The transmission
Huang Po (Huangbo Xiyun, fl. c.800-850 CE) was a Tang-dynasty Chan master whose recorded teachings, The Transmission of Mind, are among the most uncompromising statements of nondual Zen.
He taught the doctrine of “One Mind”—the single, undifferentiated awareness that is the substance of all beings and all phenomena, which “was never born and will never die,” is neither large nor small, and cannot be sought because the very seeking presupposes a separation that does not exist.
To grasp it, he insisted, is to miss it; one can only cease conceptualizing and recognize that this Mind is already what one is. For the mind-power lineage, Huang Po supplies the purest “consciousness is the only reality” formulation in classical Zen: all things are projections or expressions of One Mind, and bondage is simply the mistaken belief in a separate seeker.
This is a direct ancestor of the modern claim that consciousness is fundamental and that reality is mind-stuff—an idea that resurfaces in Western nondual teaching and consciousness-first spirituality. His warning that seeking enlightenment obstructs it prefigures the “stop trying, just recognize” theme central to later direct-pointing teachers, and his transmission directly shaped his fierce disciple Linji, founder of the Rinzai line.
What they gave
One Mind doctrine: Taught a single universal awareness as the substance of all reality—proto consciousness-first.
- Seeking obstructs: Showed that the search for enlightenment reinforces the illusion of a separate seeker.
- No-grasping recognition: Reframed awakening as ceasing conceptualization rather than acquiring anything.
- Transmission of Mind: Left a foundational text that shaped Linji and Western nondual readers via Blofeld.
In their words
All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.
This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance.
This Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is all living beings.
All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible.
They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings.
The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood.
It is that which you see before you — begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error.
Only he who restrains every vestige of empiricism and ceases to rely upon anything can become a perfectly tranquil man.
If you students of the Way wish to become Buddhas, you need study no doctrines whatever, but learn only how to avoid seeking for and attaching yourselves to anything.
Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Huineng and the Southern/sudden school; the Mazu/Hongzhou Chan lineage.
- Influenced: Linji (his disciple) and Rinzai Zen; modern “One Mind” nondual teaching; Western spirituality via John Blofeld’s translations.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind857