Fwd: Linji

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GuruRatings , Joyce Short <insight2 wrote:

 

 

LIke other Zen masters, Linji referred to Zen as the teachings

of the mind ground, the most fundamental level of awareness.

He taught that the mind ground can go freely into both sacred and

profane realms without being identified with either. Be independent,

he said, not dwelling even on the mind ground, not leaning

on either internal states or external conditions; then situations

that can arise cannot change you, and this radical independence

releases you even from vicious habits.

 

He also warned that indiscriminate study is ineffective, likening it

to a goat nosing around and chewing on whatever it finds. Professional

religionists who cannot distinguish obsession from enlightenment

consequently forms what are in effect social organizations

rather than spiritual bodies. As Linji says, " If you love the sacred

and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing around in the

ocean of delusion. "

 

Like the Buddha, Linji maintains that to attain liberation

it is necessary to detach emotion and intellect from preconceptions

forms by social conditioning, including traditional and religious

beliefs,

in order to recover the mental spaciousness and objectivity

needed for a universal perspective on reality. In this connection,

there is

no doctrine in Zen, because Zen is just a matter of " curing ailments

and unlocking fetters. "

 

Linji taught that mental blocks hindering both spiritual

as well as social life are caused by clinging to labels and slogans.

These mental blocks inhibit perception of objective truth, he said,

by entrapping the mind within the walls of ideas and attitudes

continually reinforced by what the doctrine of consciousness

calls " the lull of words. " To be free from such influences,

Linji insisted, it is imperative to know the real self;

but this real self cannot be deliberately sought, because

the deliberation is already artificial. Herein lies the subtlety

of Zen.

- Zen Essence - the Science of Freedom

Thomas Cleary

 

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