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Linji Yixuan Quotes
b. 866 China
Línjì Yìxuán (臨済義玄; Wade-Giles: Lin-chi I-hsüan; Japanese: Rinzai Gigen; died 866) was the founder of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty China.
Also known as: Lin-Chi
Random Linji Yixuan quote
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There is no Buddha that can be sought, no Path that can be achieved, no Dharma that can be attamed.
Even if they are there, they are all objects and scenes dependent on transformation [for their temporary being].
In my view, there are no buddhas and no sentient beings, no ancient and no modern.
Students do not understand because they cling to names and sayings. They are obstructed by the names ‘ordinary’ and ‘holy.’
All phenomena worldly and world-transcending are without a real fixed identity of their own, they have no inherent nature. There are just empty names, and names are empty too.
Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place. (Translator unsourced.)
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.
The real Buddha is formless, the real Path has no body, the real Dharma has no marks.
Enlightenment abides nowhere. Therefore, there is no attaining it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 discriminate and grasp forms, naturally you find the Path that instant.
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.
I tell you, there is no Buddha, no Dharma, no cultivation, no realization. What are you trying to find this way as a shallow adherent? Blind people [who reify these concepts] are placing a head upon a head [imposing objects of seeking upon spontaneous reality].
Outside of mind there is nothing, and what is within mind is also unattainable. What are you looking for? All of you people everywhere talk of having cultivation and having realization, but don’t make this mistake. Even if you gain something from cultivation, it is just the karma of birth and death.
Good people, the real Buddha is formless; the real Dharma has no marks. The way you are acting is to erect models and patterns based upon the illusory transformations [which were provisionally 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.
Someone asked: “What are enlightenment and delusion?”
The local officials invited Linji to preach. Linji went up to the teaching 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.”
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