Zen Master Lin Chi founded one of the most influential schools 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 Zen Master Huang Po (?-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. If you are interested in finding out more on Zen Master Lin Chi, order the book The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi: A Translation of the Lin-Chi Lu by I-Hsuan & Burton Watson. Always in stock at Amazon.com!
