5Linji Hands Over the Stick上堂

上堂，僧問：「如何是佛法大意？」師竪起拂子，僧便喝，師便打。又，僧問：「如何是佛法大意？」師亦竪起拂子，僧便喝，師亦喝。僧擬議，師便打。師乃云：「大眾！夫為法者，不避喪身失命。我二十年在黃蘗先師處，三度問佛法的的大意，三度蒙他賜杖，如蒿枝拂著相似。如今更思得一頓棒喫，誰人為我行得？」時有僧出眾云：「某甲行得。」師拈棒與他，其僧擬接，師便打。

Linji took the high seat. A monk asked, "What is the real point of the Buddha's teaching?"

Linji held up his whisk. The monk shouted. Linji hit him.

Another monk asked, "What is the real point of the Buddha's teaching?"

Linji held up his whisk again. This monk shouted too, and Linji shouted right back. The monk hesitated, fumbling for words. Linji hit him.

Then Linji said to the assembly: "Listen. Anyone serious about this does not flinch at losing his body or his life. Twenty years ago, studying under my late teacher Huangbo, I asked him three times what the real point of the Buddha's teaching was. Three times he gave me the stick, and it landed soft as a brush of grass. Now I would give anything to take a beating like that again. Is there anyone here who will lay it on me?"

A monk stepped out of the crowd. "I will."

Linji held out the stick. The monk reached for it, and Linji hit him.

Pointer

The whisk is a horsehair fly-swatter every master kept on hand, and raising it is a wordless "here it is, right in front of you." The monks have clearly studied the choreography, the shout, the reach for the stick, but they are imitating the gestures, not seeing, and Linji can tell the difference instantly. The heart of this one is the memory he shares: under Huangbo he asked the same question three times and got beaten three times, and the blows landed "soft as a brush of grass," meaning he received them as the gift they were rather than as punishment. That is the bar. So when he offers his own stick and the last monk grabs for it, thinking he's been let in on the game, the stick comes down on him anyway. The biography (46) tells the full story of those three beatings; here you see how completely they became his method.