J C Cleary-Linji

The Recorded Sayings of Linji
Translated from the Chinese

Taishö Volume 47, Number 1985
by
J. C. Cleary
Translator’s Introduction
The Recorded Sayings o f Linji (in Chinese Linji Lu, in Japanese

Rinzai Roku) is one of the seminal books of Zen. The great Zen teacher
Linji lived and worked in ninth century China, but his teachings
continued to guide and influence people for centuries afterwards,
and he was considered the grand ancestor of major streams of Zen in
China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. The direct, incisive teachings
preserved in his recorded sayings have shown a perennial power to
challenge and stimulate would-be seekers of the truth. Thus for more
than a millenium, the Recorded Sayings o f Linji has served as one of
the classic works of Great Vehicle Buddhism in the Far East.
The modern reader will surely be struck by the very “moder
nity” of these thousand year old teachings. Linji strips away the
supernatural aura of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and refers the
symbolism of the Buddhist scriptures to human processes, to actual
and potential psychological transformations involving individuals
and social groups. He analyses the relationship of language to real
ity and of conditioning to perception and motivation in ways that
both prefigure and surpass “modern” discussions on these points.
Linji insists to his listeners that the concepts and imagery of
the Buddhist Teachings refer to possibilities within us, and are
meant to be applied by present day people in the context of real
life, day to day and moment to moment. No concepts are made
sacrosanct, no procedures idolized. The Buddhist Teachings are
seen as provisional methods adopted to enable people to break
free from their conditioning and habit patterns. Genuine teach
ers can lead sincere students to recognize Reality, and thereby
1
open the way for them to actualize the wisdom and compassion
inherent in their real identity, their buddha-nature.
In Linji’s Zen as in all Great Vehicle Buddhism, correct in
sight into the emptiness of all things is inseparable from an ac
tive life of compassion in response to the needs of other beings.
This is related not as a paradox, but as a factual description of
the Path by the travellers.
Linji’s blunt and plainspoken style brings Buddhism down to
earth, into our own intimate consciousness, and introduces a vast,
subtle all-encompassing form of perception. Linji’s teachings have
crossed many barriers of place and time before now. Whether or
not they are already familiar with Zen Buddhism, modern read
ers can read Linji’s sayings as a direct demonstration of its view
point and call.
2
Prefaces
Linquan’s Preface of 1297
The streams branching off from [the Sixth Zen Patriarch Huineng 495a03
of] Caoqi have welled up and flowed onward without end. The
branch coming through [Huineng’s immediate disciple Huairang
of] Nanyue has been lofty, continuing without end. Clouds over
spread it, and its branches and leaves have grown luxuriantly.
Not only does it provide shade for humans and devas, but it also
displays the Path of the Ancestral Teachers.
For explanations without explanations, one must know that
the meaning is not in the words. If one hears without hearing,
one is certain after all that the words do not contain the meaning.
This is the indescribable Path that is the ultimate truth: the rest
are mere shadows and echoes.
Thus the ancestral teacher Linji used the eye of the Correct
Dharma to illuminate the Mind of Nirvana. With great wisdom
and great compassion, he activated great potential and great func
tion. With blows and shouts he cut off worldly sentiments. Like a
lightning bolt or a shooting star, he was difficult to make contact
with. How could he allow you time to ponder or think back? Not
only has the cock already flown past Silla: [by thinking and pon
dering] you want to send a phoenix to overtake the Milky Way.
[Linji] did not leave any tracks: he crossed through the Mys
tic Barrier, to enable all deluded beings in the triple world to re
turn to the One True Reality. All the brave people under heaven
look up to him with respect. To be the ancestral teacher of a whole
school, this is the way he had to be.
The present imperially appointed chief monk, Zen master
Xuetang, is an eighteenth generation descendant of Linji. The
recorded sayings of Linji are found everywhere in north and south
3
China. I happened to obtain this text when I was in Yuhang. It

was finding a jewel for a pauper, like finding a light in the dark. I
was leaping and shouting with joy: I was irresistibly moved and
stimulated.
Subsequently I endowed a perpetual fund [to provide for] the
printing and circulation [of the Recorded Sayings o f Linji] so that
they can be distributed to the temples. Such a wondrous thing as
this is indeed “hard to encounter even in a thousand years.” Ah!
The sound of gold scattered on the ground is heard all

over the country.
We know for certain the price of the jewel is hard to repay.
[Dated and signed] Second year of the Yuan Zhen era [1297 A.D.],
ding-wei in the cycle of years. Abbot of Baoen Zen Temple, heir to
the patriarchs, having washed his hands and burned incense, care
fully writes this.
Preface of the Censor Guo Tianxi [1298 A.D.]
The Lord Buddha entrusted the treasury of the True Dharma Eye,
the Wondrous Mind of Nirvana, to Mahakasyapa. He was the first
patriarch [of Zen in India], It was passed down until it reached the
twenty-eighth patriarch Bodhidharma, who came to China with
the esoteric seal of all the buddhas of past, present, and future in all
directions. This is when China first began to realize that there is a
495b special transmission outside the scriptural teachings: “Without es
tablishing words [as sacred], directly pointing to the human min d
to enable people to see their real nature and become enlightened.”
After this, the udumbara flower [symbolic of the enlightened
ones] appeared in due time, fragrant and lush: one flower [the
patriarchal transmission] opened into five petals [the Five Houses
of Zen]. Their perfumed wind circles the earth and their precious
color lights up the sky. Each emits an infinite light which shines
on a galaxy of worlds.
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Preface by Guo Tianxi
Amidst this, there was a great bhiksu [Linji] who for the sake
of the one great matter stayed on Huangbo Mountain. Three times
he asked for instructions [from Zen teacher Huangbo], and three
times he was beaten. Later he went to old man Dayu’s place on
the riverbank at Gaoan: only then was Linji totally sealed and
approved. His whole life he used the diamond king’s jewel sword:
when he met ordinary people, he slew them, and when he met
sages, he slew them. When the wind moves, the grass bends over:
the command prevails everywhere.
Linji is like a snow-white elephant king, like a golden-haired
lion. When he crouches to spring and roars, the hearts and brains
of jackals and wild foxes burst. When the animals see him, they
all tremble. He is like a tremendous wave, like a fearsome cliff: he
stands like a wall ten thousand fathoms high. He makes those on
the road dare not take a step for fear of losing their lives.
Even those who have [been forged] by the hammer and tongs
of an experienced adept will break into a sweat when they see
Linji. His “ Three Mysteries” and “ Three Essentials”, his remov
ing the scene and removing the person: these are words of gold
and jade. They are like wind-tested masts, like battle-tested
warhorses. They are fast as lightning and thunder. Like crushing
waves, they flood through all the strongholds, and shatter the
enemy battlelines.
Heaven turns and earth revolves as Linji moves freely in all
directions. He has almost cut off all the other streams, so that all
over the world all Zen students scatter before his wind. Thus his
gate is high and remote and unbending and hard to enter. In
general, the work of wondrous function [such as Linji’s] is not
within words, nor is it apart from words. Those for whom the
whole world is an eye can recognize it. At the end, [Linji died
with these words to his successor:] “ The treasury of my True
Dharma Eye will be destroyed by this blind donkey!”
Linji’s appearance in the world is fully recorded in books like
the Transmission o f the Lamp: I shall not repeat it here. From [his
successor] Master Jiang of Xinghua on down, his descendants have
stretched out like clouds and spread and flourished. Among them
5
have been many people of great capacity, people who radiate down
upon the mountains and rivers, outshining ancient and modern.
Everywhere throughout the Zen communities they have trans
formed ordinary practices and spoken of the Real. They have re
applied guidelines and standards and shown the eloquence of
enlightened ones, opening teaching halls and expounding the
Dharma for people.
For example, [there were] Master Yuan of Ciming and Mas
ter Jue of Langlang: both were Great Dharma Kings and teach
ers of humans and devas. At present, the great teacher Xuetang
is the legitimate eighteenth generation descendant of Linji, the
tenth generation of Langlang’s stream. [Linji’s descendants] have
been respected by kings and their ministers, and received honor
and renown among both monks and nuns and laypeople. They
are also the [outstanding exemplars], the dragons and elephants
among the Buddhist community.
Those who did not forget the benevolence and virtue of the
ancestral teachers have always been afraid that Linji’s every word
and phrase, his blows and shouts, his lessons and teachings, his
recorded sayings, would not be widely known. [Therefore] they
have had them printed and circulated, drawing on the resources
of the Zen communities, and have asked [me] Guo Tianxi, the
Layman of North Mountain, to compose a preface for it.
I salute [my teacher] Master Xuetang: he has carried out the
things that have always been hard for the ancestral teachers to do.
495c When it comes to honoring his departed ancestors, acknowledging
their benevolence and repaying it, he is not lacking in this. He has
taken a cud spit up by a five-hundred-year-old madman, picked it
up again, and offered it to you. Will the present generation of patch-
robed monks be willing to chew it up fine and savor it?
The pearl brought back from Hepu is special indeed, but there’s
nothing wrong either with the kernel popping in the cold ashes.
[Dated and signed] Second year of the Da De era [1298 A.D.],
eighth month. The Censor Guo Tianxi burns incense, bows nine
times, and writes this.
6
Preface by Wufeng Puxiu
Linji thought Huangbo Mountain was lofty, so he dared to confront

and capture the tiger there [Zen master Huangbo]. The shore of
buddhahood is far away, but he was able to steer his boat following
the current [that leads there]. When he showed poisonous teeth and
claws, these were still methods of kind compassion. With a slap on
the cheek [from Huangbo], Linji avoided the trouble of sinking his
teeth in and smearing his lips. Three punches [from Linji] to the ribs
[of Dayu]: one could say he poured out his heart and guts.
The Three Mysteries are in his hand, the seven aids to enlight
enment accompany his person. Touch him and the rocks shatter and
the cliffs tumble. Try to form an opinion of him, and thunder rumbles
and lightning flashes. His front gate is solitary and steep; his inner
sanctum is vast and deep. We can only look from afar on his cliff: we
cannot approach.
Here [we salute] the imperially appointed chief monk Master
Xuetang: those who can sympathize with and appreciate such rare
fine music are bound to be few. He has wished to print and to put
into wide circulation old texts of the recorded sayings [of Zen mas
ters] that are rarely seen [nowadays] in the Zen communities. While
[thus] seeking out true Buddhists, he has revived this literature, to
enable people to come in contact with its mysteries and gain the use
of them. Thus does Xuetang propagate the Path of the ancestral
teachers of Zen and bestow blessings on later generations.
[Linji’s teaching methods,] his blows and shouts, his explaining
clearly in the light of sparks struck from stone or a flash of light
ning, raising the issue straight on or from the side, requiring people
to observe their eyebrows and nostrils, and other devices are set down
in previous records: no need to repeat here.
Ah! From the ancestral teacher Linji the transmission went
through six generations, coming to the great Zen teacher Fenyang
[947-1024], Six venerable adepts have come forth like heroes in
Fenyang’s line [through his immediate disciples] Yuan of Ciming
and Jue of Langlang.
7
Yuan transmitted it to Hui of Yangqi, who transmitted it to

Duan of Baiyun, who transmitted it to Yan of Wuzu. Yan transmit
ted it to [three great disciples, known as] Foguo, Fojian, and Qi of
Tianmu. Foguo transmitted it to Long of Tiger Hill and to Dahui
Gao. Long transmitted it to Hua of Yingyan. Hua transmitted it to
Jie of Miyan. Jie transmitted it to Yue of Songyuan. Yue transmit
ted it to Tong of Wude. Tong transmitted it to Du of Xuzhou. Du
transmitted it to Fu of Tiger Cliff on Mt. Jingshan. Qi of Tianmu
transmitted it to He of Ruzhou. He transmitted it to Bao of Zhulin,
who transmitted it to An of Zhulin, who transmitted it to Hai of
496a Zhulin. Hai transmitted it to Zhang of Qingshou, Yi of Bairun, and
Xuan of Guiyun. Xuan transmitted it to Liang of Pingshan. Yi of
Bairun transmitted it to Fang of Chongxu and Gui of Laimu. Zhang
of Qingshou transmitted it to the Great Teacher of Haiyun and to Yi
of Zhulin. Yi transmitted it to Hui of Longhua. Haiyun transmitted
it to Lang of Keyan, Yu of Longgong, and Xuan of Yiyan. Lang of
Keyan transmitted it to Mr. Liu Wenzhen of Taifu and the Man of
Qingshou. Yu of Longgong transmitted it to Hai of Darning. Xuan of
Yiyan transmitted it to An of Qingshou.
[Six generations after Linji, Fenyang’s great disciple] Jue of
Langlang transmitted it to Yue of Letan, who transmitted it to Zhen
of Biling, who transmitted it to Bai of Baishui, who transmitted it to
Dang of Tianning, who transmitted it to Chun of Cizhao, who trans
mitted it to Bao of Zhengzhou. Bao transmitted it to Zang of Zhulin,
Heng of Qingshou, and Jian of Shaolin. Heng of Qingshou transmit
ted it to Bian of Dongping and Zhao of Dayuan. Jian of Shaolin trans
mitted it to Tong of Fawang, who transmitted it to Jue of Anxian,
who transmitted it to Zhi of Nanjing and Zan of Xi-an. Zhi of Nanjing
transmitted it to Zhan of Shoufeng. Zan of Xi-an transmitted it to
Ren of Xuetang. Thus Xuetang is an eighteenth generation descen
dant of Linji.
All of [the Zen masters listed above] had gates that were soli
tary and steep, and mastery of teaching devices that went freely
in all directions. All were descendants fully capable of taking
charge of the family. The flame has been perpetuated from lamp
8
Preface by Ma Fang
to lamp up until today. This is the meaning of the saying When

the source is pure, the stream is long.”
Zen master Xuetang is my “grandfather” [in the transmis
sion]: he has directed me to compose a preface and I have happily
written one. Those whose cheeks can be seen from the back of
their heads and who have the eye on their foreheads will give a
great laugh.
[Here] in the Retirement Hall of Kaitai Temple, I, Puxiu of
Wufeng, the twentieth generation descendant and successor of
the ancestral teacher [Linji], perform ablutions after a vegetar
ian feast, burn incense, and bow in homage as I write this.
Preface Composed by Ma Fang [1120 A.D.]
Who was Scholar of the Yankang Palace, Court Grandee of Gold

