"If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him!"

One of the greatest potentialities of skillful means is to free beings from their prisons of knowledge and prejudice. We are often attached to our knowledge, our habits, and our prejudices, and the language of Zen must be capable of liberating us from them. According to Buddhism, knowledge is the greatest obstacle to awakening. If we are trapped by our knowledge, we will not have the possibility of going beyond it and realizing awakening. The Sutra of One Hundred Parables tells the story of a young widower who returned home one day to find his house burned down and his five-year-old son lost. Near the ruins of his house was the charred corpse of a child that he believed to be his son, and he wept and wept. After the child's cremation, he kept the ahes is a bag and carried them with him day and night. But his son had not actually perished in the fire. He had been taken off by bandits, and one day he escaped and returned to his father's house. The boy arrived at midnight, when his father was about to go to bed, still carrying the bag of ashes. The son knocked at the door. "Who are you?" asked the father. "I am your son." "You are lying. My son died more than three months ago." The father persisted in his belief and would not open the door. In the end the child had to leave, and the poor father lost his son forever.

When we believe something to be absolute truth and cling to it, we cannot be open to new ideas. Even if truth itself is knocking at our door, we will not let it in. The Zen student must strive to be free of attachments to knowledge and be open so that truth may enter. The teacher must also help in these efforts. Zen master Lin Chi once said: "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet the Patriarch, kill the Patriarch." For the one who only has devotion, this declaration is terribly confusing. But its effect depends on the mentality and capacity of the one who hears. If the student is strong, she will have the capacity to liberate herself from all authority and realize ultimate reality in herself. Truth is not a concept. If we cling to our concepts, we lose reality. This is why it is necessary to "kill" our concepts so that reality can reveal itself. To kill the Buddha is the only way to see the Buddha. Any concept we have of the Buddha can impede us from seeing the Buddha in person.

---Thich Nhat Hanh---