The Living Word and the Dead Word

Text

Xinghua Cunjiang taught in the assembly: 'There is the living word and the dead word. The dead word is the word that can be understood by thinking. When you hear it, you grasp it with your intellect, file it away, and call it understanding. It is dead because the moment you grasp it, it no longer functions. The living word is the word that cannot be caught by thinking. It strikes, and thinking stops. Understanding cannot follow it. Yet it illuminates everything thinking could not touch.' A monk asked: 'How do we know which is which?' Xinghua raised his staff and struck the monk once. The monk said: 'I still don't understand.' Xinghua said: 'Now you have heard the living word.'

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Xinghua Cunjiang

Lineage: Linji

By Xinghua Cunjiang

• Carrying the Blow Forwarddialogue

Sources

• contentZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation

  Zen project editorial

  Xinghua Cunjiang Yulu (Recorded Sayings of Xinghua Cunjiang); after Yuanwu Keqin's commentary in the Biyanlu (Blue Cliff Record) on the Linji school's use of 'living words'

  Linji lu (Record of Linji) / Xinghua Cunjiang Recorded Sayings: The Living Word and the Dead Word