Dharma Wheel

So in the Platform Sutra it says "Affliction is Bodhi". How can affliction be Bodhi? Is it not affliction that obscures Bodhi?

I am reading a version The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma jewel platform sutra : with the
commentary of Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, English translation by the Buddhist Text Translation Society.
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/P ... 0Sutra.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In the introduction it says this:

While still in India, Patriarch Bodhidharma sent two of his disciples, Fo T’o and Yeh She, to China to transmit the sudden enlightenment Dharma door. But no one, not even Chinese Bhikshus, would speak to them. So they went to Lu Mountain where they met the Great Master Yüan Kung, who lectured on mindfulness of the Buddha.

Master Yüan asked, “What Dharma do you transmit that causes people to pay you so little respect?” Fo T’o and Yeh She could not speak Chinese, so they used sign language instead. Raising their arms in the air, they said, “Watch! The hand makes a fist and the fist makes a hand. Is this not quick?” Master Yüan replied, “Quick indeed.” “Bodhi (enlightenment) and affliction,” they said, “are just
that quick.” At that moment, Dharma Master Yüan became enlightened, realizing that originally Bodhi and affliction are not different, for Bodhi is affliction and affliction is Bodhi. He made offerings to Fo T’o and Yeh She, and shortly thereafter, the two Indian Bhikshus died on the same day, in the same place. Their graves may still be seen at Lu Mountain.

How can affliction and Bodhi not be different when affliction causes suffering and Bodhi does not?

All thoughts and emotions, whether positive, negative or neutral, are empty. Seeing that they are unborn, empty, etc. is bodhi. Thus afflictions are not different from bodhi, bodhi is not found anywhere else. Bodhi is not the elimination of all thoughts and emotions but the realisation of their emptiness, i.e. not grasping them, not identifying with them.

This is not specifically a Chan teaching but common Mahayana actually. So you can even read about it in the sutras. What makes it Chan is the view that people can simply realise this without special preparatory training. That's because the mind is originally pure and it needs no development. Just realise that the mind is so and that is all.

Affliction is bodhi only if you have understood the nature of affliction.

If you still can't figure out the affliction's nature, then like what you said affliction causes suffering.

But, when you realize the nature of affliction and bodhi, it is just like the reflection of white round moon and red triangle star on the surface of water.

Regardless, what the shapes of afflictions are, how powerful they are, they are simply rootless and baseless.

Once you realize everything in this universe is rootless and baseless, there is nothing in this universe is not nirvana.

Afflictions are then just erroneous pointers, which have been misunderstood as negative.

You can realize that it is indeed foolish to regard this or that as affliction, because actually they are always rootless and baseless.

Anything, which is rootless and baseless, cannot shake anything, which is also rootless and baseless.

Sky cannot scratch the sky.

Peace and liberation is unavoidable at all time (if you know the true nature of this reality)

seeker242 wrote:So in the Platform Sutra it says "Affliction is Bodhi". How can affliction be Bodhi? Is it not affliction that obscures Bodhi?

I am reading a version The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma jewel platform sutra : with the
commentary of Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, English translation by the Buddhist Text Translation Society.
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/P ... 0Sutra.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In the introduction it says this:

While still in India, Patriarch Bodhidharma sent two of his disciples, Fo T’o and Yeh She, to China to transmit the sudden enlightenment Dharma door. But no one, not even Chinese Bhikshus, would speak to them. So they went to Lu Mountain where they met the Great Master Yüan Kung, who lectured on mindfulness of the Buddha.

Master Yüan asked, “What Dharma do you transmit that causes people to pay you so little respect?” Fo T’o and Yeh She could not speak Chinese, so they used sign language instead. Raising their arms in the air, they said, “Watch! The hand makes a fist and the fist makes a hand. Is this not quick?” Master Yüan replied, “Quick indeed.” “Bodhi (enlightenment) and affliction,” they said, “are just
that quick.” At that moment, Dharma Master Yüan became enlightened, realizing that originally Bodhi and affliction are not different, for Bodhi is affliction and affliction is Bodhi. He made offerings to Fo T’o and Yeh She, and shortly thereafter, the two Indian Bhikshus died on the same day, in the same place. Their graves may still be seen at Lu Mountain.

How can affliction and Bodhi not be different when affliction causes suffering and Bodhi does not?

Conditioned Genesis. Emptiness. Non-duality.