The Zen Teaching of the True Person of No Rank (Linji’s Teaching)

Nowadays, people are very attached to their rank.

Either they have a high rank, they are very successful and influential, and obviously they want to keep that, or they have a very low rank, they are poor and helpless, and even though they won’t admit it, they probably also want to stay that way since it grants them the right to feel like a victim.

Zen Master Linji talked about a true man with no rank, who is always going in and out in front of your face.

Who is the true person with no rank, who is always going in and out in front of our faces?

My Zen teacher often talks about how everybody kneels and prays in front of an altar. And this altar, which is in our minds, has three pictures on it: I, Me, and Mine.

Either we fantasize about being in a high place — “If I am enlightened, I will be above everything, and everybody will recognize me as a holy person” — or we think of ourselves as being in a very low place — “I have been done wrong, I am a victim to this and that circumstance, how have I earned this much suffering.”

It’s not a surprise, since we have been conditioned that way by society. We always seek approval, and no matter if we see ourselves in a high place or in a low place, we identify with and attach to this image we have of ourselves.

However, we don’t see the true person without rank always coming and going. I wouldn’t even say that this person is coming and going — it’s always here.

But, what is this person without rank? Where does this point to?

Linji, after he made the statement about the true person without rank, also continued by saying that beginners haven’t seen this person yet, so they should look!

When you look, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

If you think that you are still just an ordinary person, and that you have to become a person with no rank, you have already deluded yourself.

You already made yourself a person of low rank, and slandered the true person with no rank.

Zen is not about self-improvement. Zen is not about becoming more holy, more pure, or anything of that sort.

Zen is about seeing everything directly, just as it is.

So, I ask you, who is the true person with no rank?

If you say you know the true person with no rank, you have already made him into a picture, you have already given him a rank. But if you say you don’t know the true person without rank, you are just a deluded sentient being, not a Buddha.

Look - right now!

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I wish you all the best — your Friend of the Way. Bye.