Lin Chi - 

Venerable (Zen?) Master (Died 867AD)

"If you meet the Buddha on the road?"

Hit him with a stick!

Lin Chi's Story

Lin Chi Zen Master said:

 "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch." 

The actual meaning here is very interesting. It goes far beyond the martial language of the metaphor and the material meanings of our beings. Buddhism is quite unique in that The Buddha never said, "Believe what I say." Buddhism means you only know if you actually take the time to find out for yourself.. i.e., kill the Buddha. Or to put it more succinctly, "Kill Your Image (imagination) of a Buddha that exists outside of yourself who will reveal yourself and selfishness to you.

At one time, the citizens of Kesaputta asked the Buddha what they should believe. Just like many of us today are confused by the perliferations (many differnt types and forms of things), they too were confused by the many religions in vogue in their day and time. The Buddha said:

 "Do not accept anything by mere tradition. Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. Do not accept anything because it agrees with your opinions or because it is socially acceptable. Do not accept anything because it comes from the mouth of a respected person. Rather, observe closely and if it is to the benefit of all, accept and abide by it."

 This Sutta - the Kalama Sutta - is the root of Zen-style inquiry into the true self.
The Buddha says in the Diamond Sutra that in his whole teaching career he never spoke a single word. In Zen, disciples are admonished that understanding cannot help us. The wind does not read. So, what are we left with? 

 In his great compassion the Buddha leaves the worldly only with footprints in the sand pointing the way. 

In the end he cannot help us; we must find the answer ourselves. Zen, too, asks us to look inside ourselves. The path of others, is the path for them. The answers for others are the answers for them.

The answers that severed us well, before we got to our destination are no longer valid, once we have finished the journey. That does not make them the wrong answers, it makes them the correct answers for where we needed to go and get to at that time.

If you use your vehicle to get to a restaurant to eat, you do not take the vehicle into the restaurant with you.

Before you can go into the restaurant to eat, you must find a proper place to park or leave your vehicle. If you are in a city, then you must park it.

Before you can go into the parking spot with your vehicle, you must learn how to park. You must learn to recognize a proper parking place.

Before you can get your vehicle to the parking place, so that you can go into the restaurant to eat, you must feed your vehicle with gas, and oil and water. And you vehicle must be able to get good air to breath, as do you.

Before you can properly feed you vehicle, you must learn what the proper gas and oil and water is. Putting in the wrong types or even too much of the correct types will harm your vehicle and cause it to malfunction and not to be able to take you to your destination. Making it hard to park in its proper place.

The Pali word for vehicle is Yana.

You can drive with a Northern restaurant as your destination, to the "Maha Yana" or the "Great Vehicles'  or you can drive to a Southern restaurant as your destination to the "Hina Yana" or the "Lesser Vehicle"

A history of Buddhism? Pick a road map to travel by: Burma, China, Tibet, Nipal, Magadha, Assam, Manipur, Cambodia, Southern India, Ceylon, the intermixture of the Bon, of the  Tantric doctrines, the evolution of Shamanism, or go the road by the way of Brahmanism, Saivaism, Vaishnavaism and Jainaism or just reading the Talaing literature just to get a handle on a set of good directions.

And least we forget, The Buddha read and contemplated all the the texts of Egypt.

Lin Chi's Story

Venerable Master Lin Chi Yi-Sen founded one of the most influential school of Buddhism after the Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng. For centuries his followers were the leading Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist masters of China. In the twelfth century, his teachings spread to Japan and formed the Rinzai School of Buddhism.

Lin Chi's method of teaching was straightforward, blunt, and rough. He did not hesitate to use the stick on his disciples, if he thought they needed to be knocked out of their's attachment, or conventional reasoning and logic. In some ways, this style actually reflected the national spirit of China, which was warrior-like and fierce; China was constantly at war with the invaders from the West (Tartars Turks, etc.). Lin Chi's style of Buddhism, (later known as Zen in Japan), was a way of opening up the mind beyond all intellection.

Philosophical or metaphysical questions were answered by Lin Chi with a swift blow. Students and disciples were to go out of their paradigms and habitual patters of thinking. When Lin Chi asked a question, the response could not be based on logic, traditional teachings, and reason. The disciples could not lean on any model or pattern of thinking. Lin Chi pulled out the rug from under everyone. The ordinary models of thinking were unacceptable and there was nothing to hold on to. When students wanted to know the truth sincerely , whole-heartedly, and there would occur an abandonment of all former thinking, and the mind would open up to the direct experience of its own nature.

Lin Chi rejected the religions conventions of Buddhism and the philosophical and scholarly approach to Buddhism teachings. In his approach, Lin Chi stressed spontaneity, absolute freedom and emptiness:

"Many students come to see me from all over the place. Many of them are not free from their entanglement with objective things. I treat them right on the spot. If their trouble is due to grasping hands, I strike there. If their trouble is a loose mouth, I strike them there. If their trouble is hidden behind their eyes, it is there I strike. So far I have not found anyone who can set himself free. This is because they have all been caught up in the useless ways of the old masters. As for me, I do not have one only method which I give to everyone, but I relieve whatever the trouble is and set men free."

"Friends, I tell you this: there is no Buddha, no spiritual path to follow, no training and no realization. What are you so feverishly running after? Putting a head on top of your own head, you blind idiots? Your head is right where it should be. The trouble lies in your not believing in yourselves enough. Because you don't believe in yourselves you are knocked here and there by all the conditions in which you find yourselves. Being enslaved and turned around by objective situations, you have no freedom whatever, you are not masters of yourselves. Stop turning to the outside and don't be attached to my words either. Just cease clinging to the past and hankering after the future. This will be better than ten years' pilgrimage."

When Lin Chi was a young monk, he studied under Master Huang Po Si-Yin (?-857) in Huang Po Shan (Yi-fong, Jiangxi). During the first three years at the temple, Lin Chi went unnoticed. He minded his own business and did what he was told; his daily schedule included: work in the fields, meditation, helping in the kitchens, and preparing baths for the older monks.

The head monk, Mu Chou, observed and noticed Lin Chi's mindfulness and meditation in action. He was impressed with Lin Chi's humanity and genuineness, and wanted the Master to notice Lin Chi. Since Lin Chi was so honest and simple, he never had anything to ask the Master, and did not make himself the center of attention for no reason. So Mu Chou advised Lin Chi to ask the following question: "What is the fundamental principle of Buddhism?" Lin Chi asked Huang Po this question three times, and each time Huang Po hit him with a six-foot pole. Lin Chi failed to understand the truth in these blows, and decided to leave the monastery. He decided to be a wanderling and learn from ordinary life what he failed to learn in the monastic setting. When he went to take his leave from Master, Huang Po told him not to go far away, but to first go to Master Ta Yu, who will teach him what he needs to know.

Lin Chi went to Ta Yu's monastery and told him what had transpired. Ta Yu then said, "Why, Huang Po was to you as your own grandmother. Why have you come here suddenly, asking me about your faults?" Lin Chi became Enlightened. Up until this moment, Lin Chi had a dualistic perception of Buddhism and teachings, they were ideas in his mind, separate from himself. He had always searched for the truth outside of himself, but now, in a flash, he experienced existence as it is in itself, and he realized the emptiness of thoughts, words, and philosophical explanations.

He now understood that Huang Po's stick pointed to the truth of his own being, and that his own question about Buddhism came from illusion.