Sõsan Sêng-ts’an (d.606 CE,) also Seng-ts’an, was an influential Chinese monk. He was the assumed third Patriarch of the Chán (Zen) tradition and the thirtieth Patriarch after Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha. Sengcan was posthumously given the title Chán Master Jingzhi (“Mirror-like Wisdom”) by the Tang dynasty emperor Xuanzong.
Little is known about Sengcan’s life; most of the current knowledge of Sengcan is sourced in Chán hagiographic accounts. Some scholars believe that he may have been a composite figure invented to connect the early Chán with the East Mountain teachings.
Sengcan was the disciple of Dàzǔ Huìkě, the first Chinese disciple of Bodhidharma (the founder of Chán) and the second patriarch of the Chán School. According to the Keizan Jōkin’s Denkōroku (1300, ‘The Transmission of the Lamp,’) Sengcan was a layman in his forties and suffering from leprosy when he met Huìkě. Deeply enthralled with his aptitude for the Dharma, Huìkě shaved Sengcan’s head and named him Seng-ts’an (literally “Sangha-jewel,” meaning “Gem Monk,” or “Jewel of the Buddhist Community” or “Jewel of the Community.”) Sengcan was slowly restored to health, and after they had been practicing together for two years, Huìkě gave him the ritualistic robe and bowl signifying the transmission of the Dharma.
During the Northern Chou dynasty Emperor Wu’s oppression of Buddhism, Sengcan is said to have gone into hiding in the Wangong Mountain in Yixian and later resided on Mt. Sikong in Suzhou, present-day Anhui province.
Sengcan is supposed to have specialized in the study of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (“Sutra on the Descent to Sri Lanka,”) which explains the elimination of all duality and the “forgetting of words and thoughts,” and in so doing, stressing the contemplation of wisdom.
Sengcan is generally regarded as the author of the famous Chán poem Xìnxīn Ming (translated as “Inscription on Faith in Mind” or “The Mind of Absolute Trust,”) which deals with the principles of non-duality and the notion of emptiness. This poem also brings to light Taoism’s influence on Chán.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jianzhi Sengcan
The ultimate Path is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
Topics: Zen
The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
Topics: Choice
The perfect way is without difficulty, for it avoids picking and choosing. Only when you stop liking and disliking will all be clearly understood. Be not concerned with right or wrong, for the conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
Topics: Choice
Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
Topics: Thinking
Return to the root and you will find the meaning.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
Topics: Meaning, Understanding
If an eye never falls asleep,
All dreams will by themselves cease:
If the mind retains its absoluteness,
The ten thousand things are of one suchness.
—Jianzhi Sengcan
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