Zen Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch for Spiritual awakening/cultivation

The group is for people to meet, discuss, share and help each other for Spiritual Growth, Cultivation and Network.
We know that we have body, mind and spirit. The body is tangible and will go through birth, sickness, aging, and death. It also has duality, there are men and women and it lives in the physical world. Mind is intangible, but still has duality. There are positive/negative thoughts. The spirit is intangible and beyond duality. Lao Tzu used Tao to refer to the origin of creation and the pure spirit within each one of us. Buddha called the pure spirit as Buddha nature, meaning everyone can reach Buddhahood or enlightenment. It is referred to as the image of God in the Bible and spirit of Allah in the Koran. The more modern terms can be pure awareness or pure consciousness.
Even though there are different names, they all point to the same pure nature within us.
The analogy of sun and clouds is one of my favourites. The pure nature can be likened to the sun, which is always emitting light regardless of sunny days, cloudy days or stormy days. The vexations such as anger, resentment, greed, ignorance, attachment to fame, possessions...etc. can be likened to clouds that can temporarily obscure the light from the pure nature. However, once they are blown away, the light or wisdom from the pure nature will shine again.
Spiritual cultivation is the journey to awaken to the pure nature within us and how to blow away clouds of delusions to let the wisdom or light to flow from the pure nature without hindrance, which lead us to a life with joy, ease and love while living in this dualistic world.
We use Zen teachings as a starting point and are open to any other teachings, such as those from Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Lao Tzu...etc. and life experiences and wisdom from within each one of us.
We use the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch in Chan/Zen to understand how to practice spiritual cultivation in our life.
It's a good chance for any one who is interested to study, understand and share understandings and how to apply in our life to reveal great wisdom from our true/Buddha nature.

We have done the translation ourselves to reflect the true meaning of the original text as accurately as possible. We welcome any suggestions during the discussion.

(Next time we start from One day, Shenxiu instructed his disciple ZhiCheng)

Here is some information about the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.

Dating back to the eighth century C.E., the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is a foundational text of Chan/Zen Buddhism that reveals much about the early evolution of Chinese Chan and the ideological origins of Japanese Zen and Korean Son. Purported to be the recorded words of the famed Huineng, who was understood to be the Sixth Patriarch of Chan and the father of all later Chan/Zen Buddhism, the Platform Sutra illuminates fundamental Chan Buddhist principles in an expressive sermon that describes how Huineng overcame great personal and ideological challenges to uphold the exalted lineage of the enlightened Chan patriarchs while realizing the ultimate Buddhist truth of the original, pure nature of all sentient beings.

Huineng seems to reject meditation, the value of good karma, and the worship of the buddhas, conferring instead a set of "formless precepts" on his audience, marked by embedded notes in the text. In his central message, an inherent, perfect buddha nature stands as the original true condition of all sentient beings, which people of all backgrounds can experience for themselves.

The online meeting link will be sent out on the day. Please message me if you RSVP but don't receive the link before the meeting.

Welcome to join us even if you haven't attended previous sessions as the discussion is quite flexible and any topic in previous texts can be discussed if needed.

If you use browser to open meeting URL, remember to allow access to your microphone and camera when asked.
Please mute your microphone if you're not speaking when there are background sounds to prevent them being introduced into the meeting.

Looking forward to see you all in the discussions.