Huineng, revered as the Sixth Patriarch of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, articulated a profound vision of the relationship between mind and body grounded in non-duality. Rather than viewing these as separate or opposing entities, he taught that mind and body are fundamentally interdependent aspects of a single reality. The metaphor of a lamp and its light, where the lamp represents the body and the light the mind, illustrates this inseparability: just as light cannot exist without the lamp, mind and body arise together, each dependent on the other.

Central to Huineng’s teaching is the recognition that Buddha-nature pervades all phenomena, mental and physical alike. He rejected any dualistic thinking that would elevate the spiritual over the physical or suggest that enlightenment requires transcending the body. Instead, he emphasized that awakening is realized through direct insight into the inherent unity of mind and body, both arising from the same fundamental emptiness (śūnyatā). The body is not an impediment to awakening but is, in fact, the very vehicle through which realization manifests.

Huineng’s approach is vividly reflected in his response to the verse competition with Shenxiu, where he challenged the gradualist notion of polishing the mind as one would clean a mirror. He pointed instead to the immediate recognition of one’s intrinsic enlightened nature, a nature that encompasses both mental and physical existence without distinction. For Huineng, true spiritual practice does not involve purifying the mind at the expense of the body, but rather recognizing the non-dual, interpenetrating nature of both.

Thus, liberation is found not in separating or denigrating any aspect of experience, but in dissolving conventional distinctions and directly perceiving the essential unity of all phenomena. Mind and body, in Huineng’s vision, are not two but one—expressions of the same luminous reality, empty yet fully present, through which awakening is realized.