Dharma Discussion, January
#11 in the Lin Chi Lu
From Thich Nhat Hanh’s Nothing to Do, Nowhere To Go
The Master taught: “In these times whoever studies the Buddhadharma needs right view. Once there is right view, birth and death can no longer touch you. At that pint, whether you stay or go, you do so as a free person. You do not need to go in search of the transcendent, but the transcendent will seek you out.
“Friends on the Path, the virtuous monks of old have all offered human beings a path of liberation. The place of this mountain monk is just to encourage you not to allow people to delude you. My advice should be enacted immediately. Do not e indecisive or doubting.
“If people of our own time are not able to realize the fruits of the practice, why is that? It is because they do not have the virtue of self-confidence. Because yu do not have the virtue of self-confidence, you are always preoccupied, in a hurry to run after myriad kinds of objects outside yourselves, and then you are turned around in circles by these objects and lose all your freedom.
“If you are able to put an end to the thinking that chases after external objects, you will see that there is no difference between you yourselves and our teacher, the Buddha. Do you want to know who our teacher, the Buddha, is? The Buddha is you yourselves who are standing before me, listening to me teach the Dharma. The practitioner who does not have enough self-confidence will always direct his attention to what is external and wander around and around looking for something. Even if he does find something that object is just a beautiful form of writing and words. It is not the living mind of the master. Good monks, do not make this mistake! If in this present moment you are not able to meet the Buddha in person, then for countless lives to come you will have to be reborn in the three realms of samsara, always searching for something to grasp hold of that will make you feel comfortable, continually being born in the womb of an ox or ass.
“My friends, as far as the insight of this mountain mink goes, there is no difference between you and Shakyamuni Buddha. Today, in every ordinary daily activity you do, do you feel you lack anything? Is there any moment when the six miraculous beams of light do not shine out? Anyone who has that insight will be a person with nothing to do throughout his life.
“Venerable monks, in the three realms there is nothing secure. These realms are like a house on fire. They are not the place to make your life-long home. At every moment impermanence, like a demon, is there to put out its hand and take your life, making no distinction between the young and the old, the noble and the lowly.
“If you want to be no different from the Buddha, our teacher, do not run after things outside of you. Every movement of your mind which is able to shine out the light of purity is the Dharma body of the Buddha who is right here in your home. The light of nondiscrimination which arises from every moment of recollection is the transformation body of the Buddha which is right in your home. These three bodies are not different from you who are standing in front of me listening to the Dharma. This wonderful function can only be possible when you do not direct your energy to chasing after something outside of yourself.
“Having become reliant on scholars who study and write commentaries on the sutras and shastras, peoples go in search of the three bodies as absolute standards outside of themselves. According to me, it is not like that. These three bodies they talk about are just names and words. They can also become three places of refuge which people become attached to and caught in. A teacher of old has said, ‘Three bodies are established in dependence on the true meaning. The Buddha lands are commented on in dependence on the original nature.; Therefore the bodies and the lands in terms of the Dharma nature are clearly just reflections of light.
“Venerable monks, you should know that the reflections which people hold on to and play around with are the source of Buddhas. As far as the speaker is concerned, every place is a place of arrival, every place is true home for the practitioner.
“Your body made of the four elements does not know how to speak about or listen to the dharma. Your spleen, stomach, liver, and gallbladder cannot talk about or listen to the Dharma. So what is it that knows how to talk about and listen to the Dharma? It is the bright clarity which has not the slightest outer form standing in front of us here. That is what knows how to speaker about and listen to the dharma. If you are able to see that, you are no different from the Buddha and the masters. The thing is to maintain that insight constantly, do not allow it to be interrupted ; whenever your eyes are in contact with it, you will be able to see it.
“Only because emotional attachment arises, understanding is obstructed. Because perceptions are changing, the form of the true nature changes. That is why there is rebirth in the three realms and we have to undergo so many kinds of suffering. According to my way of seeing, there is nothing that is not deep and wonderful, there is nothing that is not liberated.
“My friends, consciousness has noform, it passes freely through the Ten Directions. In the eyes it is called sight, in the ears it is called hearing, in the nose it is called scent, in the mouth it is called conversation, in the hands it is called holding, in the feet running and jumping. All of these arise from one shining light which is divided into six functions working together in harmony. Whenever wrong thinking does not arise, there is liberation. What do I mean by that? It is only because you have not been able to put an end to seeking that you fall into traps that the ancient ones have spread out for you.
