Zen Master Rilke: There Are No Teachings

…be ye lamps unto yourselves. Rely on yourselves, and do not rely on external help.

Rilke and the Great Masters of the Chan School, Hui Neng and Linji Yixuan

The intransigence with which the poet defended his spiritual independence is evidenced at least by the eloquent fact that even in the last days of his life, when he was already suffering painfully from an incurable form of leukaemia, Rilke asked his doctor to spare him any narcotics so that he could keep his consciousness extremely present and unclouded – ́in all its living fullnesś – and thus die his own death.

́I don’t want to accept death at the hands of doctors, I want to be free.́

In these words of Rilke, written shortly before his death, one hears:

́I do not want to receive knowledge from the hands of teachers; I want to see my own nature.́

Not surprisingly, Rilke was opposed to all fixed religious and philosophical systems. Thus, in a letter to the Polish translator Witold von Hulevicz (13.11.1925), we learn of the poet’s rejection of ́Christian meaningś which, in his opinion, had become fetters on the path to the spiritual liberation of the West. But Rilke was no less categorical in his rejection of dogmatic Eastern traditions, including Buddhist teachings:

́Let us resist the introduction of Eastern traditions: Hindu, Buddhist and others… What they will impose on us one day will not be their strange wisdom (created for them, not for us), but most probably Bolshevism.́

The comparison with ́Bolshevisḿ in Rilke’s statement should not surprise the reader: in Western educated circles of the time, this word was often used in a negative sense to emphasise the totalitarian principle of thought.

Rilke, the Master of Zen

It is unlikely that the ́strange sagé, the great teacher Linji, despite his ardent devotion to the Dharma, would have been outraged by this polemical outburst from Rilke. Rather, the poet would be considered insufficiently radical by this fanatical advocate of ́shock therapý: it is said that Linji, in his relentless struggle against the widespread false doctrine that was blatantly replacing the living word of his mentors, not only strongly discouraged his disciples from ́traditionaĺ values by admonishing them:

́To be outside the teachings and outside the tradition,

To rely neither on words nor on symbols.́

The Sixth Patriarch Reads and Recites a Wonderful Sutra Which Contains Not a Single Word

But he also often accompanied his instructions with blows with a stick – on the heads of his astonished followers. It came to the point that this ́insignificant old mań, who had no regard for the religious sentiments of his flock, did not hesitate to speak frankly unbelievable ́nonsensé. For example, he claimed that ́enlightenment́ and ́nirvaná were like stakes to which donkeys are tied. And yet he often managed to knock ́enlightenment́ out of these ́donkeyś with an unexpected phrase like this:

́If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!́

Liang Kai. The Sixth Patriarch Tearing a Sutra. 12th c.

However, our protagonists, the Patriarch and the Poet, did not overthrow the ́sacred́ in order to ascend to the throne themselves, did not shame the ́wise of this world́ for the sake of their own self-assertion, did not break with tradition in order to create unprecedented values. By ́acting with all their being ́, their aim was

́to seek man in that sphere where his experience, still synthetic and undivided, appears in all its living fullness…́

́to point directly into the human mind. To see one’s own nature and achieve enlightenment.́

Two Masters of Zen

́Undivided experiencé and ́enlightened mind́, the Poet of Oneness and the Dharma Preceptor, representatives of seemingly so distant eras and cultures, are obviously speaking of the same thing and, as we shall see in their further dialogue, complement each other perfectly – beyond words, secret meanings and any beliefs:

́without the harm that limitations and concessions do to mań,

́without deceiving ourselves with different ́́sacred́́ nameś.

Two Masters of Zen