Linji Yixuan

Linji
Japanese painting of Linji Yixuan (Jap. Rinzai Gigen).
Title	Ch'an Master
Personal
Born	unknown China
Died	866 CE
School	Ch'an
Senior posting
Teacher	Huangbo Xiyun

Línjì Yìxuán (simplified Chinese: 临济义玄; traditional Chinese: 臨濟義玄; Wade–Giles: Lin-chi I-hsüan, Japanese: Rinzai Gigen) (died 866 CE) was the founder of the Linji school of Chán Buddhism during Tang Dynasty China.

Biography

Linji was born into a family named Xing (邢) in Caozhou (modern Heze in Shandong), which he left at a young age to study Buddhism in many places.

Linji was trained by the Chan master Huángbò Xīyùn (黃蘗希運) but, according to the Record of Linji, enlightened while discussing Huángbò's teaching during a conversation with the reclusive monk Dàyú (大愚). Linji then returned to Huángbò to continue his training after awakening. In 851 CE, Linji moved to the Linji temple in Hebei, where he took his name, which also became the name for the lineage of his form of Chán Buddhism.

Linji's teaching style

Main articles: Zen and Chinese Chán

Linji is reputed for being iconoclastic, leading students to awakening by hitting and shouting. Yet Linji's teaching-style, as recorded in the Linji yü lü, was exemplary of the development Chán took in the Hongzhou school (洪州宗) of Mazu and his successors, such as Huangbo, Linji's teacher.

The Línjì yü lü is an example of the encounter-dialogue genre which emerged during the Tang Dynasty. Together with the lineage charts and the koan-collections it became a central part of the literary genres sustaining the Traditional Zen Narrative, portraying excentric shouting teachers beating their students, uttering incomprehensible koans. Though this image appeals to the modern western reader, its development was part of the position Chán held during the Song Dynasty as dominant, and state-controlled form of religion. It was instrumental in upholding the claim of being the true Buddhist teaching, but also functional in 'expressing the inexpressible'.

Shouting and hitting

According to the Linji yü lü, Linji's methods included shouting and striking, most often using the fly-whisk that was considered a symbol of a Chán master's authority:

The Master [Linji] saw a monk coming and held his fly whisk straight up. The monk made a low bow, whereupon the Master struck him a blow. The Master saw another monk coming and again held his fly whisk straight up. The monk paid no attention, whereupon the Master struck him a blow as well.

Linji yü lü

A statue of Linji Yixuan under the southern gate of Zhengding Hebei, China

But Linji, or his school, was well-versed in the sutras, as is exemplified in the Linji yü lü (臨済錄; Japanese: Rinzai-roku), the recorded sayings of Linji. The standard form of these sayings was not completed until 250 years after Linji's death. They reflect not so much Linji's teachings, as well the understanding of Chán as dominant in the linji-school at the beginning of the Song Dynasty.

The Línjì yü lü contains stories of his interactions with teachers, contemporaries, and students. The recorded lectures are a mixture of the conventional and the iconoclastic.

Examples of Linji's iconoclasm include the following:

Followers of the Way [of Chán], if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go.

Those who have fulfilled the ten stages of bodhisattva practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the fifty-first and fifty-second stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and pratyekabuddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys.

Three Mysterious Gates

Chán faced the challenge of expressing its teachings of "suchness" without getting stuck into words or concepts. The alleged use of shouting and beating was instrumental in this non-conceptual expression - after the students were well-educated in the Buddhist tradition.

Linji used The Three Mysterious Gates to maintain the Chán emphasis on the nonconceptual nature of reality, while employing sutras and teachings to instruct his students.

The First Gate is the "mystery in the essence", the use of Buddhist philosophy, such as Yogacara to explain the interpenetration of all phenomena.

The Second Gate is the "mystery in the word", using the hua-t'ou for "the process of gradually disentangling the students from the conceptual workings of the mind".

The Third Gate is the "mystery in the mystery", "involving completely nonconceptual expressions such as striking or shouting, which are intended to remove all of the defects implicit in conceptual understanding".

Linji's lineage in Japan

Main article: Japanese Zen

When Chinese Chán was brought to Japan it was called Zen. The Japanese Zen sect known as the Rinzai school is a branch of the lineage Linji founded. The smaller Japanese Obaku school came to Japan in the 17th century as a separate Linji lineage and existed in Japan for many years as a culturally Ming Dynasty Chinese Zen within Japan. Later the Obaku school semi-merged into the Rinzai lineage after Hakuin's revival of Rinzai in the 18th century. Today the Rinzai and Obaku schools are closely related. The now-defunct Japanese Fuke school also had close ties to the Rinzai school and claimed affiliation with the Linji lineage.

References in popular culture

The titular story of Volume 2 of Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima's manga comic Lone Wolf and Cub revolves around Linji's saying "if you meet a buddha, kill the buddha," in which the protagonist must overcome his self to assassinate a living buddha.

See also

• Buddhism in China
• Dharma Drum Retreat Center Chán Buddhism retreat center founded by Linji heir Sheng-yen
• List of Rinzai Buddhists

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E. (1991), The "Short-cut" Approach of K'an-hua Meditation: The Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. In: Peter N. Gregory (editor)(1991), Sudden and Gradual. Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited
• Keown, Damien. A Dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-860560-9
• Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima. "Lone Wolf and Cub 2: The Gateless Barrier". Dark Horse, 2000. ISBN 1-56971-503-3, ISBN 978-1-56971-503-1
• Lowenstein, Tom. The Vision of the Buddha: Buddhism – The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment. ISBN 1-903296-91-9
• McMahan, David L. (2008), The Making of Buddhist Modernism, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-518327-6
• McRae, John (2003), Seeing Through Zen. Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, The University Press Group Ltd, ISBN 978-0-520-23798-8
• Schloegl, Irmgard. The Zen Teaching of Rinzai. Shambhala Publications, Inc., Berkeley, 1976. ISBN 0-87773-087-3
• Watson, Burton (1999), The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi: A Translation of the Lin-chi lu, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-11485-0{{citation}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Welter, Albert (Year unknown), The Textual History of the Linji lu (Record of Linji): The Earliest Recorded Fragments {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)

External links

• Taisho Tripitaka Vol. 47, No. 1985 The Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association online Chinese character text of The Record of Linji (臨濟録 Linji Lu)
• Japanese translation of Linji
• The record of Linji. Translation by Ruth Fuller Sasaki
• The Zen Teaching of Rinzai (a.k.a. The Record of Rinzai) Translation by Irmgard Schloegel PDF Text
• Albert Welter, The Textual History of the Linji lu (Record of Linji): The Earliest Recorded Fragments