My friends, try and apply my insight. Sit still and cut off the heads of every retribution and transformation body of the Buddha. See that all bodhisattvas in the ten bodhisattva stages, all the fully awakened and wonderful awakened ones are lust like shackles coming to imprison you. Arhats and self-enlightened ones are like the latrine pit. Awakening (Bodhi) and nirvana are tethering posts for mules. Why? Because you have not been able to realize clear understanding of the emptiness of three incalculably long kalpas, you run into the obstacles which you are presently experiencing. If you practiced correctly the true teachings, it would not be like that. You just need to use these favorable circumstances to put an end to your past karma. Put on you robe as a free person. When it is necessary to walk, walk. When it is necessary to sit, sit. Do not for a moment yearn for Buddhahood.
“Why? Men of old have said, ‘If you want to find the Buddha by making the practice hard labor Buddha will become the retribution that holds you in the cycle of birth and death.’ Venerable monks, time is very precious You should stop the mind which is always wandering around, running to the neighbor’s house to study Zen, to learn the Way, looking for a sentence, looking for words, seeking the masters, seeking the Buddha, seeking a good spiritual friend. Do not take this mistaken direction. You need to look into yourselves. A teacher of old said Yajnadatta thought he had lost his head, but when his mind was able to stop searching he was able to achieve the state of having nothing to do right away.
“Venerable monks, you should live your lives in a very natural way. Do not put on airs. There are a number of shaved heads who are not able to distinguish good from bad. They say they see spirits and demons. They point to the East and the West, and they pray for rain and for sunshine. This group will surely have to repay what they have borrowed and one day before the judge of the dead, Yama, they will swallow lumps of molten iron. And those good families who are deluded by this group of wild fox spirits will also have to pay the debt of the ice they have eaten. There is no way they can avoid it.”
Commentary
In this teaching, Master Linji tells us we have to come back to and have confidence in ourselves. We shouldn’t beg for crumbs from others, including from the Buddhas, the masters, spiritual teachers, the sutras, and other scriptures. The things we’re looking for aren’t in these places. This message appears frequently in Master Linji’s teachings, but is especially clear here. If we search for something outside ourselves, we will never find it. We have, within us, all the seeds of Buddhahood. The Buddha and the masters don’t belong to the past, the future, or another place. They are here with us in this present moment.
Master Linji asked, “Do you want to know who our teacher, the Buddha, is? The Buddha is you yourselves who are standing before me, listening to me teach the Dharma.” That statement is very revolutionary. Our true person is the Buddha and the master, and that true person is right inside us. All the Buddhas and all the worlds talked about in the sutras are products of our mind, of consciousness. We shouldn’t look for them in space and we can’t find them in time. We can only find them in our own consciousness. When learning the sutras and the commentaries, when listening to the Dharma, we have to maintain our freedom. When we’re pulled, excited, and lured by images that people present to us, we lose ourselves.
“Friends on the Path, the virtuous monks of old have all offered human beings a path of liberation. The place of this mountain monk is just to encourage you not to allow people to delude you. My advice should be enacted immediately. Don’t be indecisive or doubting.”
When Master Linji addressed the audience as “Friends on the Path,” he meant they were his fellow practitioners, people going together on the same path, like a flowing river. When he said, “this mountain monk,” he was referring to himself. Buddhist teachers of the past have shown us Dharma doors, skillful means to help us to find a way out of suffering. But if we don’t understand these well-intended teachings, we may be caught in them, in words and ideas, and then these teachings can become a hindrance.
There are teachers who worry that if they speak the truth they’ll lose their followers and their temple. They fear that if they don’t do and say what the followers want, they won’t be able to pay the telephone and electricity bills and they’ll have nowhere to live and practice. This situation existed in China during Linji’s time and it exists today in Europe, the U.S.,, and in other countries. But Master Linji was unlike other teachers. He had the courage to speak the truth that was in his heart; he only wanted to be the true person.
The Venerable Manh Giac wrote a poem about reading the Diamond sutra. Here are two lines from that poem:
There is no longer the Diamond Sutra.
The Zen door disappears and I am without words.
To tease him, I rewrote the lines like this:
We are kicked out of the timple.
Our mouth is stiff and we can’t say anything.
What these poems are saying is that if we let ourselves be misled by others, we lose ourselves. We shouldn’t run after anything or anyone, even a Zen master. All the things we learn and listen to must have the capacity to bring us back to ourselves and increase our capacity to be free, to be happy, to be solid.
