#linji

One day [the Buddhist layman and superintendent of Henanfu] Wang Jingchu paid a visit to Linji. He was with Linji observing things in front of the monks’ hall, when he asked, "Do the monks in this hall read the sutras?” Linji said, “They don’t read the sutras.” Wang asked, “Do they study Zen?” Linji said, “They don’t study Zen.” Wang said, “If they don’t read the sutras and don’t study Zen, ultimately what are they doing?” Linji said, “We’re making them all into buddhas and patriarchs.”

FLICKER CONFESSION #0021

If you want to be free, Get to know your real self. It has no form, no appearance, No root, no basis, no abode, But is lively and buoyant. It responds with versatile facility, But its function cannot be located. Therefore when you look for it, You become further from it; When you seek it, You turn away from it all the more.

If on the road you meet a man who has mastered the Way, above all do not speak of the Way

When illumination and action are simultaneous, it’s like driving away the plowman’s ox, snatching food from a starving person, cracking bones and extracting the marrow, giving a painful poke with a needle or an awl.