and Purple Light, Pacification Commissioner of Zhending Circuit,
and Commander in Chief of the Cavalry and Infantry, and con
currently Supervisor of Chengde Military District.
On Huangbo Mountain, [Linji] encountered painful beatings;
it was on Dayu’s ribs that he finally knew how to plant his fists.
“Talkative old granny! ” “Bed-wetting devil! ” “This crazy guy again
plucks the tiger’s whiskers! ” Planting pine trees in the mountain
valleys, as a signpost for later generations. When he broke the
earth with his hoe, how many were buried alive? He let a younger
disciple slap him across the mouth. He said goodbye and burned
the lectern. He cut off all tongues. “If it’s not south of the river,
it’s north of the river. ” His abode looked out upon an ancient ford,
and he extended aid to those coming and going. He held fast the
essential crossing place, towering up like a wall ten thousand fath
oms high. Taking away the person, taking away the scene, he
molded immortals. With his “Three Essentials” and “Three Mys
teries”, he forged patch-robed ones. He was always at home, but
never away from the middle of the road. “ The true person with
out position, goes in and out through your face.” When the two 496b
9
groups o f monks both shouted at once, guest and host were clear.
“Perceiving and functioning at the same time, fundamentally
there is no before and after.” The water chestnut flowers faced
his form, the empty valley transmitted his voice. His subtle re
sponses had no location: he left no tracks or traces. Brushing his
robe along as he moved south, he left behind a great reputation.
Xinghua served him as a pupil does a teacher, and Dongtang re
spectfully attended upon him. With but a brass pitcher and an
iron bowl, he shut his door and cut off all words. He lived to grow
old at leisure among the cloudy pines, expansive and satisfied.
Once as he sat facing the wall, after a while he tacitly indi
cated that he was about to die. When asked to whom he would
transmit the Correct Dharma, [Linji said:] “It perishes with this
blind donkey,” [referring to his successor Xinghua.]
Old man Yan o f Yuanjue has checked out [this copy] for
present circulation, so there are no errors or spurious additions.
There is just one more shout that we still must discuss. I hope
Zen people with eyes will not be adverse to bringing it up.
[Dated] Xuan He era, geng-zi year [1120 A.D.], mid-autumn day.

I dutifully compose a preface.
10
The Recorded
Sayings of Zen Master Linji
The local officials invited Linji to preach. Linji went up to the teach
ing hall and said: “Today I have no alternative but to bend to human
sentiment—thus I have ascended to this seat [to preach]. By the
standards of the Zen school, when you attempt to extol the great
matter [of enlightenment], you simply cannot open your mouth.
There’s no place for you to get a foothold. Today I have been insis
tently invited by the chief official in the a re a -h o w could I not re
veal the guiding principles of Zen? Is there anyone here who is an
expert general, who can extend his battle lines and unfurl his flags
right away? Show us some proof so we can see.”
A monk asked: “What is the main meaning of the Buddha
Dharma?” Linji gave a shout. The monk bowed. Lmji said: “ This
monk, however, only knows the theory of it.
A monk asked: “Whose family song do you sing? Whose suc
cessor are you in your Zen style?
Linji said: “When I was at Huangbo’s place, three times I asked,
and three times I was beaten. ”
The monk hesitated, trying to think of what to say. Linji then
shouted at him, hit him, and said: “You cannot drive nails into empty
space.”
There was a lecturer-monk who asked: “Surely the scriptura
teachings of the three vehicles make clear what buddha-nature is,
do they not?” ;;
Linji said: “ The wild weeds have never been chopped down.
The lecturer said: “How could Buddha deceive people?
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Linji said: “Where is Buddha?”

The lecturer could say nothing.
Linji said: “ Here in front of this honored official you have tried
to deceive me. Go away now—you are preventing other people from
asking their questions.”
Then Linji continued: “Today’s Dharma assembly is for the sake
of the one great matter [of opening up your enlightened perception].
Are there any other questioners? Please pose your questions quickly.
“As soon as you open your mouths, it already has nothing to do
with it. Why so? Haven’t you read what Sakyamuni Buddha said:
‘The Dharma is detached from language, because it is not in the
province of causes and conditions. ’ Because you cannot fully believe
496c this, today [I give you] these creeping vines [of verbal explanation],
I m afraid I will make all you officials get stuck [somewhere in the
explanation], so you stay ignorant of your buddha-nature. Better
that all of you leave right away. ”
Then Linji gave a shout and said: “People who lack the root of
faith will never completely comprehend. You have been standing
[here listening] a long time. Take care.”
One day Linji came to [the city of] Henan-fu. The chief official
there, a Mr. Wang, invited him to preach.
On this occasion [the Zen adept] Magu came forth [from the
audience] and asked: “The bodhisattva of great compassion has a
thousand hands and eyes—which is the correct eye?”
Linji said: “The bodhisattva of great compassion has a thou
sand hands and eyes—which is the correct eye? Speak quickly,
speak quickly!”
Magu then dragged Linji down from the teacher’s seat and took
his place.
Linji went up to him and said: “I don’t get it.” Magu hesitated,
trying to think, so Linji pulled him down off the seat and sat back
down in it himself. Then Magu left [the teaching hall] and Linji got
down from the teacher’s seat.
Linji went up to the hall and said: “In this lump of red flesh,
there s a true person without position always going in and out
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through your face. Those who have not experienced this, look, look!
At the time there was a monk who came forth and asked: “What
is the true person without position?”
Linji got down from the Zen bench, held the monk tight, and
said: “Speak! Speak! ”
The monk hesitated, trying to think of something to say. Linji
pushed him away saying: “The true person without position—what
a dry piece of shit!” Then he returned to the abbot’s quarters.
Once when Linji went up to the hall, there was a monk who
came forward and bowed. Linji then gave a shout. The monk said.
“Old teacher, better not stick your nose into it.” Linji said: “You
tell me, where is it at?” The monk then shouted.
Another monk asked: “What is the true meaning of the Buddha
Dharma? ” Linji then gave a shout. The monk bowed. Linji said: You
tell me, was it a good shout or not?” The monk said: “ The petty
brigand has met complete defeat.” Linji said: “Where was the
fault?” The monk said: “A second offense is not allowed,” and
shouted.
One day when the head monks of the two halls met, they both
shouted at the same time. A monk asked Linji: “Are there host
and guest in this or not?” Linji said: “ Host and guest are obvious.
[Later] Linji said: “ If all of you want to understand Linji’s
phrase on guest and host, ask the two head monks. Then he left
the teacher’s seat.
Linji went up to the teaching hall. A monk asked: What is the
main meaning of the Buddha Dharma?” Linji held up the whisk.
Then the monk shouted, and Linji hit him.
Another monk asked about the main meaning of the Buddha
Dharma. As before, Linji held up the whisk. The monk shouted,
and so did Linji. The monk hesitated, so Linji hit him.
Then Linji said to the assembly: “Everyone, for the sake of the
Dharma, we do not shrink from losing our bodies and our lives. When
I was at my late teacher Huangbo’s place, three times I asked [to
be told] the true meaning of the Buddha Dharma, and three times
I got a beating bestowed on me. It was like being rubbed with a
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bitter herb. Right now I still think I deserve a beating. Who can
give it to m e?”
A monk came forward from the assembly and said; “I can give
it to you.” Linji picked up the staff and handed it to him. The
monk hesitated to take it, so Linji hit him.
Linji went up to the teaching hall. A monk asked: “What is
this business of walking on a sword edge?”
Linji said: “A disaster.”
As the monk tried to think of something to say, Linji hit him.
Someone asked: “What about the Stone Room Workman? As
he worked the treadmill, he forgot his feet were moving. Where
did he g o ?” Linji said: “ He was sunk deep in the source.”
Then Linji said: “As long as there are people coming [to learn],
I do not spurn them. I always take cognizance of where they are
coming from. If they come like this [to ask me questions], it seems
that they lose. If they do not come this way, they bind themselves
without ropes. Never try to figure things out in a confused ran
dom way. Both understanding and not understanding are wrong.
I say this quite plainly—I’ll let everyone in the world condemn
me. You have been standing a long time. Take care!”
Linji went up to the hall and said: “One person is up on the
summit of a solitary peak with no way to come forth. One person
is at the crossroads and neither faces nor turns away from [the
passing scene]. Which is in front, which is behind? It’ s not
Vimalakirti or Mahasattva Fu. Take care.”
Linji went up to the hall and said: “There is one person who
has been on the road through the ages without ever leaving home.
There is one person who has left home but is not on the road.
Which one ought to receive the offerings of humans and devas?”
Then he left the teacher’s seat.
In the teaching hall a monk asked: “What is the first phrase?”
Linji said: “When the seal of the three essentials is lifted, the
mark is narrow. There’s no room to try to figure out the roles of
the host and guest.”
“What is the second phrase?”
14
Linji said: “How could wondrous subtle understanding have

room for detached questions? How could skillful means spurn those
with the potential to cut off the flow?”
“What is the third phrase?”
Linji said: “Look at the puppet theater—the one who pulls
the strings is the person inside.”
Linji further said: “Each phrase must have three mystic gates.
Each mystic gate must have three essentials. There are provisional
measures and there is functioning. How will all of you understand
these things?”
Then Linji left the teacher’s seat.
At a nighttime meeting Linji told the assembly: Sometimes
we take away the person but not the scene. Sometimes we take
away the scene but not the person. Sometimes we take away both
the person and the scene. Sometimes we don t take away the per
son or the scene.”
At the time there was a monk who asked: “What is taking away
the person but not the scene?”
Linji said: “The warm sun comes out, covering the earth with
glittering brocade. The infant’s hair hangs down as white as silk.”
“What is taking away the scene but not the person? ”
Linji said: “The royal command has already been put into prac
tice all over the world. There are no more upheavals for the generals
outside the border defenses. ”
“What is taking away both the person and the scene?”
Linji said: “There’s no news from the rebel zones: they hold their
areas on their own.”
“What is not taking away either the person or the scene?”
Linji said: “The king ascends into the jewel palace and the old
peasants sing for joy.”
Then Linji said: “ Those who study the Buddha Dharma these 497b
days must seek correct understanding. If you get it, birth and
death will not stain you and it’s up to you whether you go or stay.
Don’t seek [mystical states of] special excellence: these will come
of themselves.
15
“O people of the Path, all the virtuous ones since antiquity have
had a road to go beyond the ordinary human condition. When I in
struct you, I just require that you do not accept other people’s delu
sions. If you must act, then act, without any further laggard doubts.
“ If students today do not succeed, where is their shortcom-
ing? Their defect is that they do not believe in themselves. If you
are unable to believe in yourself [as a vessel of the universal en
lightened reality], you go off frantically following various objects,
and get turned around by them, so that you have no indepen
dence. If you can put to rest the mind that is frantically seeking
moment after moment, then you are no different from the buddhas
and patriarchs.
Do you want to get to know the buddhas and patriarchs? The
one right here listening to the Dharma is they. It is because stu
dents cannot believe this that they go off frantically seeking outside.
All you gain from seeking are just verbal marks of excellence—you
will never find the living meaning of the enlightened teachers.
“ Make no mistake about it, you Zen worthies. If you do not
encounter this moment [of independent enlightenment], you will
revolve in the triple world for thousands of eons, moving along
following objects you think are good, being born in the bellies of
donkeys and oxen.
“You people, in my view you are no different from Sakyamuni
Buddha. In your manifold activities right now, what is lacking?
Even amidst sensory life, the spiritual light never ceases. If you
are able to see like this, you will be an unconcerned person your
whole life long.
“0 Virtuous Ones, there is no safe resting place in the triple
world it is like a house on fire. This is not where you will stay
forever. The killing demon of impermanence [comes upon you] in
an instant, without regard for rank or age.
“ If you want to be no different from the buddhas and patri
archs, just don t seek outside yourself. A moment of your mind’s
pure light is the Dharmakaya Buddha inside your own house. A
moment o f your m ind’s light w ithout discrimination is the
16
Sambhogakaya Buddha inside your own house. A moment of your

mind’s light with no distinctions is the Nirmanakaya Buddha
within your own house. These three buddha-bodies are the per
son here before you now listening to the Dharma. They have their
functional abilities just because they do not seek externally.
“ Those who expound the sutras and sastras take the three
buddha-bodies as the ultimate paradigm. According to my view, it is
not so. These three kinds of bodies are just names. They are also
three dependencies. An ancient said: ‘The bodies are established
based on the meanings. The buddha-lands are assigned accord
ing to the embodiments.’ You must realize clearly that [the con
cepts of] the body of reality and the land of reality-nature are
just reflections of the light.
“All of you worthy people must get to know the person play
ing with the reflections of the light. This is the root source of all
the buddhas, the place where all in the streams of the Path re
turn home, wherever they are. This physical body of yours com
posed of the four elements does not know how to explain or listen
to the Dharma. Your spleen and stomach and liver and gall blad
der do not know how to explain or listen to the Dharma. What is
it that can explain and listen to the Dharma? It’s the one so clear
and distinct right before your eyes, the formless solitary light.
This is the one that knows how to preach and listen to the Dharma.
“If you can see like this, then you are no different from the 497c
buddhas and patriarchs. Just don’t ever let [this perception of

the light] be interrupted any more. Then, all that meets the eye
is it. Because sentiments arise and [erroneous] knowledge blocks
it off, the mentality shifts and you deviate away from essential
being. This is why you revolve through the triple world subject to
all kinds of suffering. But if you go by what I see, nothing is not
most profound, nothing is not liberation.
“You people, the reality of mind is formless, and permeates all
directions. In the eye it is called seeing, in the ear, hearing, in the
nose, sense of smell. In the mouth it talks and argues, in the hands
it holds and grasps, in the feet it moves and runs. Fundamentally
17
it is a single pure light. It divides to form the six compounds [of