We may hear this teaching and understand it. But we may still be weak and hesitant and think, “oh, tomorrow or the next day I’ll arrange things so I can have freedom.” But a river never stops flowing; if we hesitate, we’ll never have freedom. If we’ve understood the teaching, we have to put in into practice right away.
Master Linji said that if the Buddhist practitioners of his time couldn’t reach enlightenment, it was because they didn’t have confidence. Nowadays, just as in ninth century China, we rush after things outside, and then feel manipulated and controlled by the situations we’ve gotten ourselves into. If we are able to stop those ideas of seeking and running after something, then we’ll see there’s no difference between us and the masters, us and then Buddha.
We perform ceremonies such as touching the earth, lighting incense, or being in toruhc with a statue on an altar, to maintain and renew our confidence in ourselves. We must pay repect and touch the earth in front of the Buddha in such a way that we see that the one who bows and the one who is bowed to are one. We pay our respects to the Buddha in such a way that the faith in our capacity to be enlightened, to be happy, is strengthened and grows every day.
In Buddhist scripture,it says that the Buddha has three bodies. So we get lost in the words “three bodies,” and we search for this and that body, never touching the peace, the liberation, and the greatness that is the Buddha alive in ourselves. The three Buddha bodies are the Dharma body, the retribution body, and the transformation body. The Buddha has thousands of transformation bodies, and if we aren’t careful, we look for these bodies everywhere but in ourselves. We seek these things, not realizing that they are only products of the mind’s imagination. Some of us call the creator Almighty; we see him as someone outside of ourselves who has all the power. If we believe in that image, then believe that after we die we’ll go to the Kingdom of God and sit at the foot of the Almighty . We think he is in a higher place with the power to attain whatever he wants. We thing we are sitting down here in a very low place.
In Buddhism it’s the same. We imagine the World-Honored One surrounded by limitless light and innumerable bodhisattvas. This Buddha has the thirty-two auspicious signs and the eighty special characteristics, and thousands of retribution bodies, transformation bodies, and Dharma bodies. Where do we go to find a Buddha? To find God? We can’t find them in beautiful images and literature. The people who wrote down then Bible and people who wrote down then Mahayana sutras were artists. They used images to express their insights.
Master Linji said, “If in this present moment you aren’t able to meet the Buddha in person, then for countless lives to come you will have to be reborn in the three realms of samsara, always searching for something to grasp hold of that will make you feel comfortable, continually being born in the womb of an ox or ass.”
Right in this moment we are listening to the Dharma, and the Buddha is sitting with us, sitting inside us. In this moment, if we can’t touch the Buddha then we shouldn’t talk about the future. Only the present moment is real. If we lose this present moment, then we can’t get in touch with the Buddha, and for thousands of lifetimes we will continue in the circle of samsara: being conceived, being born, and dying as humans or other beings.
All the Buddha worlds are contained in this present moment, and we can be in touch with them easily, and that is the miraculous power. To access this miraculous power, all we need to do is listen to a bell of mindfulness and let it bring us fully into the resent moment. When we hear the bell, we let go of all thinking, return to the breath, and get in touch with limitless time and space, in touch with the past, the present, and all the worlds. There are no Buddhas that we can’t get in touch with in that moment.
Master LInji asked, “Today, in every ordinary daily activity you do, do you feel you lack anything? Is there any moment when the six miraculous beams of light od no shine out?” The six miraculous lights are our sense consciousnesses: sight, hearing, smell\, taste, touch, and thinking. In our consciousness, the shining mind manifest. If we use these six miraculous lights skillfully, then we are the Buddhas. It means that in each moment of our daily life, we need to shine the light of mindfulness. We see something and we know what we’re seeing, we listen to something and we know that we’re hearing. When we look, we look like the Buddha. When we smell, we smell like the Buddha. When we touch, we touch like the Buddha. When we think, we think like the Buddha. If in each moment our six miraculous powers are radiating, then we will have nothing to do. We will become hat Master Linji called the “businessless person.” This is the spirit of the Buddha’s teaching of aimlessness, apranihita, one of the three doors of liberation.
Master Linji taught, “The three realms aren’t secure. These realms are like a house on fire. They aren’t the place to make your lifelong home. At every moment impermanence, like a demon, is there to put out its hand and take your life, making no distinction between the young and the old, the noble and the lowly.”
The three worlds of desire, form, and non-form are without peace. They’re like a burning house, not a place we should get too comfortable or stay too long. The burning house is an image form the Lotus Sutra. The demon of impermanence is death. His hand is holding a scythe, and in each moment it destroys without distinguishing between young and old. How do we escape the house on fire?
