Peter Hershock, in Chan Buddhism (2005), highlights Bodhidharma, Huineng, Mazu (馬祖道一), and Linji (臨濟義玄) not simply as historical figures in the Chan lineage, but as transformative agents who each mark a major shift in the unfolding of Chan as a tradition of awakening. His emphasis on Mazu and Linji is especially significant because they embody and inaugurate core features of what later becomes known as the “classical” or “mature” Chan style.
Here’s why Mazu and Linji receive such attention:
1. Mazu: Radical Embodiment of “Ordinary Mind is the Way”
Mazu Daoyi (709–788) represents a pivotal move away from meditative quietism and toward a performance of awakening in everyday life.
• His famous dictum, “Ordinary mind is the Way” (平常心是道), reflects a non-dualist turn—no longer striving toward awakening as a distant goal, but living in awakened relation here and now.
• Mazu innovated pedagogically: shouting, striking, and paradoxical dialogue became legitimate tools for disrupting attachments to conceptual thought—embodied koan before koan formalism.
• He marks a turning point in affirming the immediacy of awakening and making Chan deeply relational and performative—qualities Hershock sees as central to Chan’s uniqueness.
2. Linji: The Birth of a Performative, Disruptive Chan
Linji Yixuan (d. 866), a direct descendant of Mazu’s line, crystallizes the radical pedagogical style of Chan:
• Famous for his “喝!” (katsu! / shout), Linji’s method was a shock therapy to cut through delusion and attachment to fixed notions—including fixed notions of the Buddha or awakening.
• He emphasized that the practitioner should “kill the Buddha” if they meet him—a call to transcend external authority and fully realize the non-duality of self and Buddha-nature.
• Linji represents the Zen of immediacy, spontaneity, and embodied freedom, pushing Chan into its fully theatrical, koanic, and relational expression.
3. Why Hershock Highlights Them: A Relational Reading of Chan
Hershock’s overall thesis in Chan Buddhism is that awakening is a matter of relational transformation, not private insight. He frames Chan as a tradition of emergent meaning, where enlightenment arises through dynamic engagement rather than static truths.
• Mazu and Linji, in this light, are pioneers of a relational, performative practice—they are less interested in doctrine and more in transformative interaction.
• Hershock reads their styles as rejecting substantialist views (fixed self, fixed truth) and embodying a process-relational ontology akin to what he elsewhere explores in dialogue with systems theory and complexity science.
In summary, Mazu and Linji are emphasized because they transformed Chan from a meditative tradition into a radically relational, performative practice of awakening. For Hershock, they exemplify the evolution of Chan into a tradition where awakening is not about escaping the world, but transforming how we relate—to ourselves, to others, and to the flow of lived experience.
Would you like a deeper dive into how this ties into Hershock’s broader project of process-relational philosophy?
