Series: Wisdom of the Chan Masters

“If you want to be free to be born or die, to go or stay as one would put on or take off a garment, then you must understand right now that the person here listening to the Dharma has no form, no characteristics, no root, no beginning, no place you abide, yet you are vibrantly alive. All the ten thousand kinds of contrived happenings operate in a place that is in fact no place. Therefore, the more you search the farther away you get, the harder you hunt the wider astray you go. This is what I call the secret of the matter.” –Linji

These words, purportedly offered by the legendary 9th century Chan master, Linji Yixuan, raise—and answer—some important questions about mystical Chan. We can imagine they were originally intended for monastics who were already well-versed in Buddhist theology and practice, but who may have continued to be uncertain or confused about their spiritual practice.  Let’s take a closer look.

1) “If you want to be free ...”

It’s commonly known that the basis for Buddhism in all its flavors, at least according to the sutras, is to become free from suffering, or duhkha—a term which embraces the idea of sorrow, despair, and mental anguish of all kinds. The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths provide a map to help the interested traveler navigate to this place of psychological and emotional freedom. But Linji expands on the idea:

2) “If you want to be free to be born or die, to go or stay as one would put on or take off a garment ...”

Linji suggests that this particular kind of freedom does more than eliminate suffering, it enables us to live our lives without the kind of mental obstructions that characterize samsara’s realm. Ultimate freedom requires freedom from attachment—from attachment to life and attachment to death (the notion of death frightens many people because of a conceptual attachment to it), and from attachment to coming or going (activities). When attachments are broken, our actions become clear, unrestrained and spontaneous, like putting put on a hat.

3) “...then you must understand right now that the person here listening to the Dharma has no form, no characteristics, no root, no beginning, no place you abide...”

What does he mean that a person has no form, no characteristics, no root, no beginning, and no place to abide? To begin, we can ask: what is form? Form is the substance of the world, the “stuff” that gives things shape, texture, weight, color, etc. How can there be no form? We could give an an epistemological argument using, for example, catuṣkoṭi logic (which has historically been the preferred method for Chinese Buddhist scholars such as Nāgārjuna), but logical arguments can only take us so far. They will never be able to explain the feeling or intuitive realization that there is, indeed, “no form.”  One way to get to that realization is through meditation. When we learn to meditate, the ego melts away and with it all our attachments, desires, and mental preconceptions. The meditative mind may view a lamp perched on a table, but any sense of it having an independent reality as a lamp is absent. It’s absent because the visual image is not connected to a mental attachment, preconception, or bias. Historically, Chan literature uses the term “empty” to describe this state of awareness.  Likewise, in this meditative mind, there is no sense that objects have individual characteristics: to discern characteristics requires discursive thought—mental activity that’s dependent upon comparisons, experiences, language, etc., all of which are sidelined in the meditative state. Reality is also experienced as expansive—without beginning or end, without a “place” to abide, and without a source or “root” from which it originates. But, lest people misunderstand what this means for the person experiencing it, Linji adds:

4) “...yet you are vibrantly alive.”

When trying to understand the meditative mind from an intellectual perspective using negation-principles, such as the catuṣkoṭi, or Linji’s approach here, people often wrongly conclude that since everything is negated, life must be a pretty dire place for anyone embracing this understanding of existence. On the contrary, says Linji, “you are vibrantly alive.”

5) “All the ten thousand kinds of contrived happenings operate in a place that is in fact no place.”

Linji is again expressing the emptiness and flux (dharmakaya) of all phenomena, an awareness gained through meditation.

6) “Therefore, the more you search the farther away you get, the harder you hunt the wider astray you go. This is what I call the secret of the matter.”

As noted, the fundamental aim of Buddhism is freedom; specifically, freedom from duhkha—suffering in all its myriad forms. The reason searching for it doesn’t work is because arriving at this kind of freedom happens not from gaining something or finding something, but from losing something. It comes from detachment—from elimination of desire. We only need to severe ourselves from self-identity—an illusory construct formed from opinions, experiences, judgements, interpretations, and biases—in order to understand and experience life this way. It’s not easy to do, but fortunately a method is available that greatly facilitates the process—the Buddha’s Eightfold Path. The secret of the matter, however, according to Linji, is that we must not strive to attain anything, but strive to penetrate the nature of mind directly.

Reference: The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, A translation of the Lin-Chi lu, 1993. Translation by Burton Watson.  Columbia University Press, New York, p. 36.