣東), lay surname Lú 盧; father Lú Xíngtāo 盧行瑫, a demoted official; mother of the Lǐ 李 clan. The canonical narrative (first given full elaboration in the Tánjīng KR6q0082 and subsequently expanded in the Zōngbǎo recension KR6q0083) records Huìnéng’s awakening as a young charcoal-seller at Guǎngzhōu 廣州 on hearing a customer recite the Jīn’gāng jīng 金剛經; his pilgrimage north to Hóngrěn 弘忍 (601–674, DILA A000237) at the Dōngshān 東山 monastery at Huángméi 黃梅 in Qízhōu 蘄州; eight months at the rice-husking pavilion; the pivotal gatha-contest with Shénxiù 神秀 (606–706) whose “shēn shì pútí shù 身是菩提樹, xīn rú míngjìng tái 心如明鏡臺” verse Huìnéng displaced with the unwritten reply “pútí běn wú shù 菩提本無樹, míngjìng yì fēi tái 明鏡亦非臺, běn lái wú yī wù 本來無一物, hé chù rě chén’āi 何處惹塵埃”; Hóngrěn’s secret midnight transmission of robe and dharma at the third watch; Huìnéng’s flight south pursued by Huìmíng 惠明 and others; sixteen years of concealment in the Lǐngnán mountains among hunters; reemergence at the Fǎxìng sì 法性寺 in Guǎngzhōu in Yífèng 1 (676) where the Niè Pán jīng 涅槃經 master Yìnzōng 印宗 performed his tonsure and full ordination; and his subsequent abbacy at the Bǎolín sì 寶林寺 on Cáoxī 曹溪 (Sháozhōu 韶州), from which he taught for thirty-seven years.
The Dūnhuáng Tánjīng narrative compresses and in places differs from this later canonical form. Huìnéng’s doctrinal formulations as preserved in the Tánjīng — wú-xiàng jiè 無相戒 (formless precepts), dìng huì yì tǐ 定慧一體 (samādhi and prajñā as one substance), dùn-wù 頓悟 (sudden awakening), wú-niàn wéi zōng 無念為宗 (no-thought as foundation) — became the structural doctrines of later Chinese Chán and, through Koryŏ Sŏn and Kamakura Zen, of the pan-East-Asian Buddhist tradition.
Died Xiāntiān 2.8.3 (1 September 713), aged 76, sēnglà 47. Body preserved as a lacquered ròushēn fó 肉身佛 (“flesh-body Buddha”); originally enshrined at Cáoxī, later moved among multiple sites and subjected to repeated attempted thefts and relic-veneration events recorded in the later hagiographic literature. Posthumous title conferred a century after death (Yuánhé 10 = 815).
Principal recorded dharma-heirs (DILA): Huáiràng 懷讓 (677–744, A004015) → Mǎzǔ Dàoyī 馬祖道一 lineage (the Hóngzhōu school, giving rise to all five of the classical Five Houses); Xíngsī 行思 (671–740, A003666) → Shítóu Xīqiān 石頭希遷 → Cáodòng, Yúnmén, Fǎyǎn lineages. Huìnéng is thus the stem-figure from which the entire subsequent Chán lineage genealogy is traced. His disciple 法海 Fǎhǎi recorded the Platform-sermon that constitutes the Tánjīng.
Works in the Kanripo corpus: KR6q0082 Nánzōng dùnjiào zuìshàng Dàshèng Móhē Bōrěbōluómì jīng liùzǔ Huìnéng dàshī yú Sháozhōu Dàfàn sì shī fǎ Tánjīng 南宗頓教最上大乘摩訶般若波羅蜜經六祖惠能大師於韶州大梵寺施法壇經 (Dūnhuáng recension, T48 n2007).
Per DILA A001719: birth Zhēnguān 12.2.8 (2 March 638); death Xiāntiān 2.8.3 (1 September 713); lay surname Lú; native of Xīnxīng 新興.