Linji Yixuan Quotes on Truth
Linji Yixuan (d. 866) is the founding patriarch of the Linji (Japanese: Rinzai) school of Chan Buddhism, and the Record of Linji preserves the sermons and recorded sayings on which the subsequent tradition was built. The famous teachings — the Buddha is a dry shit-stick, the four shouts, the four forms of host-and-guest interaction — are designed to dislodge the student's attempts to grasp truth through any of the conventional categories (scriptural authority, philosophical analysis, devotional practice) and to provoke the direct insight Linji called the true person of no rank that is the proper aim of Chan training. The framework defines the koan-driven training of subsequent Linji and Rinzai Zen practice, and shaped the broader Sino-Japanese Buddhist philosophy of awakening.
Quotes
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Attributed to Linji Yixuan:
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
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Attributed to Linji Yixuan:
“Followers of the Way, there is no Buddha to seek, no Dharma to attain.”
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Attributed to Linji Yixuan:
“The true person of no rank stands in your face and speaks.”
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Attributed to Linji Yixuan:
“Don't be deceived by names; look the matter in the face.”
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“Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place. (Translator unsourced.)”
<爾且隨處作主。立處皆真。> [T47n1985_p0498a19] from Linji lu (臨濟録, Record of Linji). | Just make yourself master of every situation, and wherever you stand is the true [place]. (Trans: R.F. Sasaki, Ed. T. Kirchner, The Record of Linji ). | If you master any situation you are in, wherever you stand, all becomes true. (Trans: Irmgard Schloegl, The Zen Teaching of Rinzai ). -
“Just make yourself master of every situation, and wherever you stand is the true [place]. (Trans: R.F. Sasaki, Ed. T. Kirchner, The Record of Linji ).”
Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place. (Translator unsourced.) -
“If you master any situation you are in, wherever you stand, all becomes true. (Trans: Irmgard Schloegl, The Zen Teaching of Rinzai ).”
Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place. (Translator unsourced.) -
“Everywhere there are those who say that there is a Path that can be cultivated and a truth that can be realized. You tell me, what path, what truth? What is lacking in your present functioning? Where will you cultivate and repair it? The younger generation of would-be Zen people do not understand this, so they believe in these wild fox spirits. When they explain things, they tie people down. They say that enlightenment can be attained only when truth and conduct are in accord and you guard yourself from misdeeds of thought, speech, and action. This kind of talk is like springtime drizzle.”
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