sensory experience].
If the [conditioned] mind is not there, everywhere is libera
tion. When I talk this way, where does the meaning he? Because
you people cannot stop your seeking minds, you fall into traps
with the very empty and free teaching devices and perspectives
of the ancients. If you adopt my view, you cut off the heads of the
Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya Buddhas. You see the fulfillment
of the [bodhisattvas’] ten stages as being like a guest pretending to
be the son, and basic and wondrously activated enlightenment as
fetters and chains. Arhats and pratyekas are like outhouse filth,
bodhi and nirvana are pegs to tether donkeys to.
“Why are you like this? Just because you ‘People of the Path’
have not comprehended that the three measureless eons are empty
and have not reached this emptiness. That is why you have these
barriers and obstructions. If you were true People of the Path you
would never be like this.
You must be able to dissolve old karma according to circum
stances, trusting to the movement of things and garbing yourself
accordingly. When you need to walk, you walk; when you need to
sit, you sit. There’s never a thought of hoping for or seeking the
fruits of buddhahood. Why must it be like this? An ancient said:
If you want to seek buddhahood by creating karma, then [for you
the concept] buddha is the harbinger of birth and death.’
Worthy people, we must value the time. [You are wasting
your chance] if you just intend to ‘study Zen’ and ‘study the Path’
as superficial adherents running busily back and forth, getting to
recognize terms and phrases, seeking ‘buddhas,’ seeking ‘patri
archs,’ seeking ‘enlightened teachers’ [as you conceive of them].
You only have one father and mother: what else are you seeking?
You should reflect back on yourself and see them.
An ancient said: Yajnadatta [looked for his reflection in the
wrong side of a mirror, and not seeing it, thought he had] lost his
head. He only calmed down when he [realized his error] and stopped
18
looking for his head.’ Good people, what’s essential is that in your
everyday life you do not merely try to imitate models and patterns.
“There’s one type of bald headed slaves [imitation monks] who
do not recognize good and evil. [When they hear such talk] they
immediately see spirits and ghosts, point to the east as the west,
and entertain contradictory desires. This type we must spurn.
Someday in front of Yama [the king of the underworld, who judges
the dead,] they will have to swallow a red-hot iron ball. Men and
women of good families are captured by this sort of wild fox spirit.
They concoct strange things and blind many people. Someday they
will be asked to pay for the food [they earned by deluding people],
“ People, you must find true understanding. As you traverse the
world, do not be deluded or confused by such malevolent sprites.”
Linji taught the assembly saying: “The noble person is the one
who has no concerns. Simply do not create any doings. Just be ordi
nary. If you seek outside and ask someone else to find your hands
and feet for you, you’ve made a mistake.
“You just intend to seek Buddha. But ‘Buddha’ is a name, a 498a
word. Do you know the one that is seeking? All the buddhas and
ancestral teachers in all lands in all times came forth just to seek
the Dharma too. You people studying the Path now are also doing so
in order to seek the Dharma. Only when you find the Dharma will
you be finished. Before you find it, you will continue as before to
revolve in the various planes of existence.
“What is the Dharma? The Dharma is the reality of mind.
The reality of mind is formless. It pervades the ten directions. It
is functioning here before our eyes. People cannot believe in it, so
they accept names and words and seek intellectual ideas of the
Buddha Dharma from written texts. They are as far off as can be.
“You people, when I preach the Dharma, what Dharma do I
preach? I preach the Dharma of the mind-ground, so I can enter
both ordinary and holy, both pure and defiled, both the real and
the conventional. It’s not that you are real or conventional, ordi
nary or holy, but that you can apply these names to everything,
19
whereas the things [you call] real and conventional and ordinary
and holy cannot apply these names to you. To take charge and
act, without applying names any more —this is called the gist of
the mystic message.
“I explain the Dharma differently from anyone else. If Manjusri
or Samantabhadra appear before me in some manifestation to ask
about the Dharma, as soon as they open their mouths to ask for
instruction, I ve already sized them up. I am securely seated: when
you people come to meet with me, I have already sized you all up.
Why is it this way? Because my perception is different. Externally I
do not seize upon ordinary or holy, and inwardly I do not abide in
the basis. When you see all the way through things, there are no
more doubts or deceptions.”
Linji taught the assembly saying: “The Buddha Dharma is
effortless: just be without concerns in your ordinary life, as you shit
and piss and wear clothes and eat food. When tired, then lie down.
Fools will laugh at you, but the wise will know. An ancient said:
‘Those who make external efforts are all stupid and obstinate. Just
act the master wherever you are, and where you stand is real. ’ When
objects appear they cannot turn you around. Though the uninter
rupted hellish karma of the habit energy of your past is still there, it
spontaneously becomes the great ocean of liberation.
These days students in general do not know the Dharma.
They are like goats: whatever they encounter, they put in their
mouths. They do not distinguish between the slaves and the free,
the guests and the host. This type ‘enter the Path’ with twisted
minds. Even though they cannot enter places where it’s noisy,
they call themselves true leavers of home. Actually they are true
conventional worldlings.
As for leavers of home, they must be able to perceive with
true understanding in ordinary life. They distinguish enlighten
ment and delusion, true and false, ordinary and holy. If you can
make these distinctions, you are called a true leaver of home. If you
cannot tell deluding from enlightening influences, then you have
left one home [ordinary life] only to enter another home [cultish
20
‘religious’ allegiances]. Then you are called a sentient being creating

karma, not a true leaver of home.
“ Right now there’s something where enlightenment and delu
sion share the same substance undivided. It’s like water and milk
mixed together: the king goose drinks only the milk. People of the
Path with clear eyes will reject both delusion and enlightenment. If
you love holy things and hate ordinary things, you float and sink in 498b
the sea of birth and death. ”

Someone asked: “What are enlightenment and delusion?”
Linji said: “A moment when your mind is in doubt is delusion.
If you can comprehend that the myriad phenomena are unborn,
that [deluded] mind is like an illusory transformation, so that
you are everywhere pure, this is enlightenment. So enlighten
ment and delusion are the two objects, defilement and purity.
“In my view, there are no buddhas and no sentient beings, no
ancient and no modern. Those who attain, attain without culti
vation, without realization, without gain, and without loss, for
them there is never anything else but reality. ‘Even if there is
anything that goes beyond this, I would say that it is like a dream
or a magical illusion.’ This is what I am saying.
“You people, the solitary light right here before our eyes right
now listening clearly to the Dharma—this one does not get stuck
anywhere—it extends throughout the ten directions, independent
of the triple world. It enters all circumstances, but they cannot turn
it around: in every moment it extends through the realm of reality.
“When you meet buddhas, you speak to buddhas; when you meet
ancestral teachers, you talk to ancestral teachers; when you meet
arhats, you talk to arhats; when you meet hungry ghosts, you talk
to hungry ghosts. Everywhere you go in your travels through the
various lands you teach and transform sentient beings without ever
departing from this one moment of mindfulness. Wherever you are
the pure light extends in all directions and the myriad phenom
ena are one suchness.
“You people, only Today [the day of enlightenment] do you know
that fundamentally there are no concerns. Because you cannot fully
21
believe this, every moment you are frantically seeking. You throw
away a head and pick up a head, unable to stop yourself.
“The bodhisattvas of round and sudden enlightenment enter
the realm of reality to manifest their bodies, abiding in the pure
land, spurning ordinary life and rejoicing in the sagely. For them
grasping and rejecting are not yet forgotten, and ideas of defiled
and pure still remain. In the view of the Zen school, it is not this
way. It’s simply that there is no other time but right now.
What I say is all medicine to treat the diseases of this one
period. There is no real doctrine here. If you can see things like
this, you are a real leaver of home, worth ten thousand ounces of
gold a day.
Don t be in a hurry to get the teacher’s seal of approval across
your forehead so that you can claim to understand Zen and under
stand the Path. Even if your eloquence is like a waterfall, all of this
only creates more hellish karma. If you are a person who is genu
inely studying the Path, you don’t look for worldly faults. What you
must seek is correct understanding. You are done only when you
arrive at real correct perception that is completely illuminated.”
Someone asked: “What is real correct perception?”
Linji said: “It means that wherever you enter, whether it be
ordinary or holy, defiled or pure, whether it be any of the buddha-
lands, or Maitreya’s tower, or the realm of Vairocana, in all places
where lands appear being formed, abiding, decaying, or empty,
in all places where buddhas appear in the world, turn the wheel
of the Dharma, and enter back into nirvana—in all these places,
real correct perception means that you see no signs of coming and
going, that birth and death cannot be found. Then you enter the
498c unborn realm of reality, wandering through all lands. You enter
the world hidden in the lotus, where you see the emptiness of all
things, none of which are real.
The mother of all the buddhas is just the independent person of
the Path [within you] who hears the Dharma. Thus, enlightenment
is born from having no dependencies. If you can awaken without
22
dependencies, enlightenment too is without attainment. If you can

manage to see like this, this is real correct perception.
“Students do not understand because they cling to names and
sayings. They are obstructed by the names ‘ordinary’ and ‘holy.’
Thus they block their eye for the Path and do not find clear un
derstanding. The scriptural teachings are all openly revealed ex
planations, but students do not understand them. Instead, they
go to the words and phrases to produce interpretations. All of
this is being dependent and falling into cause and effect, so birth
and death in the triple world are inevitable.
“ If you want to get the freedom to go or stay, to take off or put
on birth and death, then right now try to recognize the person
who is listening to the Dharma.
“This person has no form, no marks, no basis, no root, no
where it abides, but it is leaping with life. In all its many kinds of
activities, it functions without location. Therefore, if you search
for it, the farther away it is, and if you seek it, the more you go
against it. It is called the esoteric secret.
“ People, do not accept this imaginary companion: later it will
revert to impermanence. In this world, what are you looking for as
liberation? You are looking for a mouthful of food to eat, some simple
clothes to wear, a way to pass the time. You must pay a visit to an
enlightened teacher. Don’t just follow your routines and pursue
pleasure. Time should be valued. Everything is impermanent from
moment to moment. On a crude level we are harried by earth, wa
ter, fire, and air; on a subtle level we are pressed by the four aspects,
birth, abiding, variation, and demise. Right now you people should
get to know the four formless realms, so you can avoid being knocked
back and forth by circumstances.”
Someone asked: “What are the four formless realms?”
Linji said: “When you have a moment of doubt in your mind,
you are obstructed by earth. When you have a moment of love in
your mind, you are drowned in water. When you have a moment
of anger in your mind, you are burned by hre. When you have a
moment of joy in your mind, you are blown around by air.
23
“If you can perceive this, then you will not be turned around by
objects and circumstances, but rather, wherever you are, you will
use them. Then you can appear in the east and disappear in the
west, or appear in the south and disappear in the north; you can
appear in the middle and disappear around the edge or appear around
the edge and disappear in the middle. You walk on water as if it
were earth and on earth as if it were water. Why are you like this [at
this stage]? Because you have comprehended that the four elements
[earth, water, fire, air] are like dreams or magical illusions.
“ People, the one in your listening to the Dharma right now is
not the four elements that comprise you. Rather, it can employ
the four elements in you. If you can see like this, then you are
free to go or stay.
“ In my view, there are no things to despise and avoid. If you
love what’s holy, [I remind you:] ‘holy’ is just a name. There are
some students who go to Mt. Wutai to look for ManjusrI [there in
his legendary abode]. Already they are in error: there is no
ManjusrI on Mt. Wutai. Do you want to know ManjusrI? This func
tioning here right before your eyes has never been any different
[from ManjusrI], To have no doubts anywhere—this is the living
ManjusrI. In the moment of nondifferentiating light in your mind,
499a the real Samanta-bhadra is everywhere. When in a moment of
mind you can free yourself from bondage, and be liberated wher
ever you are, this is Avalokitesvara. In the teaching of samadhi,
[these three bodhisattvas] take turns as central figure and com
panions. When they come forth, it is for a certain period. Each one
is all three and all three of them are one. Only when you under
stand like this can you read the scriptures properly.”
Linji taught the assembly saying: “You people who study the
Path now must have faith in yourselves [as endowed with buddha-
nature]. You must not seek externally. You always fall into traps
with the free and easy devices and perspectives [used in teaching by
the enlightened ones] and cannot tell crooked from straight. As for
buddhas and patriarchs, these are things in the scriptural teach
ings. When someone brings up a saying, whether it comes from the
24
hidden or the manifest part of the teachings, you immediately have

doubts and look everywhere asking other people [what the saying
means]. You are really confused. Really great people do not carry on
in this way, discussing rulers and rebels, right and wrong, beauty
and wealth, and passing their days in idle talk.
“ Here I don’t care if you are monk or lay. Whenever people
come [to learn], I know all about them. No matter where you come
from, if all you have is names and phrases [to repeat], it’s all a dream
like illusion.
“If I see someone who is able to ride on objects and circum
stances, this is the mystic essence of all the buddhas. The realm
of buddhahood does not announce itself as the realm of buddha-
hood. Rather, [buddhahood] is when an independent person of
the Path comes forth riding on objects and circumstances.
“[If I am such an independent person of the Path], when some
one comes forth and asks me about seeking buddha, I come forth in
response to the realm of purity. If someone asks me about being a
bodhisattva, I come forth in response to the realm of compassion. If
someone asks me about enlightenment, I come forth in response to
the realm of wondrous purity. If someone asks me about nirvana, I
come forth in response to the realm of silent stillness. Though there
are myriad kinds of realms, the person [who responds to them] is no
different. Thus does [the enlightened person] manifest form in re
sponse to beings, like the moon reflected in the water.
“All of you, if you wish to be in accord with the Dharma, you
must be such a really great person. If you are dependent and weak,
you will not succeed. Ordinary crockery is not good enough to store
the pure elixir in. Those who are great vessels are not subject to
people’s delusions. Wherever they are, they act the master their
standpoint is always the real.
“Though [such delusions] may come, you must not accept any of
them. If you have a moment of doubt, delusion enters your mind.
W hen a bodhisattva doubts, the delusive demon of birth and death
has its way.’ Just manage to put a stop to your thoughts, and do not
do any more external seeking. When things come, shine through
25
them. You must be certain that in that which is functioning here

