Nowadays, he who studies buddhadharma must seek true insight. Gaining true insight, he is not affected by birth-and-death, but freely goes or stays. He needn’t seek the excellent—that which is excellent will come of itself.
Followers of the Way, our eminent predecessors from of old have all had their ways of saving people. As for me, what I want to make clear to you is that you must not accept the deluded views of others. If you want to act, then act. Don’t hesitate.
Students today can’t get anywhere. What ails you? Lack of faith in yourself is what ails you. If you lack faith in yourself, you’ll keep on tumbling along, following in bewilderment after all kinds of circumstances and being taken by them through transformation after transformation without ever attaining freedom.
Bring to rest the thoughts of the ceaselessly seeking mind, and you will not differ from the patriarch-buddha. Do you want to know the patriarch-buddha? He is none other than you who stand before me listening to my discourse. But because you students lack faith in yourselves, you run around seeking something outside.
Even if, through your seeking, you did find something, that something would be nothing more than fancy descriptions in written words; never would you gain the mind of the living patriarch.
If you wish to differ in no way from the patriarch-buddha, just don’t seek outside.
This physical body of yours, composed of the four great elements, can neither expound the dharma nor listen to it; your spleen and stomach, liver and gallbladder can neither expound the dharma nor listen to it; the empty sky can neither expound the dharma nor listen to it.
Then what can expound the dharma and listen to it? This very you standing distinctly before me without any form, shining alone—just this can expound the dharma and listen to it!
Understand it this way, and you are not different from the patriarch-buddha. Just never ever allow interruptions, and all that meets your eyes will be right.
But, because ‘when feeling arises, wisdom is barred, and when thinking changes, the substance varies,’ people transmigrate through the three realms and undergo all kinds of suffering. As I see it, there are none who are not of the utmost profundity, none who aren’t emancipated.
Followers of the Way, mind is without form and pervades the ten directions. In the eye it is called seeing, in the ear it is called hearing. In the nose it smells odors, in the mouth it holds converse. In the hands it grasps and seizes, in the feet it runs and carries.
Fundamentally it is one pure radiance; divided it becomes the six harmoniously united spheres of sense. If the mind is void, wherever you are, you are emancipated.
What is my purpose in speaking this way? I do so only because you followers of the Way cannot stop your mind from running around everywhere seeking, because you go clambering after the worthless contrivances of the men of old.
A true follower of the Way is never like this; conforming with circumstances as they are he exhausts his past karma; accepting things as they are he puts on his clothes; when he wants to walk he walks, when he wants to sit he sits; he never has a single thought of seeking buddhahood.
Why is this so? A man of old said: If you seek buddha through karma-creating activities, Buddha becomes the great portent of birth-and-death.
Virtuous monks, time is precious. And yet, hurrying hither and thither, you try to learn meditation, to study the Way, to accept names, to accept phrases, to seek buddha, to seek a patriarch, to seek a good teacher, to think and speculate.
Make no mistake, followers of the Way! After all, you have a father and a mother—what more do you seek? Turn your own light inward upon yourselves!
Virtuous monks, just be ordinary. Don’t put on airs. There’re a bunch of shavepates who can’t tell good from bad; they see spirits, they see demons; they point to the east, they point to the west; they like fair weather, they like rain. The day will come when such men as these, every one of them, will have to repay their debts in front of Old Yama by swallowing red-hot iron balls.
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(Source: The Record of Linji translated by Ruth Fuller Sasaki p. 7-10)
McNubbitz Bitz: This is actually just part of a larger sermon. I butchered it in an attempt to make it shorter, and just show the quotes that really stood out to me. If you want to read the full, unbutchered sermon, check out the book. Take it with a grain of salt; Linji's record was written ~250 years after his death and could have been heavily doctored. Regardless, in my opinion, these words sound very spot-on, direct, and powerful.
Submitted December 28, 2018 at 10:53AM by McNubbitz http://bit.ly/2TiQ44V
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