Master Linji taught, “If you want to be no different from the Buddha, our teacher, do not run after things outside of you. Every instant your mind is able to shine out the light of purity is the Dharma body of the Buddha who is right in your home. The light of nondiscrimination which arises from every moment of recollection is the transformation body of the Buddha which is right in your home. These three bodies are not different from you who are standing in front of me listening to the Dharma. This wonderful function can only be possible when you do not direct your energy to chasing after something outside of yourself.”
If we don’t want to be different from the Buddha, then let each of our thoughts give rise to the pure light that is the Dharma body of the Buddha right in our own house. The light of nondiscrimination rising from our own mind is the retribution body of the Buddha. The light of nondiscrimination rising with each thought of our mind is the transformation body of the Buddha. The Dharma body is the dharmakaya, the manifestation of the Buddha in different forms. Each of those manifestations is a transformation body of the Buddha, the nirmanakaya. The retribution body, sambhogakaya, is the beautiful body of the Buddha that comes about because of the way he lived his life.
Each of these boies, each of us, is beautiful. When the tree is just sprouting it is beautiful. And when it grows up and spreads out it is beautiful. When it is gree, it is beautiful. When the autumn arrives it yellows, it is also beautiful. And when the winter comes and the leaves fall, its’s also beautiful. Each day our body of retribution reveals its beauties, and we can enjoy that. The retribution body is also called the enjoyment body. Others can enjoy and benefit from it as well. The leaf is beautiful, and because the leaf is beautiful, we get pleasure from looking at it.
The three boies are beautiful, wholesome, and perfect. We seek these absolute standards for us because we feel ourselves to be imperfect as we are. In the poem, “Looking for the Tathagata” I wrote:
…because I was so hungry, so thirsty,
because I wanted to find the image of you
who is forever perfect.
The distance between us isn’t farther than a flash of a thought. And when we can find ourselves, we find that perfect image.
Master Linji taught, “A teacher of old has said, ‘The Three Bodies are established in dependence on the true meaning. The Buddha lands are commented on in dependence on the original nature. Therefore the bodies and the lands in terms of the Dharma nature are clearly just reflections of light. Therefore, in terms of the Dharma, both the Three Bodies and the Pure Lands are just reflected light.”
Here Master Linji is saying that the Three Bodies are ways of expounding the true meaning of things and the Buddha lands are ways of revealing the true nature, and both of them are just reflections of the clear light of the mind.
We use the sign or the appearance of enlightenment to create three bodies. And we use the true nature, the nature of the Dharma, to create the land. When we talk about the Three Bodies of the Buddha, we’re talking about their true nature. And when we talk about the Buddha lands, we’re talking about their true nature. The three bodies and the Buddha lands have the same nature.
The Earth gives rise to human beings – men or women, we are all the children of the Earth. Shakyamuni Buddha is a child of this planet Earth, just as all of us are children of this Earth. Shakyamuni Buddha is the body, and this planet Earth is the Pure Land. From the aspect of the true nature, both the body and the land are one. Our bodies depend on the land, the earth, in order to manifest. We’re born from the earth and when we die we return to the earth so that we can be reborn. Master Linji is saying that those three bodies of the Buddha aren’t anything different than you who are standing in front of me listening to the Dharma.
The person who can play with this reflection is the root of all the uddhas. That person can be us, if we know that the Buddha and the Pure land are just reflection of ourselves. We say, “I have arrived. I am home.” Anywhere is the home of the one who practices. We go out to work; we have arrived. We return to our homes; we have also arrived. We go on walking meditation; we arrive in every step.
Master Linji taught, “Your body made of the four elements doesn’t know how to speak about or listen to the Dharma. Your spleen, stomach, liver, and gallbladder cannot talk about or listen to the Dharma. So what is it that know how to talk about and listen to the Dharma? It is the bright clarity that has not the slightest outer form standing in front of us here…
“The thing is to maintain that insight constantly; do not allow it to be interrupted, whenever your eyes are in contact with it, you will be able to see it.”
The four elements are earth, water, fire, and air. Master Linji is saying that although we are made of the four elements, we shouldn’t be caught in believing they are all we are. And just as we are not only the four elements of our body, we are also not the four elements of our mind, feeling, perceptions, mental formation, and consciousness. If there is no body, then the mind can’t manifest. And if there is no mind, then the body can’t manifest. The body and mind depend on and take refuge in each other in order to manifest.