and now, there is not a single thing to be concerned about. In a mo
ment of mind you give birth to the triple world, follow its entangling
causes, and are covered over by its objects and circumstances, divid
ing them into six realms of sensory experience.
“As you function responsively right now, is anything lacking?
In a single instant, you enter both pure and defiled; you enter
Maitreya’s tower; you enter the lands of the eye of reality, the
eye of knowledge, and the eye of wisdom. Everywhere you wan
der, you see only empty names [not real entities].”
Someone asked: “What are the lands of the three eyes?”
Linji said: “Together you and I enter the land of purity and subtle
wonder. We put on robes of purity and talk of the Dharmakaya
499b Buddha. We also enter the land without differentiations, where we
put on robes of nondifferentiation and talk of the Sambhogakaya
Buddha. We also enter the land of liberation, where we put on robes
of light and talk of the Nirmanakaya Buddha. These three lands are
all dependent on transformation.
“Those who specialize in the sutras and sastras take the Dharma
kaya as the basis, and the Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya as the
functioning. The way I see it, the Dharmakaya cannot preach the
Dharma. Thus the ancient [Huayan adept Kuiji, also known as] Cien
said: The bodies are established based on the meanings and the lands
assigned according to their embodiments.’ For the Dharmakaya, the
body of reality, there is the land of reality-nature. We must real
ize clearly that these are constructs. The lands of the spiritual
powers based on this reality are nothing but an empty fist [pre
tending to hold a treasure] or a handful o f yellow leaves [passed
off as gold] used to deceive small children [and lure them out of
the burning house of worldly life]. What juice are you looking for
from [such] brambles and thorns and dry bones?
“Outside of mind there is nothing, and what is within mind is
also unattainable. What are you looking for? All of you people ev
erywhere talk of having cultivation and having realization, but don’t
26
make this mistake. Even if you gain something from cultivation, it

is just the karma of birth and death. You say you cultivate the six
perfections and the myriad practices, but as I see it you are just
building karma. When you seek Buddha and seek the Dharma, you
are creating hellish karma. When you seek to be bodhisattvas, you
are also creating karma. When you read the sutras, you are also
creating karma. The buddhas and ancestral teachers were people
without concerns. Thus they make nothing but pure karma, whether
they are in the defiled realm of contrived action, or in the stainless
realm without contrived action.
“There are a certain kind of blind shave-pates who eat their
fill of food and then go to sit in meditation. They grab hold of way
ward thoughts and do not let them go on. Weary of noise, they seek
quietude. These are not Buddhist methods. The ancestral teacher
[Shenhui of Heze] said: Tf you fixate your mind and contemplate
stillness, hold up your mind for outer awareness and hold in your
mind for inner realization, freeze your mind and enter stable con
centration, this is all contrived activity.’
“ It is the person in you who is listening to the Dharma this
way right now. How can you try to cultivate this person or realize
him or adorn him? He is not something that can be cultivated or
adorned. If we would have him adorned, in fact all things are
what adorn him.
“You people must not mistake what I say. [You will go wrong] if
you seize upon the words in this old teacher’s mouth and think they
are the real Path, if you think you as people of ordinary mentality
cannot presume to try to fathom or assess the inconceivable lessons
of an enlightened teacher and experienced adept. As soon as you
adopt this opinion, you have turned your back on this eye of enlight
enment [within us all]. Then you are shivering cold and speechless
like a baby donkey on a hill of ice.
“ I am not presuming to slander the enlightened teachers, lest
I create mouth-karma. Dear people, only the great enlightened
teachers can presume to knock down the buddhas and patriarchs,
27
judge the rights and wrongs of the world, repudiate and set aside
the scriptural teachings, and rebuke and insult all you little ones.
They look for people amidst favorable and adverse currents.
“I have looked for a fixed karmic identity constantly, but even
the smallest particle of one cannot be found. Like nervous new
brides, would-be Zen people are afraid to be driven out of their
homes, afraid that they will not be given food to eat, that they
will be uneasy and unhappy. Ever since ancient times, the former
generations of enlightened people have been met everywhere by
disbelief. Only after they had been driven out did people begin to
realize how precious they were. But if people everywhere all were
willing to accept them, what good would that do? This is why [we
499c say], with one roar of the lion, the fox’s brain bursts.
“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 func
tioning? Where will you cultivate and repair it? The younger gen
eration 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 your
self from misdeeds of thought, speech, and action. This kind of
talk is like springtime drizzle.
“A man of old [Sikong Benjing, a disciple of the Sixth Patri
arch] said: W hen on the road you meet a person who has consum
mated the Path, above all do not face toward the Path.’ Thus it is
said that if a person cultivates the Path [in a contrived dualistic
manner] but does not travel the Path [as all-encompassing non-
dualistic reality], then myriad kinds of false scenes and distorted
perspectives soon arise all around. When the sword of wisdom
comes out, there’s not a single thing—the bright side doesn’t show
but the dark side is illuminated.
“Therefore, the ancients said, ‘Ordinary mind is the Path.’ Wor
thy people, what are you looking for? The independent person of the
Path who is here before your eyes right now listening to the
28
Dharma is clearly obvious. It has never been lacking. If you want to

be no different from the buddhas and patriarchs, just see like this.
Don’t plunge into doubts and errors. If you go from mind-moment
to mind-moment without deviating [from this perception], you
are called a buddha. If your mind deviates, then reality-nature
and form separate; if your mind does not deviate, then reality-
nature and form are no different.”
Someone asked: “What does it mean to go from mind-moment
to mind-moment without deviating?”
Linji said: “If you try to ask, you have already deviated, and
reality-nature and form have been separated. Make no mistake about
it, people. All phenomena worldly and world-transcending are with
out a real fixed identity of their own, they have no inherent nature.
There are just empty names, and names are empty too. If you go on
this way accepting these empty names as real things, you are mak
ing a great mistake. Even if they are there, they are all objects and
scenes dependent on transformation [for their temporary being].
There is also such a thing as depending on bodhi and nirvana and
liberation, depending on the three bodies of buddha, depending on
objective wisdom, depending on bodhisattvas and buddhas. What
are you looking for in lands dependent upon transformation? Even
the multi-part scriptural teachings of the three vehicles are just old
paper for wiping away dirt. Buddha is an illusion, an apparition.
The ancestral teachers were just old monks.
“W eren’t you born from your mama? If you seek buddha, you
are controlled by the delusion ‘buddha.’ If you seek the ancestral
teachers, you are bound by the delusion ‘ancestral teachers.’ As
long as you have seeking, it’s all suffering. Better to have no con
cerns at all.
“ There’s a kind of bald monk who says to students: ‘Buddha is
the ultimate. You only achieve enlightenment after the fulfillment
of the results of three immeasurable eons of cultivating practice.’
Good people, if you think Buddha is the ultimate, then why did
he lie down and die at the age of eighty between the twin trees in
the grove at Kusinagara? Where is Buddha today? It’s clear that
29
he was born and died no different from us. You might say that the
thirty-two auspicious marks and the eighty excellent qualities
make him a buddha, and a wheel-turning sage king must be a
tathagata. But you should understand clearly that these are all
illusory apparitions. The man of old [Mahasattva Fu] said: ‘The
tathagatas take on bodily form in order to accord with worldly
500a feelings. Fearing people would form nihilistic views, he provision
ally established some empty names, temporarily talking of the
thirty-two marks and the eighty excellent qualities. These too
are empty words. If there is a body, it’s not the essential body of
enlightenment. Formlessness is the true shape.’
You may say that Buddha has six spiritual powers that are
inconceivable. But all the devas, the immortals, the asuras, and
the powerful demons also have spiritual powers. Does this mean
they must be buddhas too? Don’t go wrong about this. The asuras
did battle with Indra, king of the gods, and when they were de
feated, they gathered together their host of 84,000 and hid in a
hole in a lotus fiber. Isn’t this supernatural? All these examples
I’ve cited are cases of spiritual powers due to karma and depen
dent [on contrived techniques]. In the case of the Buddha’s six
spiritual powers, it is not so. Buddha enters form, sound, smell,
taste, touch, and concepts without being deluded by them. Thus,
since he has arrived at the emptiness of form, sound, smell, taste,
touch, and concepts, these cannot bind the independent person of
the Path. For him, even the defiled body of form, sensation, con
ception, motivation, and consciousness is in itself a spiritual power
for walking upon the earth.
Good people, the real Buddha is formless; the real Dharma
has no marks. The way you are acting is to erect models and pat
terns based upon the illusory transformations [which were provi
sionally put forward in the Buddhist teachings]. Even if you get
something from this, you are all wild fox spirits. This is not real
Buddhism at all, but the view of outsiders.
People who study the Path genuinely do not grasp buddhas or
bodhisattvas or arhats; they do not grasp attainments of special
30
excellence within the triple world. They are transcendent and free
and on their own—they are not constrained by things. Even if
heaven and earth turn upside down, they are not in doubt. If all
the buddhas of the ten directions appear before them, they feel
no joy. If [all the torments of] the hungry ghosts, the animals,
and the beings in hell appear before them, they feel no fear. Why
are they like this? They see the emptiness of all phenomena, which
exist through transformation and don’t exist without it. They see
that the triple world is only mind, and the myriad things are only
consciousness. Therefore, why bother to grasp [what are really]
dreamlike illusions and apparitions?
“ There is only the person in all of you right here and now lis
tening to the Dharma. This person enters fire without being burned
and water without being drowned. This person enters the mires of
hell as if strolling in a garden sightseeing. This person enters the
planes of the hungry ghosts and animals without being subject to
their suffering. Why so? Because for this person there is nothing
to reject, nothing to avoid.
“If you love the holy and hate the ordinary, you float and sink in
the sea of birth and death. Affliction exists because of mind: if you
have no mind, how can affliction hold you? If you do not try to dis
criminate and grasp forms, naturally you find the Path that instant.
“If you try to learn as a shallow adherent running busily here
and there, then through three immeasurable eons you will al
ways return in the end to birth and death. Far better to go into
the Zen forest without concerns, fold up your legs on a meditation
bench, and sit.
“All over the country there are students who come [to teach
ers with the wrong attitude]. As soon as host and guest meet,
these students bring out a phrase to test the teacher they are
facing. These students bring up some teaching device or provi
sional formulation and throw it down as a challenge to the teacher
to see if he knows it or not. If the teacher recognizes the scene,
these students hold fast and throw him into a pit. If the students
are the ordinary type, after this they seek for a saying from the
31
teacher, which they appropriate as before [to take elsewhere to

test other teachers], and exclaim how wise the teacher is. I say
to such students: ‘You know nothing of good and bad!’
An enlightened teacher takes a teaching perspective and
confronts the student with it. If the student can tell what’s going
on, and act the master at every move, and is not confused by the
teaching scene, then the enlightened teacher shows half a body,
and the student gives a shout. The teacher then enters upon the
road of differentiating phrases to try to knock the student over. If
the student then calls the teacher a bald old slave who does not
know good from bad, the teacher exclaims happily that this is a
genuine person of the Path.
“Everywhere there are [supposed] teachers who cannot tell
wrong from right. When students come to ask them about bodhi
and nirvana and the wisdoms of the three bodies of buddha, these
blind teachers immediately give them explanations. If they are
rebuked by the students, they give them a beating and say they
have no sense of etiquette. But since these [supposed] teachers
have no eyes, they should not get mad at other people.
There are phony monks who do not know good from bad, who
point to the east and call it the west, who entertain contradictory
desires and love inscrutable sayings. Look and see if they do not
bear the telltale marks of false teachers. They know some enlight
enment stories [but not when to use them]. When students do not
understand [such random instructions’], the pretended teachers soon
lose their tempers. This type are all wild fox spirits and hideous
monsters. They are laughed at by good students, who say to them:
‘Blind old bald-pate slaves, you are confusing everyone in the world.’
You people of the Path, those who leave home must learn
the Path. Take me for example. In the past I was concerned with
the vinaya, and I also researched the sutras and sastras. Only
later did I realize that these are medicines to cure the world, openly
revealed explanations. But then I put them aside for a time and
went travelling to study Zen. Later I met a great enlightened
teacher [Huangbo] and only then did the eye of the Path become
32
The Eecorded Sayings of Linji
clear for me. I began to understand the world’s teachers, and to

know who was misguided and who was correct. If you do not un
derstand immediately when your mama gives birth to you, then
you need direct experiential research, refining and polishing, un
til one morning there’s spontaneous insight.
“Good people, if you want to get your views and perceptions
in accord with the Dharma, just do not accept people’s delusions.
Wherever you meet them, inside or outside, immediately slay them.
[Even cherished concepts like] buddha, patriarch, arhat, parents,
relatives, and household—as soon as you meet them, slay them.
Only then will you find liberation. Unconstrained by things, you
penetrate through to sovereign independence.
“ Throughout the country, most who study the Path try to de
pend on things to do so. I start hitting from there. If they use
their hands, I hit them on the hands. If they use their mouths, I
hit them in the mouth. If they use their eyes, I hit them in the
eye. Almost none of them come forth independently and freely.
Most have fallen into the traps around the free and easy teaching
devices and perspectives of the people of old.
“ There is no fixed doctrine to give to people, only methods to
cure diseases and release bonds. You people of the Path, who come
from all over the country, should try to come forth without de
pending on anything. I want to talk things over with you. For sooc
years on end there has been no one [independent, capable of un
derstanding Buddhism, to communicate with]. [Those who have
come] have all been wild fox spirits and ghosts haunting the for
ests and fields, who gnaw at random on all the lumps of shit.
These blind [false seekers] wrongly consume the faithful offerings
of many people, proclaiming themselves to be leavers of home,
but they adopt this kind of [dependent wild fox spirit] view.
“I tell you, there is no Buddha, no Dharma, no cultivation, no
realization. What are you trying to find this way as a shallow adher
ent? Blind people [who reify these concepts] are placing a head upon
a head [imposing objects of seeking upon spontaneous reality].
33
“What are you lacking? Good people, what’s functioning right

