Not Deceived by Words

Text

Baiyun said: "The ancients used words to dispel delusion, the way a physician prescribes medicine according to the illness. If you take the words of the ancients to be the truth itself, you are like a man who swallows the prescription instead of taking the medicine. Once the illness is cured, throw away the remedy. Do not let the teachings become a new disease."

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Baiyun Shouduan

Lineage: Yangqi line

From Traditional Zen Sayings

• A Special Transmission Outside the Scriptures
• Thirty Blows
• A Day Without Work Is a Day Without Eating
• Mountains Are Mountains
• Cease and Desist
• Die While Alive
• The Whole Universe Is the Eye
• The Directness of Realization
• The Barrier of Words
• The Great Doubt Block

Sources

• contentWikisource — English-language free library

  Wudeng Huiyuan, Baiyun Shouduan chapter

  Traditional Zen Sayings: Not Deceived by Words