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From: johnw@farside.eng.ready.com (John Wheeler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Lin-Chi on reality and his function as a teacher
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.062659.13459@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 28 Jun 91 06:26:59 GMT
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In article 197 of soc.religion.eastern, Tom Simmonds writes:

>>[Linchi's] teachings were recorded by his students in a collection called 
>>the Lin-Chi Lu.  In it, there is an interesting discourse that is relevant 
>>to the discussion about the purpose of a guru.  It's quite lengthy, and I'm 
>>not inclined to post such a lengthy quote; but I'll try to summarize it as 
>>best I can.

>>Lin-Chi criticized his students for looking to him for enlightenment.  He told
>>them that reality was already there in their own experience and that there was
>>nothing he could add to it.  He said that their only problem was a lack of
>>confidence in the reality of their own nature, and that his function was to
>>try to help them to overcome that lack of confidence.  He urged them not to
>>look outside of themselves for Buddha-nature, as if it were something missing
>>that they could acquire from some outside source.  He said that they would not
>>find it in the scriptures and that all the Buddhas of the past could not give
>>it to them.  Instead, he told them that the six senses [seeing, hearing,
>>smelling, tasting, feeling and thinking (ie. mental experiences)] are no other
>>than the Buddha-mind itself, and that they need look no further.  He said that
>>all he could do for them was to point them back to their own experience.

This is right on, in my opinion. I do not see that Lin Chi is questioning
or devaluing the idea of a master. He is obviously functioning as such
here. As any genuine master would, he is pointing his students to the
reality available within themselves. Take note: nowhere is he saying a
master in unecessary, or detrimental, or out of harmony with realizing
the truth. He is, I believe, discouraging his students from conceiving
reality as something external to themselves. When he says "all he could do
for them was to point them back to their own experience" it is not to be
taken lightly. For those practicing under him, it was the most significant
aspect of their spiritual lives, I would venture to guess. 

>>Just one final point of clarification: the reference to the six senses refers
>>not to the organs of sense, nor to their objects, nor to some subjective
>>medium, but to the vividly present experiences themselves as conscious
>>events, without the conceptual assumption of some underlying substance or
>>external cause.

I do not think this interpretation is warranted, Tom. Don't forget, Lin Chi 
was a Chinese master of the Ch'an lineage, not a Japanese Zen Buddhist. Lin 
Chi speaks freely and often of the Buddha-nature, the "True Man," and the Tao.
His teaching is based on the realization of this reality. 

Like it or not, all of Mahayana Bhuddhism has, as one of its basic tenets, 
the doctrine of an ultimate metaphysical principle. What do you think Buddhist
sages are talking about when they speak of the Tao, the Buddha-mind, the 
Dharmakaya, Self-born Wisdom, etc. Even in the Pali texts one finds statements
such as, "There is, O monks, an Unborn, an Uncreated, an Unbecome..," etc.

By the way, I appreciated your post. It is refreshing to hear some teaching
from an enlightended master for a change.