now before your eyes is no different from the buddhas and patri
archs. Because you do not believe this, you go outside to seek. Make
no mistake about it: there are no external phenomena, and the
internal too is unattainable. Rather than seize upon my words,
you had better stop and rest and be without concerns. What has
already arisen, do not continue. What has not yet arisen, do not
let arise. This is better than ten years of wandering.
“There are not so many kinds in my view. It is just a matter of
being ordinary, of wearing clothes and eating food and passing the
time without concerns. You come from all over, and you all have
[false states of] mind. You seek the Buddha and you seek the Dharma.
You seek liberation, you seek to leave the triple world. You fools,
where do you want to go when you leave the triple world?
Buddha’ and ‘patriarch’ are just honorific names. Do you
want to know the triple world? It is not apart from the mind-
ground in you listening to the Dharma right now. A mental mo
ment of craving is the world of desire. A mental moment of anger
is the world of form. A mental moment of ignorance is the form
less world. These are all furnishings inside your own house. The
triple world does not announce, ‘I am the triple world.’ Rather, it
is you who give it this name, you, the person here right now, lu
minous and aware, shining on the myriad things, judging and
assessing the world.
“Good people, the physical body composed of the four great
elements is impermanent. [All the parts of your body], your spleen
and stomach and liver and hair and nails and teeth, just reveal
the emptiness of all things.
“Where your mind stops for a moment, this is called the bodhi
tree, [the site of enlightenment]. Your mind being unable to stop is
called the tree of ignorance. There is nowhere that ignorance abides;
it has no beginning and no end. If from moment to moment your
mind cannot stop [its deluded stream of consciousness], then you
climb the tree of ignorance. Then you enter among the various kinds
of beings in the six planes of existence to wear fur on your body and
34
horns on your head. If you can manage to stop, this is the body and
realm of purity. If you are unborn for a moment, then you climb the
tree of enlightenment. Then the light spontaneously shines, the light
of the deliberate transformation bodies created by spiritual powers
in the triple world and the bodies of the bliss of the Dharma and the
joy of Zen. You think of clothing and get a thousand bolts of the
finest silk; you think of food and every flavor is provided to you.
There are no more untoward sicknesses.
“Enlightenment abides nowhere. Therefore, there is no attain
ing it. What else is there for really great people to be in doubt
about? Who is the one before your very eyes functioning? Take
hold and act: don’t affix names. This is the mystic message. If you
can see things this way, there is nothing to despise or avoid. An
ancient said: ‘Mind revolves following the myriad objects. Where 50 ia
it revolves is surely obscure. If, following the flow, you can recog
nize its true nature, there is no joy or sorrow.’
“Good people, in the understanding of the Zen school, death
and life follow in cycles. People trying to learn must examine this
closely. When host and guest meet, there is talk back and forth.
“[The teacher, who should be the ‘host’, the representative of
reality and channel of truth] sometimes manifests form in response
to beings, sometimes functions with the whole essence, sometimes
uses provisional devices to appear happy or angry, sometimes
shows only half his body, sometimes rides a lion, sometimes rides
an elephant king.
“ If the student is genuine, he or she immediately shouts [as if
to say to the teacher:] ‘Already you have brought out a bowl of
glue!’ If the teacher does not know this perspective, then he falls
within the other one’s perspective as a rote imitator. The student
then shouts [as if to say:] ‘I will not let you go!’ This is a mortal
disease, beyond curing. It is called the guest observing the host
[the genuine student seeing through the false teacher].
“Alternatively, the teacher might not bring out anything at
all. [Instead] as the student asks about things, he takes them
away. The teacher never relents as everything is taken away from
35
the student. This is called the host observing the guest [genuine
teacher and beginning student].
Sometimes a student appears before a teacher in response to
a pure realm [of mystic experience]. The teacher recognizes this
realm, holds it fast, and hurls it into a pit. The student exclaims,
‘What a great enlightened teacher!’ The teacher says, ‘Bah! You
don’t know good from bad.’ The student then bows in homage.
This is called host observing host [genuine teacher and accom
plished student].
Sometimes a student appears before a teacher bearing fet
ters and chains [of subjective views and ideas]. The teacher hangs
another load of chains around his neck, and the student rejoices.
Neither one can discern the other. This is called guest seeing guest
[false teacher, false student].
Worthy people, when I mention things this way, it is to pick
out delusions and deviations [operating in the guise of Buddhism]
so that you may know what is twisted and what is correct.
“ People of the Path, actual sentiments are very difficult, and
the Buddha Dharma is abstruse and dark. Even if you understand
easily and quickly, I will refute your understandings for you all
day long. Students never get to rest within their opinions. Thou
sands and thousands of times their feet plod through lands of
total darkness, without a single form, where the solitary light is
clear and distinct.
Students do not have faith in themselves, so they go to words
and phrases to generate interpretations. They reach the age of
fifty as mere superficial adherents carrying corpses on their backs,
bearing their burdens, running all around the world. Someday
they will be pressed to pay back all the travel money [they have
wasted in ‘seeking’ without finding].
Worthy people, I say to you that there are no external phe
nomena. You as students do not understand, so you interpret this
to mean that all things are internal. Then you sit leaning against
a wall with your tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth, mo
tionless in profound clarity. You seize upon this as the gate of the
36
patriarchs, as the Buddha Dharma. How wrong you are! In fact,

if you grasp this scene of motionless purity as right, you are ac
cepting ignorance as your master. Referring to this, an ancient
said: ‘The deep dark pit of profound clarity is to be feared.’
“But if you accept movement as the one that’s right, then since
all the plants and trees move, they must be the Path. Movement is
due to the element air; motionlessness to the element earth. Nei
ther movement or motionlessness has any fixed identity of its own.
If you grasp it in movement, it is in motionlessness; if you grasp it 50ib
in motionlessness, it is in movement. Like a fish swimming below
the surface of a stream, it stirs up waves as it leaps around. Good
people, movement and motionlessness are two perspectives. If you
are an independent person of the Path, you use both.
“When students from all over come here, I judge them in terms
of three kinds of basic capacity. When those of lower capacity
come, I take away their objects but not their methods. When those
of higher capacity come, I take away both their objects and their
methods. When those of the highest capacity come, I take away
neither the objects nor the methods nor the person. If people come
with views that go beyond patterns, here I function with the whole
essence, not grading basic capacity. At this point, the place where
the student puts his or her energy is impervious to the wind [of
deluding influences]. Like sparks struck from stone or a flash of
lightning, it’s gone by.
“Whether your eye is steady or moves, there’s no contact. If you
try to do something with mind, you go wrong; if thoughts stir, you
go against it. For those who understand, it’s right before their eyes,
nowhere else.
“Worthy people, you run around as shallow adherents with
your bowls and sacks and shitty burdens seeking the Buddha and
seeking the Dharma. This one right now frantically seeking —do
you know him? He’s leaping with life—it s just that he has no
root or stem. He cannot be hemmed in or knocked apart. He s
farther away if you seek him. If you don’t seek, he’s right before
your eyes, his spirit voice in your ear. If people do not believe this,
they labor in vain for hundreds of years.
37
‘You people of the Path, in an instant you enter the world

hidden in the lotus, you enter the land of Vairocana, you enter
the land of liberation, the land of penetrating spiritual powers, the
land of purity, the realm of reality. You enter among both defiled
and pure, both ordinary and holy, and even among the hungry ghosts
and animals. You seek everywhere, but nowhere do birth and
death appear, only empty names, illusory transformations, and
flowers in the sky, not worth grasping. Gain and loss, affirmation
and denial, are at once abandoned.
“You people of the Path, I received the Buddha Dharma truly,
following Master Magu, Master Danxia, Master Mazu, Master Gui-
zong, and Master Shizhu: on a single road, we travelled all over China.
No one believed in them, and all were slandered. For example, Mazu’s
actions were pure and unmixed, but none of his three hundred or
five hundred students saw his intent. Guizong, the master on [Mt.]
Lushan, was independent and genuine, but students could not figure
out the locus of his functioning: he [sometimes] went with and [some
times] went against, so they all became flustered. Master Danxia
appreciated the pearl [of wisdom] in both hidden and manifest forms,
but when students came, they were all rebuked. Magu’s functioning
was bitter as a philodendron, and none could approach him. Shizhu’s
functioning was to seek people at the point of his arrow, so all who
came to him were terrified.
As for my functioning today, I create and destroy correctly,
playing freely with spiritual transformations, entering all per
spectives, unconcerned everywhere I go. Objects and scenes can
not turn me around.
“When someone comes seeking, I go out and look at him, but
sole he does not recognize me. I then put on various kinds of ‘clothes’.
Students give birth to interpretations, and always go for my words.
How painful! Blind monks and people without eyes take the clothes
I am wearing and recognize them as blue, yellow, red, white. I
take them off and enter into the realm of purity. As soon as the
students see this, they feel happiness and desire. When I take off
[the garment of purity] too, students lose heart, and run off in
38
crazy confusion saying I have no clothes. I say to them: Do you

recognize the person in me who is putting on the clothes? Sud
denly they turn their heads around and they recognize me.
“Good people, do not accept the ‘clothes’ [as the person]. The
clothes cannot move: it’s the person who puts them on. There is
the garment of purity, the garment of birthlessness, the garment
of bodhi, the garment of nirvana, the garments of the buddhas
and patriarchs. Whatever has to do with words and names and
phrases and texts is all a matter of changing ‘clothes’. Words are
formed by being brought forth from the ocean of vital energy at
the navel and coming out through the teeth. Obviously they are
all illusory transformations.
“Good people, you generate the karma of speech outwardly,
and inwardly you show [dualistic perception of] mind and its ob
jects. All the states of mind you have because of your thoughts
are all ‘clothes’. [Your problem] is that you accept the ‘clothes’
that the person puts on as something real. Even if you pass
through countless eons of time, all you do is keep changing clothes,
cycling through the triple world, revolving in birth and death. It
is better to have no concerns, to meet without recognizing and
talk together without knowing each other’s names.
“When students these days do not succeed, it is generally be
cause they accept words and terminology as [the route to] under
standing. In big notebooks, they copy down the words of dead old
men; they wrap them up in layers and layers of cloth, and don’t
let other people see them. They say that these are mystic mes
sages, and guard them most seriously. This is a great error. I ask
you blind ones with many births to go, what juice are you looking
for on dry bones?
“Some do not know good from bad. They seize upon ideas from
the scriptural teachings to discuss and compose commentaries
with. This is like putting a lump of shit in your mouth, then spit
ting it out and giving it to someone else. It also resembles the
way people in conventional life relay official orders along to each
other. Thus do this type pass their whole lives in vain. They call
39
themselves leavers of home, but if they are asked about the Buddha
Dharma, they are tongue-tied and speechless, with eyes popping
out and mouths pulled down in a frown. Even if Maitreya appeared
in the world, this type would move to another world to suffer in hell.
“Good people, you hurry around everywhere, but what are you
seeking? You have worn your soles flat. There is no Buddha that can
be sought, no Path that can be achieved, no Dharma that can be
attamed. If you seek outside for a buddha with form, it is not like the
real you. Do you want to know your fundamental mind? It’s neither
merged with nor apart from [birth and death, karmic consciousness].
The real Buddha is formless, the real Path has no body, the real
Dharma has no marks. The three are fused together, joined in one
place. But since you cannot discern this, you are just ordinary, busy,
confused sentient beings [in the grips] of karmic consciousness.”
Someone asked Linji: “What are the real Buddha, the real
Dharma, and the real Path? Please instruct us.”
Linji said: Buddha is the mind’s purity. Dharma is the mind’s
light. The Path is the pure light that is unobstructed everywhere.
502a The three are one. All three are empty names, not real. For genu
ine people of the Path, this mind is not interrupted from moment
to moment.
“When the great teacher Bodhidharma came from India, he
was just looking for people who do not accept other people’s delu
sions. Later he met the Second Patriarch, who understood at a
single word, and finally realized that up till then he had been
making his efforts in vain.
“ The way I see today is no different from the buddhas and
patriarchs. If you get it at the first phrase, you are a teacher to
buddhas and patriarchs. If you get it at the second phrase, you
are a teacher of humans and devas. If you get it at the third phrase,
you cannot even save yourself.”
Someone asked: “What is the idea of the coming from the West?”
Linji said. If you have intentional ideas, you cannot save your
self.”
The questioner said: Given there were no intentional ideas,
how did the Second Patriarch find the Dharma?”
40
Linji said: aHe found it without attainment.

