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Chapter 10: Final Instructions

The last teaching · One flower opens five petals; the fruit comes about naturally

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Chapter Overview

"Final instructions" (fufu, 付嘱) means the last entrustment and final teaching. This is the last chapter of the Platform Sutra, recording Master Huineng's final instructions to his disciples before entering nirvāṇa, including the "three Dharma gates," the "thirty-six pairs," the "verse on true and false, moving and still," and the famous prophecy of "one flower opens five petals." This is the summary and conclusion of the entire Platform Sutra.

1. The Three Dharma Gates

Sutra Text

In the first year of the Taiji era, in the seventh month of the Yanhe period, the Master ordered his disciples to go to Guo'en Temple in Xinzhou to build a pagoda, urging them to hasten the work. At the end of the following summer, the pagoda was completed. On the first day of the seventh month, he gathered his disciples and said: "I wish to leave this world in the eighth month. If any of you have doubts, ask me now. I will resolve your doubts and dispel your confusion. After I am gone, there will be no one to teach you."

Huineng foreknew the time of his passing and told his disciples he would enter nirvāṇa in the eighth month, urging them to raise any questions early. He then taught the "three Dharma gates":

I now teach you how to speak the Dharma without losing the essence of this school. First, you must present the three Dharma gates and employ the thirty-six pairs, emerging from and returning to the two extremes. When speaking of all dharmas, do not depart from self-nature. If someone suddenly asks you about the Dharma, your words should all contain pairs — take up the paired method, with cause and effect of coming and going. In the end, both dharmas are completely removed, and there is nowhere further to go.

The "three Dharma gates" are: the aggregates (skandha), the elements (dhātu), and the sense bases (āyatana). The "aggregates" are the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness). The "elements" are the eighteen elements (six sense faculties, six sense objects, six consciousnesses). The "sense bases" are the twelve sense bases (six sense faculties and six sense objects). These are Buddhism's basic classification of the body-mind world.

2. The Thirty-Six Pairs

The thirty-six paired dharmas: Five pairs of external objects and insentient things — heaven and earth, sun and moon, light and dark, yin and yang, water and fire. Twelve pairs of dharma-characteristics and language — speech and dharmas, existence and non-existence, colored and colorless, having form and formless, having outflows and outflows, form and emptiness, movement and stillness, clarity and turbidity, ordinary and holy, monastic and lay, old and young, large and small. Nineteen pairs arising from self-nature's function — long and short, wrong and right, foolish and wise, confused and clear, disturbed and settled, compassionate and harmful, precept-violating and precept-abiding, straight and crooked, real and false, dangerous and level, affliction and bodhi, permanent and impermanent, grief and harm, joy and anger, generosity and stinginess, advancing and retreating, arising and ceasing, Dharma body and physical body, transformation body and reward body.

Huineng taught the thirty-six pairs, instructing his disciples that when speaking the Dharma, their words should "all contain pairs" — every statement should embrace both sides of a duality, yet ultimately transcend duality and return to the Middle Way. This is not wordplay but using opposites to break through attachments and guide students beyond dualistic thinking.

3. The Verse on True and False, Moving and Still

Sutra Text

All things are not real —
Do not take what you see as real.
If you see something as real,
All such seeing is not real.
If you yourself possess the real,
Leave the false and the mind is true.
If your own mind does not leave the false,
There is no real — where can the true be found?
Sentient beings can move;
Insentient things cannot move.
If you practice immovability,
You are the same as insentient things.
If you seek true immovability,
There is immovability within movement.
Immovability is not immovability —
Insentient things have no seed of Buddhahood.

The "verse on true and false, moving and still" is Huineng's concise summary of the relationship between true and false, moving and still:

"There is immovability within movement" — true meditation is not the body being still but maintaining the mind's immovability within action. This reiterates the teaching of Chapter 5 (Sitting Meditation): "Externally free from appearances is dhyāna; internally undisturbed is samādhi."

