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“Zen particularly regards rational inquiry and academic scholarship as a hindrance along the way of enlightenment. The life story we told earlier of Hui-neng makes the Sixth Patriarch completely illiterate. Although this part of the story is contradicted by other reports giving testimony to his intimate knowledge of the sutras, this illiteracy is taken as a criterion for the authenticity of his way of Zen.” — Heinrich Dumoulin
Zen particularly regards rational inquiry and academic scholarship as a hindrance along the way of enlightenment. The life story we told earlier of Hui-neng makes the Sixth Patriarch completely illiterate. Although this part of the story is contradicted by other reports giving testimony to his intimate knowledge of the sutras, this illiteracy is taken as a criterion for the authenticity of his way of Zen.