Master Linji taught, “Only because emotional attachment arises, understanding is obstructed. Because perceptions are changing, the form of the true nature changes. That is why there is rebirth in the three realms and have to undergo so many kinds of sufferings…
“Consciousness has no form, it passes freely through the Ten Directions. In the eyes it is called sight, in the ears it is called hearing, in the nose it is called scent, in the mouth it is called conversation, in the hands it is called holding, in the feet running and jumping. All of these arise from one shining light which is divided into six functions working together in harmony. Whenever wrong thinking does not arise, there is liberation.”
Master Linji was referring to the Surangama Sutra when he said that the one bright shining mind is divided into six consciousnesses. The bright shining mind manifests as six miraculous beams of light. If we let the light shine, then we are the Buddha. But if we let this shining light be covered by our afflictions of greed, ignorance, and hatred, then we are ordinary living beings.
The ancient teachers wanted to help human beings, so they gave us skillful means to help us practice. But we get caught in those skillful means. For example, to help us touch the Buddha in ourselves, they created the Buddha statue.. And they created the temple and put the Buddha statue in the temple. Now we go into the temple and prostrate in front of the Buddha statue. But if we think that the Buddha is only in the temple, the we are caught.
Similarly, ancient teachers gave ust he sutras and the teachings to help us study and practice. But if we think of them as absolutes, then we’ve lost everything. For example, we say we should do walking meditation, that it brings about wellness. But if we do walking meditation because we think we should, making slow and exaggerated steps, than it just looks funny and doesn’t help us feel happier.
Master Linji taught, “Sit sill and cut off the head of every retribution and transformation body of the Buddha.” Who would dare to say things like that? A long time ago, two Zen masters were on a mountain doing sitting meditation together on the rocks. After the sitting meditation, they had a conversation. One of them said, “I’m liberated from all signs and appearances; I have reached signlessness.” The other doubted the first. So when the one who’d said he was free from sights left to go down and urinate, the other monk, using a piece of chalk, wrote the word Phat, which means “Buddha” in Vietnamese, on the rock where the other had been sitting. When he came back to the rock and saw the word Buddha, he didn’t dare sit down on it. The second monk laughed and said, “You see? You’re still caught by the sign – you haven’t reached signlessness.”
Master Linji was reminding us that the transformation and retribution bodies of the Buddha are established in dependence on the true and aren’t objective realities. A Zen master can break the Buddha statue into pieces to help the Zen students to see that the Buddha isn’t made of copper and of clay. We aren’t killing the true Buddha, we’re killing our view of the Buddha so the true Buddha has the opportunity to manifest.
Master Linji taught, “All the fully awakened and wonderful awakened ones are just like shackles coming to imprison you. Arhats and self-enlightened ones are like the latrine pit. Awakening and nirvana are tethering posts for mules. Why? Because you have not been able to realize clear understanding of the emptiness of three incalculably long kalpas, that you run into the obstacles which you are presently experiencing. . . When it is necessary to walk, walk. When it is necessary to sit, sit. Don’t for a moment yearn for Buddhahood.”
This is reminiscent of the story of the prodigal son in the Lotus Sutra. He’d left home and become a wanderer begging for food. Many years later, without realizing it, he returned to his homeland. He came to where his father lived but he didn’t recognize his father, who had become wealthy in the son’s absence. The son wouldn’t believe that this was his father and so his father said nothing. The son worked for his father in the lowest position possible, gathering garbage. Slowly the father gave his son higher and higher positions. Then the rich man revealed the truth to his son and the son was able to accept his paternity.
We are like that child. We are the children of the Buddha, but because we feel unworthy, we can’t accept that we are his children. There is gradual enlightenment and sudden enlightenment. The Buddha suggested ten steps, like jobs, that we could go through until we finally reach the land of the Dharma Cloud and become a Buddha. The ten jobs, the ten positions that the father uses to bring his child up gradually, are only skillful means. We are already Buddhas, but because we lack confidence we don’t believe this.
Buddhist terminologies, such as arhat and all the periods of practice are all just descriptions, skillful means. The ancient teachers give us images and terminologies such as these to help us practice. We hear such things as “we are independent, we are free, we are citizens, we are strong, we will continue to go forward,” and we consume these phrases and think they are enough. But all of these things are only words. If we live only by means of words and images, and by worshipping things outside us, then we aren’t in contact with the truth.
