May 29, 2026

When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha." — Linji Yixuan, Record of Linji

Linji Yixuan said this in ninth-century Tang Dynasty China, teaching monks who had a habit of clinging to external authorities — teachers, texts, and even the idea of enlightenment itself — instead of trusting their own direct experience. He was known for shouting at students and hitting them with a stick, not out of cruelty, but to knock them out of secondhand thinking. This line is his most direct instruction on authenticity: the moment any figure, role, or idea becomes something you hide behind instead of something you live through, it has to go. It still cuts today because most of us carry some version of a borrowed identity — a job title, a reputation, someone else's expectations — that we treat as more real than our actual experience.