4. One Flower Opens Five Petals

Sutra Text

The Master further said: "If you wish to accomplish sarvajña (all-encompassing wisdom), you must attain the samādhi of one-appearance and the samādhi of one-practice. If in all places you do not abide in appearances, and in those appearances you give rise to neither aversion nor attachment, neither grasping nor rejecting, without thinking of benefit, loss, success, or failure — dwelling in peace and tranquility, empty, harmonious, and simple — this is called the samādhi of one-appearance. If in all places, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, you practice a pure and straightforward mind, unmoved in the place of practice, truly becoming a Pure Land — this is called the samādhi of one-practice."

Huineng's final teaching included the "samādhi of one-appearance" and the "samādhi of one-practice":

After my nirvāṇa, in the twenty-odd years that follow, heterodox dharmas will arise in confusion, disturbing my tradition. Someone will appear who, not sparing body or life, will definitively establish right and wrong in Buddhism and set up the true tradition. This will be my true Dharma. The robe should no longer be transmitted. You are different from others. If you encounter one who truly receives the Way, pass it on from one to another, so that the Dharma is not cut off.

Finally, Huineng spoke the famous prophecy:

The Master said: "I originally came to this land to transmit the Dharma and save deluded beings. One flower opens five petals; the fruit comes about naturally."

"One flower opens five petals" — Huineng's Chan teaching would bloom into five flowers (the five Chan schools: Linji, Caodong, Weiyang, Yunmen, and Fayan). "The fruit comes about naturally" — the fruit of awakening would naturally ripen. This prophecy was fully fulfilled: the five Chan schools were established one after another in the late Tang and Five Dynasties periods, inaugurating the golden age of Chinese Chan Buddhism.

5. Huineng Enters Nirvāṇa

Sutra Text

On the third day of the eighth month in the second year of the Xiantian era, at Guo'en Temple, after the meal offering, the Master said to his disciples: "All of you, sit in your proper places. I am about to take my leave of you." Fahai spoke: "What teaching does the Reverend leave behind so that deluded people of later generations may see their Buddha-nature?"
The Master said: "Listen carefully, all of you. If deluded people of later generations can recognize sentient beings, they will recognize Buddha-nature. If they do not recognize sentient beings, they may seek the Buddha for ten thousand kalpas and never encounter one. I now teach you to recognize the sentient beings in your own mind and to see the Buddha-nature in your own mind. If you wish to see the Buddha, simply recognize sentient beings. It is only because sentient beings are deluded about the Buddha, not because the Buddha is deluded about sentient beings. If self-nature is awakened, sentient beings are Buddhas. If self-nature is deluded, Buddhas are sentient beings. Self-nature is equal — sentient beings are Buddhas. Self-nature is wicked and crooked — Buddhas are sentient beings. If your mind is wicked and crooked, the Buddha is among sentient beings. One thought of even straightforwardness — and sentient beings become Buddhas."

Huineng's final teaching before entering nirvāṇa returns once again to the core themes of the Platform Sutra:

6. Key Themes of This Chapter

The core ideas of the Final Instructions chapter can be summarized as:

  1. Three Dharma gates — Aggregates, elements, and sense bases: Buddhism's basic classification of the body-mind world
  2. Thirty-six pairs — Using opposites to break through attachments and return to the Middle Way
  3. Immovability within movement — True immovability is within action, not stillness
  4. One flower opens five petals — The prophecy of the five Chan schools
  5. Self-nature is equal — Self-nature is equal and undifferentiated; sentient beings are originally Buddhas

As the concluding chapter of the Platform Sutra, this chapter is both a summary of Huineng's lifetime of teaching and an important prophecy for the future development of Chan Buddhism. "One flower opens five petals; the fruit comes about naturally" — Huineng's Chan teaching not only influenced Chinese Buddhism but profoundly shaped the entire culture of East Asia.

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Further Reading

→ Chapter 1: The Story of Huineng
→ The Philosophy of the Platform Sutra
→ Modern Applications of the Platform Sutra
→ Chuanxi Lu: A Study of Wang Yangming's Philosophy of Mind