Sayings Of Chan Master Lin-Chi's 'Followers Of The Way'
RST 341I-2
5/16/2012
The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master of Lin-chi
The Chan Master Lin-chi uses his experience as a teaching device to lead, push, and even jolt “Followers of the Way” to the gateway of enlightenment. His simple and direct method employs the use of several reoccurring themes: the “True man with no rank,” not to be swayed by the environment and other people, the hit and shout teaching style, the one who “has nothing to do,” but “just acts ordinary,” and that doubt is the Buddha devil. Lin-chi said, “Here in this lump of red flesh there is a True man with no rank,” and “if there are any of you who don’t know this for a fact, then look! Look!” What he means is that living beings are ultimately beyond the world of perception, …show more content…
The level of change and impermanence increases as a result of mappo which he witnesses over the last forty years of his life. Chōmei describes the cause and effects (more change) of the four elements of environment. The wind blows a fire, started where “dancers were putting up for the night,” throughout the capital city. The fire represents the ignorance of man from the Lotus Sutra, and the fire starting where dancers where may be an allusion to Lord Shiva and creation and destruction. One-third of the capital is destroyed and thousand die. Chōmei points out the foolishness of exhausting one’s wealth by building a house in the capital. The capital could symbolize the temporary nature and emptiness of manmade things and the folly of depending on …show more content…
It has a dirt floor and a thatch roof. He builds it with no intentions of making it his permanent residence, and writes that he could easily take it apart and move it elsewhere. However small his hut is, he constructs everything he needs; a verandah, eaves extending three feet to provide space for firewood and cooking, a shelf for his “Buddhist articles” (on the western end; possibly to face Amida, the Buddha of the west), a place to sleep, an image of Amida on the wall, a place for his poetry, Buddhist, and music books, and a place for his musical instruments. He builds his hut in a dense forest which surrounds it on all sides except for the western side. This, he writes, provides him with a “clear view” and “is some aid to my meditation.” Along with the boughs of wisteria that are like “purple clouds,” this is another reference to
5/16/2012
The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master of Lin-chi
The Chan Master Lin-chi uses his experience as a teaching device to lead, push, and even jolt “Followers of the Way” to the gateway of enlightenment. His simple and direct method employs the use of several reoccurring themes: the “True man with no rank,” not to be swayed by the environment and other people, the hit and shout teaching style, the one who “has nothing to do,” but “just acts ordinary,” and that doubt is the Buddha devil. Lin-chi said, “Here in this lump of red flesh there is a True man with no rank,” and “if there are any of you who don’t know this for a fact, then look! Look!” What he means is that living beings are ultimately beyond the world of perception, …show more content…
The level of change and impermanence increases as a result of mappo which he witnesses over the last forty years of his life. Chōmei describes the cause and effects (more change) of the four elements of environment. The wind blows a fire, started where “dancers were putting up for the night,” throughout the capital city. The fire represents the ignorance of man from the Lotus Sutra, and the fire starting where dancers where may be an allusion to Lord Shiva and creation and destruction. One-third of the capital is destroyed and thousand die. Chōmei points out the foolishness of exhausting one’s wealth by building a house in the capital. The capital could symbolize the temporary nature and emptiness of manmade things and the folly of depending on …show more content…
It has a dirt floor and a thatch roof. He builds it with no intentions of making it his permanent residence, and writes that he could easily take it apart and move it elsewhere. However small his hut is, he constructs everything he needs; a verandah, eaves extending three feet to provide space for firewood and cooking, a shelf for his “Buddhist articles” (on the western end; possibly to face Amida, the Buddha of the west), a place to sleep, an image of Amida on the wall, a place for his poetry, Buddhist, and music books, and a place for his musical instruments. He builds his hut in a dense forest which surrounds it on all sides except for the western side. This, he writes, provides him with a “clear view” and “is some aid to my meditation.” Along with the boughs of wisteria that are like “purple clouds,” this is another reference to