Lin Chi on The Mind Ground, Understanding People, Autonomy

The Mind Ground:

The mind ground can go into the ordinary, into the holy, into the pure, into the defiled, into the real, into the conventional; but it is not your "real" or "conventional," "ordinary" or "holy." It can put labels on all the real and conventional, the ordinary and the holy, but the real and conventional, the ordinary and the holy, cannot put labels on someone in the mind ground. If you can get it, use it, without putting any more labels on it.

Understanding People:

When followers of Zen come to see me, I have already understood them completely. How can I do this? Simply because my perception is independent - externally I do not grasp the ordinary or the holy, internally I do not dwell on the fundamental. I see all the way through and do not doubt or err anymore.

Autonomy:

Just be autonomous wherever you are, and right there is realization. Situations that come up cannot change you. Even if you have bad habits, you will spontaneously be liberated from them.

Autonomy:

Zen students today are totally unaware of truth. They are like foraging goats that pick up whatever they bump into They do not distinguish between the servant and the master, or between guest and host. People like this enter Zen with distorted minds, and are unable to enter effectively into dynamic situations. They may be called true initiates, but actually they are really mundane people. Those who really leave attachments must master real, true perception to distinguish the enlightened from the obsessed, the genuine from the artificial, the unregenerate from the sage. If you can make these discernments, you can be said to have really left dependency. Professionally Buddhist clergy who cannot tell obsession from enlightenment have just left one social group and entered another social group. They cannot really be said to be independent. Now there is an obsession with Buddhism that is mixed in with the real thing. Those with clear eyes cut through both obsession and Buddhism. If you love the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion.


Translated by Thomas Cleary