“Given that he did not attain, what is the meaning of not
attaining?”
Linji said: “Because your mind is frantically seeking everywhere
and cannot stop, the Patriarch said to you: Tie on you, people, you
are using a head to seek a head.’ If under the impact of his words,
you can turn the light around and reflect back, then you will not
seek elsewhere any more. You realize that mind and body are no
different from the buddhas and patriarchs. Only this direct and im
mediate freedom from concerns is called finding the Dharma.
[Linji continued:] “Worthy people, right now it is through lack
of any alternative that I give verbal assessments and come out with
so many unclean things. You should not mistake what I say. In my
view, these many kinds of truths [I provisionally offer here] do not
really exist. When I must use them, I use them; if not, I stop.
“ Now in many areas, they talk of the six paramitas and the
myriad practices, and consider these to be the Buddha Dharma. I
say that these are in the realm of adornment and the doings of
enlightenment; they are not the Buddha Dharma itself. Even if
you uphold a vegetarian diet and discipline as if your life depended
on it, if the eye of the Path is not clear, you will have to discharge
your debt—someday you will be pressed for repayment of the food
money [that monks receive from the pious]. Why so? If you enter
the Path without comprehending its inner truth, you will return
to bodily form to pay back the offerings of the faithful.
“Some elders reach advanced age, but for them the tree [of
enlightenment] does not grow. They may even live in solitude on
a lone peak, eating once a day before dawn and sitting without
ever lying down, practicing the Path day and night, but they are
people creating karma. Some may even give away all they have,
royal cities and wives and children and splendid surroundings,
and even their very bodies, their heads, their eyes, their marrow,
their brains. But all such views are causes of suffering for body
and mind, which will bring on pain as the result.
“It’s better to be without concerns, pure and at one. Then even
if the bodhisattvas who have fulfilled the ten stages look for your
41
tracks, they can never be found. Then all the heavens will rejoice,
the earth spirits will hold up your feet, and all the buddhas of the
ten directions will acclaim you. Why is it like this? Because [then]
the person of the Path [within you] who is listening to the Dharma
right now will be functioning without traces.”
Someone asked: The buddha [called] Great Pervasive Excel
lent Wisdom sat on the site of enlightenment for ten eons, but the
Buddha Dharma, reality of enlightenment, did not appear before
him, and he did not fulfill the Buddhist Path. What does this mean?”
Linji said: [The name] ‘Great Pervasive’ means that you your
self in all places are arriving at and comprehending the fact that the
myriad phenomena have no fixed identity and no absolute charac
teristics. Excellent Wisdom means you have no doubts anywhere
and do not grasp anything. ‘Buddha’ means the pure light of the
mind penetrating through the realm of reality—this is named ‘Bud
dha.’ The ten eons sitting on the site of enlightenment refers to the
ten paramitas. ‘The Buddha Dharma did not appear before him’ in
that Buddha is fundamentally unborn, and the Dharma is funda
mentally indestructible, so how would [Buddha Dharma, the reality
of the enlightened ones] have to appear further [when it is already
everywhere already]? ‘He did not fulfill the Buddhist Path’ in that a
buddha [is already a buddha, so he] does not have to become one
again. An ancient said: ‘Buddha is always in the world, but he is not
stained by worldly things.’
“Good people, do you want to get to be a buddha? Do not follow
the myriad things. When mind is born the myriad things are born,
and when mind is destroyed the myriad things are destroyed. When
the one mind is unborn, the myriad things are without fault.
In the world and beyond it, there is no Buddha and there is
no Dharma, nor do they appear, nor have they ever been lost. If
they exist [at all], they are all just words and names, to take in
and lead along small children, medicines that are applied, obvi
ous names and formulations. But names and formulations are not
so by themselves: it is the luminous aware one in you that scans
and perceives and knows and illuminates, that assigns all the
42
names and phrases. Worthy people, only after creating all five
kinds of unremitting hellish karma do you find liberation.”
Someone asked: “What are the five kinds of unremitting hell
ish karm a?”
Linji said: “Killing your father, hurting your mother, shed
ding a buddha’s blood, disrupting the harmony of the sangha,
and burning scriptures and images—these are the five kinds of
acts leading to uninterrupted hell [according to the Buddhist scrip
tures, but in Zen there is a special sense]:
“Ignorance is the father. When in a moment of mind you find
that the place where things arise and disappear is unattainable,
so that you are like an echo answering the void, unconcerned wher
ever you are—this is called killing your father.
“Craving and desire is the mother. When in a moment of mind
you enter the realm of desire seeking what you crave and only
see the emptiness of all things, with no attachments anywhere —
this is called hurting your mother.
“When you are in the realm of purity, if there is no moment of
mind when you give rise to interpretation, so everywhere is dark
this is called shedding a buddha’s blood.
“If in a moment of thought you can correctly comprehend and
arrive at the emptiness and baselessness of the entanglements
and impetus of vexations—this is called disrupting the harmony
of the sangha.
“Seeing the emptiness of causal connections, of mind, and of
phenomena, in a decisive moment you become transcendent and
unconcerned—this is burning scriptures and images.
“Good people, if you can comprehend like this, you will avoid
being obstructed by ordinary and holy names. [Otherwise, as usual]
you interpret the empty fist as if it really held something and vainly
concoct strange things among the elements of sensory experience.
You slight yourselves when you bow out saying that you are only
ordinary people, while those [who succeeded on the Path] were sages.
“You shaven-headed ones with many births to go, what is the
big hurry? You have put on a lion’s skin, yet you howl like little
43
foxes. You are really great people, but you do not breathe with the
energy of the really great. You refuse to believe in what’s in your
502c own house, and instead go seeking outside like this. You fall into
traps with the empty and free names and formulations used by the
ancients and try to make patterns of categories by depending on
them, but you are unable to comprehend them on your own. When
you encounter objects you become entangled; when you meet with
sensory experiences you grasp them. Delusion arises everywhere you
touch; you have no sure stability of your own.
“Good people of the Path, do not grasp what I say. Why? Be
cause verbal explanations have no basis: they are temporary
sketches on the void, like images formed of colored clouds. Good
people, do not think ‘Buddha’ is the ultimate. I see [such dualistic
views of an external buddha] as a stink-hole. [Concepts of] ‘bodhi-
sattva’ and ‘arhat’ are fetters and chains, things to bind people
with. That’s why [in the stories in the sutras] ManjusrI slew Bud
dha with his sword and Angulimala took his knife and wounded
Buddha. Good people, there is no buddha that can be attained.
Even the three vehicles, the five categories of beings, the round and
the sudden manifestations of the teachings, [and all Buddhist for
mulations] are all just medicines to deal with the diseases of a cer
tain period. There is no real doctrine at all. If there are [doctrinal
teachings], they are open announcements that show some semblance
of [real truth], public verbal demonstrations. Arranged for effect,
they explain as they do for the time being.
“Good people, there are some misguided monks who attach
their efforts to what is in these teachings, trying to find a world-
transcending truth, but they are making a mistake. If people seek
Buddha, they lose Buddha; if they seek the Path, they lose the
Path; if they seek the patriarchs, they lose the patriarchs.
“Worthy people, make no mistake about it. For now I don’t
care if you understand the sutras and the sastras, I don’t care if
you are a prince or a high official, I don’t care if your eloquence is
like a waterfall, I don’t care if you are intelligent and knowledge
able. All I require of you is correct understanding. Good people,
44
even if you can interpret a hundred sutras and sastras, you are
not as good as a simple monk without concerns. You may inter
pret them, but it is only to put down other people—you have the
victory-and-loss mentality of the asura. You are ignorant of self
and others, and are increasing your hellish karma. Take for ex
ample the monk Shanxing [in the Nirvana Sutra]: he could inter
pret the whole canon, but he was reborn in hell—there was no
room for him on earth.
“ Better to have no concerns, to stop and rest. When hunger
comes, eat. When sleep comes, close your eyes. Fools may laugh
at us, but the wise know. Good people, do not seek in texts. Your
mind moves and gets fatigued, and you breathe in cold energy
that does you no good. Better to let the causal nexus be unborn
for a moment, and go beyond the bodhisattvas in the provisional
studies of the three vehicles.
“Worthy people, do not pass your days following routines. In
the past, before I had seen, the darkness was everywhere. I could
not pass the time in vain: with my guts burning and my mind
agitated I ran off to seek the Path. Later I found power, and only
then reached the day of enlightenment, today. When I talk with
you like this, it is to urge you people of the Path not to live for
[mundane things] like clothing and food. It is easy to go along
looking at the world. It is hard to meet an enlightened teacher. It
is like the udumbara flower, that appears once in an age.
“You have come from all over because you’ve heard talk of an
old guy called Linji. You came to try to stump me with a question,
to make me unable to say anything. But when students are ex
posed to me functioning with the whole essence, they open up a
vacant stare and cannot move their mouths at all, they are flus
tered and do not know what to use to answer me.
“I say to them: Donkeys are not capable of the majestic walk of
dragons and elephants. You come from many places pointing to your 503a
breasts and saying ‘I understand Zen, I understand the Path,’ but

when you get here most of you cannot do anything at all. What a
shame it is that you take this body and mind around everywhere
45
flapping your lips, telling lies and scolding people in the village lanes.
Someday [in hell] you’ll be beaten with an iron club. You are not
true leavers of home you are totally in the grasp of the asura realm
[of jealous competition, ambition, anger, power-seeking].
In the Path of Perfect Truth, we do not seek stimulation in
argument and debate, nor do we make a clatter to refute outsid
ers. The succession of buddhas and ancestral teachers has had no
other intent [but truth itself]. If there are verbal teachings, these
come under the category of teaching formats of the three vehicles
for different categories of beings, analyses of cause and effect in
the realm of humans and devas. The round, sudden teaching [of
Zen] is not this way. The youth Sudhana did not seek for faults
[as he journeyed and learned from various teachers on his road to
enlightenment].
“Worthy people, do not misuse mind. It is a great ocean that
never pauses. You carry around a dead corpse like this, but you
intend to go all over the world. You create for yourselves barriers
of opinion and perception, and use them to obstruct mind.
“ The sun [of enlightenment] is high; there are no clouds; it
lights up the sky, shining everywhere. If you have no scales [of
delusion] over your eyes, there are no flowers in the sky [no tricks
of perception where you see things that aren’t there],
“Good people, if you want to be in accord with the Dharma,
just do not give rise to doubts. ‘Extended, it stretches through the
universe. Gathered in, there’s not even a thread.’ The clear dis
tinct solitary light has never been lacking. Eyes do not see it, ears
do not hear it—what is it called? An ancient said that if you call
it a thing, you miss the mark. Just look for yourself: what else is
there? Talk could go on forever: each of you must personally make
the effort. Take care!”
Tests
Once when Huangbo went into the kitchen he asked the cook,
“What are you doing?”
46
Tests
The cook said, “I’m cleaning the rice for the community of
monks.” Huangbo said, “ How much do they eat in one day?’
The cook said, “About three hundred pounds.”
Huangbo said, “ Isn’t that too m uch?”
The cook said, “I’m afraid it’s still not enough.”
Huangbo then hit him.
The cook left and told Linji about this. Linji said, “I will test this
old fellow for you.” As soon as Linji came to attend on Huangbo,
Huangbo recounted the story.
Linji said, “ The cook did not understand. Please, Master, let
me turn a word on his behalf.” Linji then asked: Isn t it too much?
Huangbo said, “Why not say, ‘Tomorrow we’ll eat another
load’? ” Linji said, “What do you mean, tomorrow? W e’ll eat it right
now.” Then he slapped Huangbo.
Huangbo said, “This crazy guy has come again to pluck the
tiger’s whiskers. ”
Linji then shouted and left.
Later Guishan asked Yangshan, “What did these two vener
able adepts mean [in this interchange]?”
Yangshan said, “What do you say, Master?”
Guishan said, “Only when you raise a child do you come to
realize your father’s benevolence.”
Yangshan said, “Not so.”
Guishan said, “What do you say?”
Yangshan said, “It’s like bringing in a thief who ransacks your
house. ”
Linji asked a monk, “Where do you come from ?” The monk
immediately shouted. Linji saluted him and sat down. The monk
hesitated trying to think what to do. Linji hit him.
Linji saw a monk coming so he held his whisk upright. The
monk bowed, and then Linji hit him. 503b
He saw another monk coming and again held the whisk up
right. The monk paid no attention. Linji also hit him.
When Linji met Puhua, he said to him, “When I sent an ex
press letter from the south to Guishan, I already knew you were
47
here waiting for me to come. Now I have come to get your help. I
want to set up the school of Huangbo now. You have to help me
consolidate [my gains] and get rid of [my faults]. ” Puhua bid Linji
take care and departed.
Later Kefu came and Linji asked him the same thing. Kefu
too bade farewell and left.
Three days later, Puhua returned and inquired of Linji, “What
were you saying the other day?” Linji picked up a cudgel and
drove him out with blows.
After another three days, Kefu too came back and asked Linji,
Why did you beat Puhua the other day?” Linji again picked up a
cudgel and drove him out with blows.
One day Linji was attending a vegetarian feast at a donor’s
house with Puhua. Linji asked Puhua, “A single hair swallows
the giant ocean, and a mustard seed contains Mt. Sumeru. Is this
the wondrous function o f spiritual powers, or is it fundamentally
in essence so? Puhua kicked over the table the food was on. Linji
said, Too crude. Puhua said, “What place is this to talk of crude
or fine?”
The next day Linji again went to the [ongoing] vegetarian
feast with Puhua. He asked Puhua, “ How are today’s offerings
like yesterday’s?” As before, Puhua kicked over the table of food.
Linji said, “You’re right of course, but too crude.” Puhua said,
“You blind man! What crude or fine does the Buddha Dharma
talk about?” Linji then stuck out his tongue.
One day Linji was sitting with Heyang and Muta by the stove
in the monks’ hall. They were talking about Puhua, who was in
the marketplace every day capering around acting crazy, and won
dering whether he was an ordinary man or a sage.
Before their talk finished, Puhua came in, so Linji asked him,
“Are you an ordinary man or a sage?” Puhua said, “You tell me,
am I an ordinary man or a sage?” Linji then shouted.
Puhua pointed to them and said, “Heyang is a new bride, Muta
is an old lady. Linji is a little pisser, but he has the eye.” Linji
said, “You thief!” Puhua cried, “ Thief! Thief!” and went out.
48
Tests
One day Puhua was in front of the monks’ hall, eating some
raw vegetables. Linji saw him and said, “Just like a donkey.”
Puhua made a donkey’s bray. Linji said, You thief! Puhua cried,
“ Thief! Thief!” and went out.
Every day in the marketplace Puhua would ring a bell and
said, “If you come in light, I hit you in light; if you come in dark
ness, I hit you in darkness. If you come from all sides, I hit you
like a whirlwind. If you come from emptiness, I hit you with blows
one after another. ”
Linji sent his attendant [with instructions] to hold Puhua fast
as soon as he saw him talk like this and say, If I don t come in
any of these ways, then w hat?” [When the attendant did this]
Puhua pushed him away and said, “ Tomorrow there’s a feast at
the Temple of Great Compassion.”
The attendant returned and related this to Linji. Linji said,
“ I’d always doubted this guy.”
There was an experienced elder who came to study with Linji.
He asked, “Should I bow or not?” Linji shouted. The elder then bowed.
Linji said, “A fine petty thief!” The elder said, “ Thief! Thief!” then
left. Linji said, “Better not mention having no concerns.”
Linji asked the head monk who was standing right there, “Was
there fault or n ot?” The head monk said, “ There was.” Linji said,
“Was it the guest or the host who was at fault?” The head monk
said, “ Both were at fault.” Linji said, “Where did the fault lie?”
The head monk then went out. Linji said, “Better not mention 503c
having no concerns. ”
Later a monk took up [this incident] with Nanquan. Nanquan
said, “ Two prime steeds prancing together.”
Once Linji went to an army camp to attend a vegetarian feast.
At the gate he met the officers. He pointed to a pillar that was there
and asked, “Is it ordinary or holy?” The officers said nothing. Linji
struck the pillar and said, “Even if you could say something, it’s still
just a wooden post.” Then he went in.
Linji asked a monk in charge of temple property, “Where have
you come from ?”
49
The supervisor-monk said, “ I travel back and forth in the pre

