Linji went to the hall where all the monks were meditating. He lay down on a meditation platform, fell asleep, and began to snore.
No one remonstrated, not even Muzhou, the head monk.
Huangbo, who was fully aware of Linji’s great awakening, came into the hall and saw him snoring on the platform.
The monk meditating next to Linji was completely still and in perfect posture.
Huangbo looked at that monk and then whacked him with his stick, shouting: “Don’t you see Linji here, how hard he is practicing? What the hell are you doing?”
Commentary by me: It seems common to interact in /r/zen and measure people by how much they fit into our personal understanding and realization of Zen. Why not just pay attention and listen? There might be a lot of people snoring around here.
Commentary by Guo Gu[2]:
[...] Practice is one’s own business; awakening is one’s own business. The teaching is for us to use, not for us to measure someone else. After awakening, practice takes no form: one could be sleeping, meditating, joking, or doing anything else.
(From "The Essence of Chan")
[1] First part by /u/mister_mirror.
[2] One of Master Sheng Yen’s senior and closest disciples.
Submitted March 13, 2018 at 04:03AM by hookdump http://ift.tt/2FuVV4o
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