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you meet yourself. It will be just an image, but in the silences of the heart that image will be so radiant that there is a possibility you may sit by the side of the image and forget that this is not the goal.
IF YOU MEET A BUDDHA, CUT HIM DOWN --
Immediately! IF YOU MEET A PATRIARCH, a master, CUT HIM DOWN -- immediately!
... IF YOU MEET AN ARHAT, CUT HIM DOWN; IF YOU MEET YOUR PARENTS, CUT THEM DOWN AND IF YOU MEET YOUR RELATIVES, CUT THEM DOWN. ONLY THUS WILL YOU BE LIBERATED...
It is an inner psychological process -- making you free from the master, from the parents, from the friends. It has nothing to do with the outside world, it is your inner world where images go on gathering. And unless all these images are dissolved, you cannot see yourself. They are preventing your perception. Rinzai's description of the Buddhist meditation is excellent.
AND IF YOU ARE NOT HELD BY EXTERNALS, YOU WILL BE DISENGAGED AND COMFORTABLY INDEPENDENT.
Now, the internals you have cut down. The images, your dreams, your love affairs, you have destroyed all of them and made the path towards you clean, but you may still be attached to externals. You may be ready to cut away your parents' image and be free of it, but the desire for power in the world, the desire to be the richest man in the world... A thousand and one desires surround you in the external world.
Now the second step is easier. Rinzai begins with the hardest because he knows if you can do the hardest, the easier can be done without any difficulty.
IF YOU ARE NOT HELD BY EXTERNALS, YOU WILL BE DISENGAGED AND COMFORTABLY INDEPENDENT.
AFTER THIS MOUNTAIN MONK HAS SAID THAT THERE IS NO DHARMA EXTERNALLY, STUDENTS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS, IMMEDIATELY MAKE THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THE INTERNAL.
Rinzai is saying that it is very easy to misunderstand a master. In fact, it is easier to misunderstand a master than anybody else, because he is talking a new language, giving new meanings to words, talking about spaces you have never been to. It is almost human to be mistaken, to misunderstand.
He says: AFTER THIS MOUNTAIN MONK HAS SAID THAT THERE IS NO
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