fecture selling rice. ”
Linji said, “ Have you sold it all?”
The supervisor-monk said, “I have sold it all.”
Linji took his staff and drew a line in front of him and said,
“ Have you sold this one?”
The supervisor-monk shouted, and then Linji hit him.
The monk in charge of the scriptures came. Linji told him
what had been said. The monk in charge of the scriptures said,
“ The supervisor-monk does not understand what you mean, Mas
ter. Linji said, What about you ?” The monk in charge of the
scriptures then bowed, and Linji hit him too.
When a lecturer-monk came to meet with him, Linji asked,
“What sutras and sâstras do you expound?”
The lecturer said, In a crude way, I have learned hundreds
of Buddhist treatises.”
Linji said, “ There’s one person who clearly understands the
whole canon. There’s another person who cannot understand the
whole canon. Are they the same or different?”
The lecturer said, If you clearly understand, they are the
same. If you cannot understand, they are different.”
Lepu, the attendant, was standing behind Linji and said, “Lec
turer, what place is this to talk of the same and different?”
Linji turned around and asked Lepu, “What about you, at
tendant?” Lepu then shouted.
After Linji had seen the lecturer-monk off and come back, he
asked Lepu, “Just now, were you shouting at m e?” When Lepu
said yes, Linji hit him.
Linji heard that Deshan the second generation teacher had
said, If you can speak, thirty blows. If you cannot speak, thirty
blows.” Linji sent Lepu there [with instructions] to ask him, “Why
thirty blows if I can speak?” Lepu was to wait until Deshan was
about to hit him, then grab the staff and give it a pull, to see how
Deshan would act.
50
Tests
When Lepu got there, he questioned Deshan as he had been

instructed. Deshan then hit him, and Lepu held onto the staff
and gave a pull. Deshan then returned to the abbot s room.
Lepu returned and told Linji what had happened. Linji said,
“I had always doubted this old fellow. Nevertheless, did you see
Deshan?”
As Lepu tried to think of what to say, Linji hit him.
One day [the Buddhist layman and superintendent of Henan-
fu] Wang Jingchu paid a visit to Linji. He was with Linji observing
things in front of the monks’ hall, when he asked, Do the monks in
this hall read the sutras?” Linji said, “ They don’t read the sutras.”
Wang asked, “Do they study Zen?” Linji said, “They don’t study Zen.”
Wang said, “If they don’t read the sutras and don’t study Zen,
ultimately what are they doing? ” Linji said, “We’re making them all
into buddhas and patriarchs. ” Wang said, “ Though gold dust is valu- 504a
able, when it falls in the eye it blurs the vision. What about that?”
Linji said, “I thought you were an ordinary conventional fellow.”
Linji asked Xingshan, “What is the white ox on open ground?”
Xingshan said, “ Moo, moo.” Linji said, “Are you m ute?” Xingshan
said, “What about you, elder?” Linji said, “You animal!”
Linji asked Lepu, “Since ancient times, one person works with
blows, and one person works with shouts. Which is more intimate?
Lepu said, “Neither is intimate.”
Linji said, “What is intimacy?”
Lepu shouted. At that Linji hit him.
Linji saw a monk coming and extended both hands. The monk
said nothing. Linji said, “Do you understand? [The monk replied,]
“ I don’t understand.” Linji said, “ The undifferentiated whole can
not be split apart. I give you two cents.”
Dajue came to study with Linji. Linji held up his whisk. Dajue
spread out his mat. Linji threw down the whisk. Dajue rolled up
the mat and entered the monks’ hall.
All the other monks said, “Is this monk an old friend of our
master’s? He didn’t bow, and yet he was not beaten.
51
When Linji heard o f this, he had Dajue summoned. When

Dajue appeared, Linji said, “Everyone is saying that you have
never studied with an elder like me before.” Dajue said, “I don’t
know, and then on his own joined the congregation.
In the course of his travels, Zhaozhou studied with Linji. He
met Linji as he was washing his feet, and asked him, “What is
the meaning of the Patriarch coming from the west?”
Linji said, “Right now it so happens I am washing my feet.”
Zhaozhou approached Linji and made a gesture of listening.
Linji said, You’re demanding to be splashed with a second
ladleful of dirty water. ”
Zhaozhou then left.
There was a certain advanced monk named Ding who came
to study with Linji. He asked, “What is the great meaning of the
Buddha Dharma? Linji got off his bench, held Ding fast, and
gave him a slap, then pushed him away. For a long time Ding
just stood there.
A monk who was looking on said, “Elder Ding, why don’t you
bow? ” Only then did Ding bow— suddenly he was greatly enlightened.
Magu came to study with Linji. He spread out his sitting mat
and asked, “On Twelve-Faced Guanyin, which is the correct face?”
Linji got off his bench: with one hand he picked up the sitting
mat, and with the other hand he grabbed Magu, saying, “Where
has Twelve-Faced Guanyin gone?”
Magu turned around and tried to sit on the bench. Linji picked
up his staff and hit him. Magu took it from him and they pulled
each other into the abbot’s room.
Linji questioned a monk: “Sometimes a shout is like the dia
mond king’s precious sword. Sometimes a shout is like a golden
haired lion crouching on the ground. Sometimes a shout is like a
probing pole and a shade used in fishing to look below the surface
of the water. Sometimes a shout does not function as a shout.
How do you understand this?” As the monk tried to think of what
to say, Linji shouted.
52
Tests
Linji asked a nun, “ Do you come from good or from evil?” The 504b
nun shouted. Linji picked up his staff and said, “Say more, say
more.” The nun shouted again, so Linji hit her.
Longya asked, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch coming
from the W est?”
Linji said, “Pass me the back brace.”
Longya handed the back brace to Linji, who took it and hit
him with it. Longya said, “Go ahead and hit me. In essence there
is no such meaning.”
Later Longya went to Cuiwei and asked, “What is the mean
ing of the Patriarch coming from the west?”
Cuiwei said, “Pass me the cushion.”
Longya handed the cushion to Cuiwei, who took it and hit
him with it. Longya said, “Go ahead and hit me. In essence there
is no such meaning.”
Later when Longya was staying at a temple [teaching], there
was a monk who entered his room to ask for instruction. [The monk
asked,] “Master, when you were on your travels, and you studied
with those two venerable adepts, did you approve of them or not?”
Longya said, “As far as that goes, I deeply approved, but in essence
there is no meaning of the Patriarch coming from the west.”
There was a congregation of five hundred on Mt. Jingshan,
but few sought instruction [from the teacher there.] Huangbo di
rected Linji to go to Jingshan, saying to him, “ How will you act
when you get there?” Linji said, “When I arrive there, expedient
methods will appear by themselves. ”
When Linji got to Jingshan, he went up to the teaching hall
with his robe still tied up for travelling and saw the teacher. When
the teacher lifted his head, Linji gave a shout. As the teacher
tried to open his mouth, Linji shook out his sleeves and left.
Shortly afterwards a monk asked the teacher, “What did that
monk just now have to say, that he shouted at you, Master? The
teacher said, “This monk comes from Huangbo’s assembly. If you
want to know, better ask him.” After this the greater part of the
53
The Eecorded Sayings of Linji
congregation of five hundred on Mt. Jingshan dispersed and went

their separate ways.
One day Puhua kept going up to people in the market streets
and asking them for a monk’s garment. People all offered him gar
ments, but Puhua didn’t want any of them.
[Meanwhile] Linji ordered the supervisor-monk to buy a coffin.
When Puhua returned, Linji said to him, “I’ve made a monk’s gar
ment for you. ” Puhua then lifted the coffin up onto his shoulder and
went around the market streets calling out, “Linji has made me a
monk’s garment! I’m going over to the east gate to die.”
The people in the market all crowded around and followed
him to watch this. [But when they got to the east gate] Puhua
said, “ Today I’m not ready yet. Tomorrow I’ll go to the south gate
and die.”
This went on for three days until no one believed him any
more. On the fourth day nobody followed him to watch. Alone,
Puhua went outside the city walls, climbed into the coffin, and
asked a passerby to nail it shut and spread a cloth over it.
[As the news of this spread] the townspeople all came run
ning to open the coffin. [When they opened it] the body had van
ished. There was just the sound of a bell heard in the air, growing
fainter and fainter as it moved away.
Conduct
Early on, when Linji was in Huangbo’s assembly, his conduct was
pure and unified. The head monk exclaimed, “ Though he is youn
ger, he is different from the rest of the congregation.” So he asked
504c Linji how long he had been there. Linji said three years. The head
monk said, “Have you ever asked Huangbo anything?” Linji said,
“Never. I wouldn’t know what to ask.” The head monk said, “Why
don t you go ask the Master in the teaching hall what is the true
meaning of the Buddha Dharma?” Linji went and asked, but be
fore he had finished talking, Huangbo hit him.
54
Conduct
Linji went back to the head monk who asked, “How did your
question g o ?” Linji said, “ Before I finished talking, the Master
hit me. I don’t understand.” The head monk said, “Just go ask
again.” Linji went again to ask, and again Huangbo hit him. Three
times Linji asked like this, and three times he got hit.
Linji came back and told the head monk, “I had the good for
tune to meet with your compassion, and you directed me to ask
the Master a question. Three times I asked, and three times I got
hit. I regret that my karmic barriers are such that I do not under
stand the profound meaning of this. Now I am going away.” The
head monk said, “When you go, you have to say goodbye to the
Master.” Linji bowed and withdrew.
The head monk went ahead of him to the Master’s room and
said to Huangbo, “ This young guy asking questions is very much
in accord with the Dharma. When he comes to say goodbye, please
use expedient means to receive him, and give him some further
explanations, so he will become a great tree giving shade to the
world’s people.”
When Linji came to bid farewell, Huangbo said, “Don’t go any
where else but to Dayu’s place on the shore at Gaoan. He will surely
explain for you.”
When Linji got there, Dayu asked, “Where have you come
from ?” Linji said, “From Huangbo’s place.” Dayu said, “What did
Huangbo have to say?” Linji said, “ Three times I asked about the
true meaning of the Buddha Dharma, and three times I got hit. I
don’t know if I was at fault or not.” Dayu said, “ Huangbo was so
kind, he wore himself out for you, but you still come here asking
whether there was fault or not! ”
At these words, Linji was greatly enlightened and said, “Ac
tually there’s not much to Huangbo’s Buddha Dharma.”
Dayu held him tight and said, “You bed-wetting little devil!
A little while ago you were talking about whether you were at
fault or not, and yet now you say that there’s not much to Huang
bo’s Buddha Dharma. What truth have you seen? Speak quickly! ”
55
Linji punched Dayu three times in the ribs. Dayu pushed him off
and said, Your teacher is Huangbo. It’s none of my business.”
Linji said goodbye to Dayu and went back to Huangbo.
When Huangbo saw him coming he said, “This fellow comes
and goes again and again—when will he ever be finished?” Linji
said, “It’s all due to your extreme kindness,” and after saluting
Huangbo, stood there attending on him.
Huangbo asked, “Where have you come from ?” Linji said,
“Yesterday I carried out your merciful instructions to go see Dayu,
and now I’ve come back.” Huangbo said, “What did Dayu have to
say?” Linji recounted what had happened. Huangbo said, “Why
does this guy come here—is he waiting for a sound beating?” Linji
said, “What do you mean, waiting? Have it right now,” and then
505a he slapped Huangbo. Huangbo said, “This crazy guy has come
back again to pluck the tiger’s whiskers.” Linji then shouted.
Huangbo said, “Attendant, lead this crazy man back to the hall.”
Later Guishan brought this story up to Yangshan to question
him. He asked Yangshan, “At the time, did Linji get Dayu’s power
or Huangbo’s power?” Yangshan said, “Not only did he ride the
tiger’s head, he also was able to hold the tiger’s tail.”
Once Linji was planting some pine trees. Huangbo asked,
“Why are you planting so many trees here deep in the moun
tains? Linji said, “First, I’m improving the scenery around the
monastery. Second, I’m making a sign for later people.” Having
said that, he took his mattock and hit the ground three times.
Huangbo said, “Even so, you have already taken thirty blows from
me. Linji again hit the ground with his mattock three times,
with a long exhalation of breath in mock fear. Huangbo said, “With
you, our school will flourish greatly in the world.”
Later Guishan brought up this story and asked Yangshan, “Did
Huangbo only entrust his teaching to Linji, or were there others?”
Yangshan said, “There were others, but that was so long ago I don’t
want to mention them to you, Master.” [Linji and Guishan were
near contemporaries.]
56
Conduct
Guishan said, “Nevertheless, I still want to know. Just men

