Obaku Praises Lin Chi's Hard-Earned Freedom

There is an age old war.  If you want to sound fire and brimstone, you can call it the battle in heaven.

It waged along a one-dimensional line.  One direction is form, and the other is destruction of form.

A woman in a cafe looks across the street and sees a child walking into the street.  She runs across and stops him.  She caresses him.  She finds his parents and brings the child to them.

Her motives are selfless.  They are born of love.  She has no concern, at all, for the rules.  Did she jaywalk?  Who cares!  There is nobody on this earth who can tell her she did anything wrong.  If some idiot tries, she knows they are crazy.  There is no "form" that overrides a selfless intention.  Maybe she gets arrested.  Maybe the cafe owner gets angry because she neglected to pay.  It doesn't affect her.  In this moment, she knows herself.  It is love.  She knows her life.

Virtue has been all but forgotten in Zen tradition.  But it was the whole point, way back when. This little example illustrates the role of virtue, in a true practice. 

A true practice is one of increasing independence, and it is a destruction of internal forms. It is the end of "Buddhist" and "Buddhism".  It is the end of following anything, or anyone.  It is the birth of "knowing what to do".

Obaku walked into the Zendo, saw Lin Chi sleeping there, and banged his stick.  Lin Chi looked up, noticed Obaku, and immediately dozed off again.

Obaku walked along the line and saw the head monk sitting in Zazen.  He pointed toward Lin Chi and told the monk "The young fellow at the end of the hall is doing Zazen.  What kind of delusions are you indulging in here?"

Why did Obaku praise Lin Chi and scorn the head monk?

It wasn't Lin Chi's courage.  Modern Zen masters talk a great deal about Lin Chi's courage, or nerve.  But it obviously wasn't that.  I mean, the guy was asleep.  He was dozing off.  He wasn't demonstrating much of anything, aside from sleepiness.

Lin Chi knew his life-- a knowing earned from selfless deed after selfless deed.  In truth, there is no other way to know your life -- a lifetime of meditation alone won't do it.  He knew his life just as the woman in the story knew hers in the moment she rescued the child.  He didn't have to answer to anybody.  If Obaku was upset with Lin Chi's rest, then it was Obaku's problem.

That is the way it was with Lin Chi -- a freedom born of virtue.  A total disintegration of form.  A life lit by the heart of hearts.

Lin Chi was sleepy, so he slept.  That is what you do when you are sleepy.  There is no "Zen".

Obaku recognized this calm independence, was impressed by such knowing, and scolded, instead, the poor head monk, who likely snapped to attention as Obaku approached.

It really is an age old battle.

The two monks at the river, with the pretty lady.  The first picks her up and carries her across, the other scolds him for touching a pretty woman.  That's the battle again.  It is the same one dimensional line.  One monk has chosen form.  The other has chosen virtue; the destruction of form.

You may look at the Zen tradition today and ask yourself if it is about form, or if it is about true virtue.  Because these are two opposite directions.  Which is rewarded?  Which is punished?

Look closely.  Don't just follow.

You can look at the heros of modern Zen, if you wish.  Suzuki, in the face of scandal, praising Baker for his loyalty to tradition.  Aitken keeping things under wraps for the sake of Zen tradition in America.  Dogen, explicitly equating form with enlightenment. 

Which direction has traditional Zen taken?

What did Bodhidharma say, regarding the propagation Buddhist tradition in China?

"No Merit"

The form was never the point.