THE LINJI (RINZAI) EMPTINESS OF WORD CONCEPTS
IN CONSTRUCTION
PLEASE RETURN OFTEN TO THIS IMPORTANT TEACHING
We continue with an introduction to the model of LINJI (developed in Japan as RINZAI).
Linji Chan (Rinzai) has its enphasis according to its modern Japanese masters on Kensho, "seeing our true Nature", which means attaining Awakening. This tells us little, for all Chan practices and those of Japanese Zen have this as the authentic Dharma attainment.
What is very important to relate here is the importance of Linji's teachings inasmuch as he shows that conceptually, the Linji system is virtually no system at all. It reduces the idea to simply "being in the moment," without the conceptualization of the mind.
Linji declared quite clearly:
"In my view, nothing is not extremely profound; nothing is not liberated. The reality of mind has no Form but pervades the ten directions.
"In the eyes it is called seeing, in the ears it is called hearing, in the nose it smells, in the mouth it speaks, in the hands it grips, in the feet it steps. Basically it is a sixfold light, differentiated into a sixfold combination. Once the whole mind is as nothing, you are liberated wherever you are."
Pause and get that into your thick skull, don't just pass on like a moron.
Not so easy perhaps to accomplish because knowing this intelectually does not help to attain anything. Yet once it is understood everything is accomplished.
And what is more, it exposes the fact that this is identical for each of the three Emptiness Contemplations.
The second important point is that the Contemplations are not really Contmplations at all if they are treated as Contemplations. The generating of the Last Conceptualizations can be performed at any moment and at all moments. That is what Huineng called "sitting".
Linji uses, of course, sitting and walking meditation like Soto, but the formation and practices are centered upon the Gong-an (Koan) 公案.
The Gong-an (Koan) 公案T
Now the Gong-ans are no different. If you are establishing and answering Gong-ans (Koans) then you are far from any Gong-an. That is quite a paradox unless you understand the simplicity of the process.
When we examine these Gong-ans and the method, we find that they are not at all what they are credited as being, and certainly any book of Koan responses becomes a tragedy of complete misunderstanding.
Gong-ans are not designed to test a student's progress.
The most common idea is that in and of itself Gong-an practice sets a problem in which the student devoted to its solution cannot find an answer and as a consequence augments the level of consiousness and sets aside all rational thought and the literal sense of words. A grave error.
What then are the Koans and the related practices all about?
"You just try to learn Chan or Dao on the surface as something outside yourself, learning to recognize terms and slogans, seeking "Buddhahood", seeking "mastery", seeking "teachers", considering them Conceptually... Make no mistake about it... you have but one father and one mother, so what are you seeking?
"Turn your attention back upon yourself and observe."
In Chan we call this practice the Last Conceptualization of the Emptiness of Emptiness of Word concepts.
THE SUBTLETY OF LINJI'S SYSTEM OF KOANS
"Followers of the Way, if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go."
That is because there is danger in every conceptualization that is word-dominated. By extension, if you identify yorself with Linji then kill yourself. There is no place in Linji practice for names and concepts.
"Those who have fulfilled the ten stages of bodhisattva practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the fifty-first and fifty-second stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and pratyekabuddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys."
It is said that Rinzai is the Samurai of Zen, while Soto is the farmer, and each takes pride in its own designation. If you then cling the Samurai image or to the Rinzai sectarian idea, are you not then a Donkey hitched to a post?
Consider that carefully.
The Linji Method (Lin-chi)
The principal task is to express the experience beyond cognition and destroy without preocupation all theoretical abstractions.
The method of a master lies in part in using diverse instruments to break any present conceptualization of students when it is either pronounced verbally or detected by the master as a thought.
Shouts, striking with a stick, insults, in fact, anything that can be improvised that correctly performs the task is acceptable.
In the day-to-day state they serve to break the hold of words, concepts and mental associations competing with Contemplations, which need not be sitting formally, but a continual contemplation generated while performing ordinary simple conditioned tasks.
In the process of working with Gong-ans the same method is effective since most students are bogged down with the "Vitakka reflection which is the first part of Koan solution" in which natural, NOT cognitive, "DOUBT" is established.
In the Linji model, Mondos are also used. These are statements or tales credited to various masters in conversations with their students, which the present student is expected to penetrate.
A typical mondo is the following:
PREGUNTA : ¿Cuál es el significado de la llegada del Primer Patriarca desde Oeste?
"¿Por qué no se lo preguntáis a vuestra propia mente?". Respondió el maestro.
Pregunta: "¿Cuál es nuestra mente, señor?".
Respuesta: "Debéis contemplar el accionar secreto".
Pregunta: "¿Cuál es el accionar secreto, señor?."
El maestro se limitó a abrir y cerrar los ojos, en vez de dar alguna explicación verbal.
To this the response expected is an approximation of this:
"When you understand, don't understand; when you doubt, don't doubt".
Nothing could be more ridiculous within Linji than a reasoned response. This is not at all the way that Mondos should be taught. The Linji method stems from the destruction of cerebral processes, the generation of a nakedness that reveals the true nature of being, without agitation of the mind with reasons or spiritual nonsense.
The solution lies with that Last Conceptualization, which first reduces the Mondo (like the Gong-an) in the most simple reflection possible in words, which is allowed to transform into a cognitive experience which stems and is related to the reflection.
Simply resting and dwelling within this while sitting in a formal meditation, walking or working with simple tasks the mind is exposed as "the uncontaminated experiences of the unconscious". These experiences liberate the mind from contaminating conceptualizations.
An answer then to a posed question stems from the uncontaminated mind and transposed as a cognitive response, as it is, which may have no apparent relation to the question.