Men's Midlands Regional Order weekend - The Platform Sutra

Led by Paramartha

“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 a (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 to Sangharakshita not only realise that he was a Buddhist but that he had, in fact, always been one.

On this retreat there will be some study of the Platform Sutra and story of Huineng’s life and awakening. Some 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.

For Dharmacharis

Start Date: 2nd Jun 2023
End Date: 4th Jun 2023
Event Type: Residential
Price: Waged/Supported (including deposit) £95  |  Unwaged/Unsupported (including deposit) £70

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