tion them so I can see.” Yangshan said, “One man pointed south,
and the imperative was carried out throughout the southeast. It
will meet with a great wind [in the person of Fengxue, ‘Wind Cave,’
a successor of Linji in the third generation] and lapse.”
Once when Linji was attending on Deshan, Deshan said, “I’m
tired today.” Linji said, “Why is this old guy talking in his sleep?”
Deshan then hit him. Linji turned over the bench. Deshan let it
go at that.
Once during the general call to labor Linji was hoeing the
ground. When he saw Huangbo coming, he stood there holding his
hoe. Huangbo said, “Is this guy tired?” Linji said, “He hasn’t even
lifted his hoe—tired of what? ” Huangbo then hit him. Linji grabbed
the staff and pulled Huangbo down by it.
Huangbo called to the duty-distributor, “ Help me up!” The
duty-distributor came forward to help him up and said, Why do
you tolerate the insolence of this crazy fellow, M aster?” As soon
as Huangbo got up, he hit the duty-distributor.
Linji hoed the ground and said, “Everywhere else they cre
mate with fire. Here we bury them alive for a tim e.”
Later Guishan asked Yangshan, “What did Huangbo mean
when he hit the duty-distributor?” Yangshan said, “ The true thief
escaped, so the ones sent after him took the beating.”
One day Linji was sitting in front of the monks’ hall. When he
saw Huangbo coming, he closed his eyes. Huangbo made a gesture
of fright, and returned to the abbot’s room. Linji followed him back
to the abbot’s room to bow in thanks.
The head monk was in attendance on Huangbo at the time.
Huangbo said, “ Though this monk is young, he knows that this
business exists.” The head monk said, “ Master, your feet aren t
touching the ground if you certify this young man.” Huangbo hit
himself on the mouth. The head monk said, “As long as you know.”
Linji was in the hall asleep when Huangbo came down to see
him. Huangbo rapped on the sounding board with his staff. Linji 505b
57
raised his head, saw it was Huangbo, and went back to sleep. Huangbo
hit the sounding board again and went back to the quarters of the
senior monks. When he saw the head monk he said, “Down in the
hall that young guy is really sitting in meditation. Why are you here
engaged in false thought?” The head monk said, “What is the old
guy doing?” Huangbo hit the sounding board and went out.
Later Guishan asked Yangshan, “What was Huangbo’s in
tention when he went into the monks’ hall?” Yangshan said, “ Two
winning faces on a single die.”
One day during the general call to labor, Linji was walking
behind everyone else [as they all went out to work in the gar
dens.] Huangbo turned back and saw him empty-handed and said,
“Where is your hoe?” Linji said, “Someone took it away.” Huangbo
said, “Come over here, I want to talk to you about something.”
When Linji approached, Huangbo held his hoe upright and said,
“No one in the world can pick this one up.” Linji pulled it into his
own hand, held it upright, and said, “Then why is it in my hand?”
Huangbo said, “Today w e’ve had a great call to labor indeed!”
Then he went back to the monastery.
Later Guishan asked Yangshan, “ The hoe was in Huangbo’s
hand: why was it taken away by Linji?” Yangshan said, “ The
thief is a nobody, a small man, but he knows more than a gentle
man-sage, a lord’s son.”
Linji went to deliver a letter from Huangbo to Guishan. At
the time, Yangshan was in charge of receiving travellers [at
Guishan’s place]. He accepted the letter, then asked Linji, “ This
is Huangbo’s. Which is yours, messenger?” Linji then slapped him.
Yangshan held him fast and said, “Brother, since you know about
this business, let’s stop at that.”
Together they went to see Guishan. Guishan asked, “How
many are there in the congregation with brother Huangbo?” Linji
said, “Seven hundred.” Guishan said, “Who is their guide?” Linji
said, “ He just sent you a letter.”
Then Linji asked Guishan in return, “ How many in the con
gregation here with you, Master?” Guishan said, “Fifteen hun
58
Conduct
dred.” Linji said, “ Too many.” Guishan said, “ Brother Huangbo

is not short of them either.”
Linji bade farewell to Guishan and Yangshan went along to
see him off. Yangshan told him, “Later, go north, and there will
be a place to stay.” Linji said, “How could there be such a thing?”
Yangshan said, “Just go. Later there will be someone to assist
you there, brother. This man will have a head but no tail, a begin
ning but no end.”
Later when Linji came to Zhenzhou [in northeast China]
Puhua was already there. When Linji appeared in the world [to
teach], Puhua helped him. Before Linji had been there very long,
Puhua completely vanished.
Linji climbed Mt. Huangbo in the middle of the summer. He
saw the master there [himself called Huangbo] reading a sutra.
Linji said, “I thought you were an enlightened man, but actually
you are only an old monk gleaning from books.”
After staying several days, Linji said farewell and left. Huangbo
said to him, “You came interrupting the summer [period of practice]
and now you leave before the summer is over.” Linji said, “I was
paying my respects to you for a while, Master. Huangbo then drove 505c
him out with blows. After walking a few miles, Linji was full of doubts
about this event, so he returned and finished out the summer.
One day Linji said goodbye to Huangbo. Huangbo asked,
“Where are you going?” Linji said, “If not south of the river, then
north of the river.” Huangbo then hit him. Linji held him fast
and gave him a slap. Huangbo laughed loudly and called to his
attendant, “Bring out my late master Baizhang’s back rest and
table.” Linji said, “Attendant, bring fire!” Huangbo said, “Even
though it is so, just take them. Later you will cut off the tongues
of everyone in the world.”
Later Guishan asked Yangshan, “Didn’t Linji turn his back
on Huangbo?” Yangshan said, “ Not so.” Guishan said, “What do
you think?” Yangshan said, “Only if you are aware of the benevo
lence can you repay the benevolence.” Guishan said, Are there
any cases since ancient times similar to this?” Yangshan said, 506a
59
“ There are, but it was so long ago I don’t want to mention it to

you, Master.” Guishan said, “ I want to know anyway. Mention
them so I can see.” Yangshan said, “At the Surangama assembly
Ananda praised Buddha saying, ‘Serving in countless lands with
this profound mind is called repaying the benevolence of the
buddhas.’ Isn’t this an instance of repaying benevolence?” Guishan
said, That s right, that’s right. If your views equal your teacher’s,
you decrease his virtue by half. Only if your views go beyond your
teacher’s are you worthy to pass on the transmission.”
Linji went to Bodhidharma’s Stupa [at Bear Ear Mountain in
Henan], The keeper of the stupa asked him, “Elder, do you bow to
buddhas or patriarchs first?” Linji said, “I do not bow to either.”
The keeper of the stupa said, “How can the buddhas and patri
archs be your enemies?” Linji shook out his sleeves and left.
In the course of his travels, Linji came to Longguang. Long-
guang was in the teaching hall and Linji came forward and asked,
“How do you win victory without extending sharp pointed blades? ”
Longguang stayed seated. Linji said, “You are a great enlight
ened teacher. How can you have no expedient means?” Longguang
glared at him and grunted in surprise. Linji pointed to him and
said, “ Today this old fellow has met defeat.”
Linji went to Sanfeng. Master Ping asked, “Where do you come
from ?” Linji said, “From Huangbo.” Ping said, “What does Huang-
bo say?” Linji said, “Last night the golden ox was smeared with
charcoal, and up till now we’ve seen no trace of him.” Ping said,
When the golden wind blows through the jade pipe, who knows
the sound?” Linji said, “ Penetrating straight through ten thou
sand layers of barriers, not staying in the pure empyrean.” Ping
said, “ This question of yours is too lofty.” Linji said, “ The dragon
gives birth to a golden phoenix, which smashes through the blue
crystal [vault of heaven].” Ping said, “Sit awhile and eat some
vegetables.” He asked Linji, “Where have you just come here
from ?” Linji said, “From Longguang.” Ping said, “How is Long
guang these days?” Linji left.
Linji came to Daci. Daci was sitting in the abbot’s room. Linji
asked, “ How is it when staying upright in the abbot’s room?” Daci
60
Conduct
said, “ The cold pine is one color, a thousand years are different.
The old countryman picks a flower and it’s spring in ten thousand
lands.” Linji said, “The essential body of perfect wisdom transcends
modern and ancient. The three mountains [of the immortals] lock
off the ten thousand barriers.” Daci then shouted, and Linji shouted
too. Daci said, “W hat?” Linji shook out his sleeves and left.
Linji came to Huayan’s place in Rangzhou. Huayan was lean
ing on his staff in a sleeping pose. Linji said, “Why are you asleep,
Master?” Huayan said, “An expert Zen traveller looks the same
but isn’t.” Linji said, “Attendant, bring a pot of tea for the Master
to drink.” Huayan called to the duty-distributor, “ Put this monk
in the third seat. ”
Linji came to Cuiyan. Cuiyan asked, “Where do you come from?”
Linji said, “From Huangbo.” Cuiyan said, “What does Huangbo say
to instruct people?” Linji said, “Huangbo says nothing.” Cuiyan said, 506b
“Why not?” Linji said, “If he did, there would be no way to mention
it.” Cuiyan said, “Just go ahead and mention it so I can see.” Linji
said, “A single arrow flies past India.”
Linji came to Xiangtian and asked him, “It’s not ordinary and
it’s not holy. Please, teacher, speak quickly.” Xiangtian said, “I am
only thus.” Linji gave a shout and said, “What are so many monks
looking for here?”
Linji came to Minghua. Minghua asked, “Why do you keep com
ing and going back and forth?” Linji said, “I’m just wearing out
straw sandals in vain.” Minghua said, “But ultimately, what for?”
Linji said, “ This old guy does not even recognize a Zen saying.”
On the road on the way to Fenglin, Linji met an old woman.
She asked, “Where are you going?” Linji said, “ To Fenglin.” The
old woman said, “At the moment Fenglin is not there.” Linji said,
“Where did he go?” The old woman walked off. Linji called to her,
and when she turned her head back, Linji hit her.
When he arrived, Fenglin asked, “Is there anything you want
to ask about?” Linji said, “Why cut a wound into the flesh?” Feng
lin said, “ The moon over the ocean is clear, without reflections,
but the swimming fish is deluding himself.” Linji said, Since the
moon over the ocean has no reflections, how could the swimming
61
fish be deluded?” Fenglin said, “Observing the wind, we know

waves will arise. We play over the waters, wild sails billowing in
the wind.” Linji said, “The solitary orb shines alone, rivers and
mountains are still. At the sound of a spontaneous laugh, heaven
and earth are startled.” Fenglin said, “Go ahead and light up
heaven and earth with your tongue. Try to say a phrase that
matches the potential of this moment so I can see [if you can].”
Linji said, “When you meet a master swordsman on the road, you
must show your sword. Don’t show your verses unless to a poet.”
Fenglin stopped at that. Linji then gave a verse:
There’s nothing like the Great Path
Whichever way you go.
Even sparks struck from stone cannot overtake it.
Even lightning cannot penetrate it.
Guishan asked Yangshan, “Since even sparks struck from stone
cannot overtake it, and even lightning cannot penetrate it, what
have all the sages since antiquity used in order to function as [en
lightened] people?” Yangshan said, “What do you mean, Master?”
Guishan said, “There’s only words and talk, no real meaning at
all.” Yangshan said, “Not so.” Guishan said, “ Then what do you
think?” Yangshan said, “Officially, not even a needle is allowed in,
but unofficially even a horse and cart can get through.”
Linji went to Jinniu. When Jinniu saw him coming, he held
his staff horizontal, and crouched in the gateway. Linji hit the
staff with his hand three times, then turned away and went back
to the hall, where he sat in the first seat. When Jinniu came and
saw him, he asked, “When guest and host meet, each has majestic
deportment. Where do you come from that you are so impolite?”
Linji said, “What did you say, old Master?” As Jinniu was about to
open his mouth, Linji hit him. Jinniu then made as if to fall. Linji
506c hit him again. Jinniu said, “This is not right for today. ”
Guishan asked Yangshan, “Was there victory and defeat be
tween these two venerable adepts or not?” Yangshan said, “ If
they win, they both win; if they lose, they both lose.”
62
Conduct
When Linji was about to die, he took his teacher’s seat and said,
“After my demise, you must not destroy the treasury of my eye for
the true Dharma.” Sansheng came forward and said, “How could we
dare to destroy the treasury of your correct Dharma eye, Master?”
Linji said, “Later, when people ask you questions, what will
you say?” Sansheng gave a shout.
Linji said, “Who would have known that my eye for the true
Dharma would perish with this blind donkey ? ” As his words ended,
he died sitting upright.
63

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The Recorded Sayings of Linji

Translated from the Chinese

The Recorded Sayings o f Linji (in Chinese Linji Lu, in Japanese

Linquan’s Preface of 1297

China. I happened to obtain this text when I was in Yuhang. It

The sound of gold scattered on the ground is heard all

Preface of the Censor Guo Tianxi [1298 A.D.]

Linji thought Huangbo Mountain was lofty, so he dared to confront

Yuan transmitted it to Hui of Yangqi, who transmitted it to

to lamp up until today. This is the meaning of the saying When

Preface Composed by Ma Fang [1120 A.D.]

Who was Scholar of the Yankang Palace, Court Grandee of Gold

[Dated] Xuan He era, geng-zi year [1120 A.D.], mid-autumn day.

Linji said: “Where is Buddha?”

Linji said: “How could wondrous subtle understanding have

Sambhogakaya Buddha inside your own house. A moment of your

buddhas and patriarchs. Just don’t ever let [this perception of

it is a single pure light. It divides to form the six compounds [of

‘religious’ allegiances]. Then you are called a sentient being creating

the sea of birth and death. ”

dependencies, enlightenment too is without attainment. If you can

hidden or the manifest part of the teachings, you immediately have

them. You must be certain that in that which is functioning here

make this mistake. Even if you gain something from cultivation, it

Dharma is clearly obvious. It has never been lacking. If you want to

teacher, which they appropriate as before [to take elsewhere to

clear for me. I began to understand the world’s teachers, and to

“What are you lacking? Good people, what’s functioning right

patriarchs, as the Buddha Dharma. How wrong you are! In fact,

‘You people of the Path, in an instant you enter the world

crazy confusion saying I have no clothes. I say to them: Do you

Linji said: aHe found it without attainment.

breasts and saying ‘I understand Zen, I understand the Path,’ but

The supervisor-monk said, “ I travel back and forth in the pre­

When Lepu got there, he questioned Deshan as he had been

When Linji heard o f this, he had Dajue summoned. When

congregation of five hundred on Mt. Jingshan dispersed and went

Guishan said, “Nevertheless, I still want to know. Just men­

dred.” Linji said, “ Too many.” Guishan said, “ Brother Huangbo

“ There are, but it was so long ago I don’t want to mention it to

fish be deluded?” Fenglin said, “Observing the wind, we know

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The supervisor-monk said, “ I travel back and forth in the pre

Guishan said, “Nevertheless, I still want to know. Just men