Walking meditation, sitting meditation, or listening to the bell are all the means to practice in order to reach peace, joy, and liberation. But if we are doing these things and we don’t feel happy, it means that all of these things are just forms and words. They don’t benefit us at all and we in turn can’t benefit others. When we listen to the bell we are quiet, and we breathe in and out, but we don’t have any peace or joy. We have to stay quiet because other people are quiet, but in our silence there is no mindfulness, concentration, insight, peace or joy at all. Then what is the bell? The ell is the latrine. The bell is the pole used to tie up the donkey. We can put on our clothes with freedom. When we need to walk then we walk. When we need to sit, we sit. And we don’t spend another minute wishing for the fruit of Buddhahood.
Zen Master Mazu Daoyi, the grandfather teacher of Master Linji said, “We should only use the conditions that help disintegrate the old karmas. We sit in order to transform old karmas. We don’t want to create more accidents, more traumas, more new actions. Instead, our current enlightenment can transform and dissipate the traumas we have crate in the past. At the same time, we can keep from creating new traumas.”
I translate this as meaning: the new dangers, the new actions that we just created, they will be the dangers for our future. This means that there is no Dharma that is the highest enlightenment, so don’t wish for it.
If we work very hard at Buddhahood, the Buddha will foreshadow birth and death. If the wave works hard to seek water, it will only get tired, it will only create more birth and death, because the wave is already the water. It doesn’t have to work hard anymore. It doesn’t have to fear going up and going down.
In my last trip to the United States, a friend requested that I write a calligraphy for him of the phrase “Resting with God.” I wrote it for him because it embodied the realization that God is here, he isn’t an old man with a beard sitting high above us. God is here, is our true nature, our suchness, just as the water is the suchness of the wave. And if the wave knows how to take refuge in water, if it knows to believe in the water, then the wave loses all of its fears, sadness, and jealousy. If we take refuge in our true nature then we aren’t afraid anymore of gaining, of losing, of having of not having, of dying, of being, and nonbeing
Time is valuable. Let’s stop the running mind. Running to the neighbors’s house in order to study Zen, study the Path, to seek the phrase, to seek the words, to pray to the Buddha, to pray to the master, to find ones who know goodness. In the Surangama Sutra the Buddha told of young man who had a mental illness. One day, he became very frightened because he imagined that his head was no longer on his neck, so he ran around looking for his head. We are also like this young man Yajnadatta. We have the Buddha and the Buddha lands inside us and still we seek.
Master Linji asked his students to go back and reflect. He is referencing the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. This story is about how the Sixth Patriarch Huineng was working in the kitchen of the Dong Can Temple grinding rice with a mortar and pestle when the Fifth Patriarch, Hongren, came to the kitchen and knocked on the mortar three times. Patriarch Huineng understood this to mean that at the beginning of the third watch of the night he should go to the private room of the Fifth Patriarch t meet him and receive the Dharma. The Fifth Patriarch wanted it to be a surreptitious Dharma transmission, because he was afraid the Sangha would be jealous. Shenxui was the eldest student of the Fifth Patriarch. He was talented and a good disciple and everyone had assumed he would receive the transmission; but the robe and bowl were transmitted to Huineng.
We only have the account of the students of Huineng to tell us what happened. But at thtat time in China, Buddhism was under attack – temples were being destroyed, monks were killed, records ere lost, and eventually the Northern school of Chinese Buddhism died out. Buddhism was safer in the south, where Huineng had originally come from and the place to which he returned after he’d received the transmission. His Dharma brother, Shenxui, stayed at the root temple and he may also have received the transmission from the Fifth Patriarch. According to the Southern school, Huineng is the only Sixth Patriarch, but it’s possible we have two – one of the Northern school and one of the Southern school.
Master Linji taught, “Venerable monks, you should live your lives in a very natural way. Do not put on airs. There are a number of shaved heads who are not able to distinguish good from bad. They say they see spirits and demons. They point to the East and the West and they pray for ran and for sunshine. This group will surely have to repay what they have borrowed and one day before the judge of the dead, Yama, they will swallow lumps of molted iron. And those of good families who are deluded by this group of wild fox spirits will also have to pay the debts of the rice they have eaten. There is no way they can avoid it.”
Yama is the king of hell. He judges the dead and chooses their punishment based on their offenses. Master Linji invoked him in his frustration with monks who pretended to know more than they did. At this time, near the end of the Tang dynasty, there was also increased corruption in some monasteries. So Master Linji used language that was particularly harsh and strong to remind the monks in clear terms that the only role of a practitioner is to live simply, as an ordinary person, and not to put on airs. This is still a fundamental challenge for us today.
In : Dharma Discussion
