Being Hit With A Stick

May 26, 2025

Zen Master Linji had a habit of hitting his students with a stick. According to the stories that have been passed down, Zen mastery in his day was expressed via a sort of verbal sparring that is often inscrutable to lay observers. A guest asks a question; the host responds with an ambiguous and seemingly unrelated phrase. Or, he simply shouts at them. Or, in the case of Linji, he hits them with a stick. The guest must then respond in a way that shows he’s understood this reaction; if not, he risks being hit with a stick once again. However, being hit with a stick is itself ambiguous: it might mean the guest has proven himself enlightened, or it might mean that he's said or done something utterly foolish.

The rules of such engagements are utterly mysterious. It’s almost impossible to tell who has come out on top; although, Linji being a revered Zen master, it might be best to simply assume that he always wins. Even operating under this assumption, it’s hard to tell how exactly he wins; or, perhaps more accurately, how his opponent loses. Sometimes responding to a shout with a shout is correct, and sometimes not. Sometimes responding to a shout with a low bow is correct, and sometimes not. But what signifies correctness: being hit with a stick, or not being hit with a stick? Or is the truth that none of this preamble matters at all, and that all these words pale in comparison to the immediacy of being hit with a stick?

Most people would not immediately associate Zen practice with shouting or hitting people with sticks. Zen in the Western world is synonymous with inner peace and going-with-the-flow — a sort of mystical free-and-easiness. However, Zen practice is largely concerned with presence of mind and alertness. The goal is not to exit this world and exist in a mystical dream world, but instead to become so immersed in the present moment that the true reality of this world becomes clear. Katsuki Sekida often uses the image of sumo wrestlers squared up before a bout, taut with potential energy ready to be released. This release is instantaneous, controlled, and focused. There is no room for wishy-washiness or dilly-dallying. There is no room for thoughts or words. The body and mind are in sync, with no distractions pulling one away from the other.

How does one enter such a state? Well, there are a variety of ways. But the easiest way is probably to get hit with a stick.

Imagine you are sitting in your favourite armchair, lost in thought. Let’s offer two types of thought: in the first, you are worried about work the next day. Your boss is frustrating, and there’s a deadline coming up. In the second, you are reminiscing about a TV show from your childhood. You are trying to remember the names of all the characters, and their catchphrases.

I offer these two examples because of their contrast. The first is unpleasant and directed toward the future; the second is pleasant and directed toward the past. In both cases, your body and mind are disconnected. In a very real sense, you have no idea where you are. You don’t know what your body feels like. You have no awareness of direct reality.

Imagine someone sneaks up behind you while you are sat there in your favourite armchair, and hits you on the head with a stick. Where are you now? You’re in your favourite armchair. What is your body feeling? A sharp pain in the head. What time is it? It is now. Your mind and body are attuned, focused on the pain of being hit with a stick. Congratulations, you have just been gifted a brief taste of enlightenment.

Like all shortcuts, the results of being hit with a stick are brief and unsustainable. You can’t constantly be being hit with a stick; and even if you could, it would eventually lose its impact, as the element of surprise is a key component here. But what being hit by a stick does is give you a goal: to live your life as if you have always just been hit by a stick. The means of accomplishing this goal are found in the methods of Zen training.

The question remains: is this a good way of living one’s life? Enlightenment is a lofty thing, and is often seen as a good in and of itself. But in truth, enlightenment is essentially meaningless outside of its context. Why do Linji and his fellow Chan/Zen practitioners wish to become enlightened? Put simply, it is a means of reaching nirvana and exiting the karmic cycle of rebirth. They may say that nirvana and karmic cycle are mere words or metaphors, but they still believe in the concepts behind these words.

This being the case, achieving this kind of enlightenment has meaning only if one believes in the possibility of reaching nirvana and exiting the karmic cycle of rebirth. While Zen training has practical applications besides this, such as maintaining focus or controlling one’s emotions, committing wholeheartedly to the practice — rather than picking out helpful tidbits here and there — is predicated on this goal.

I was raised outside of any religious context. I do not inherently see the world through the lens of any particular religion, unless you count rationalism as a sort of religion (which I might, depending on when you ask.) What this means is that I can not help but interpret all religious concepts as metaphor. It is a sheer impossibility for me to believe wholeheartedly in the metaphysical cosmology of a particular religion. However, this does not mean that I am skeptical or critical of religion. In fact, the opposite is the case: I accept almost every religious concept I’m presented with as essentially true.

Did Jesus, Son of God, descend to Earth in order to sacrifice himself for our sins? Of course he did. Is Jesus both human and divine, or just divine, or just human? Yes to all. Did Muhammad receive the words of the Qur’an directly from the Archangel Gabriel? Obviously. Did Shakyamuni Buddha achieve enlightenment into the true nature of reality under the Bodhi Tree? No doubt.

Adam and Eve were real; Satan is real; Abraham really was about to sacrifice his son; Gog and Magog are real; the Dao is real; you can learn to float on clouds if you try hard enough (or don’t try at all?); there used to be giants and dragons; Atlantis is real; the Idea of the Good is real; the Demiurge is real; Zeus and Poseidon are real; Buddha was a Monkey King; Virgil & Socrates and everyone really are just hanging out in a chill zone on the outskirts of Hell; King Yama is real; there’s a bridge where if you’re good you get to cross to Heaven and if you’re bad you fall right down into Hell… etc, etc.

All of this makes sense to me. My worldview has been constructed out of every single one of these facts. In a sense, I believe them, although of course I don’t believe all of them at the same time, and don’t believe them in the same way that I believe in other, more prosaic things. But they’re all there, floating around within me. They’re all a part of what I like to call reality.

As such, it’s probably impossible for me to become a Zen master. (This was already true for a variety of reasons.) I can’t wholeheartedly convince myself of the idea that Zen mastery is an adequate goal. In truth, I don’t much like getting hit with a stick. I much prefer to sit in my armchair undisturbed, allowing mind and body to become detached.

I don’t hold any hope of salvation. I don’t hold any hope of discovering the underlying truth of reality. No ritual or rite is going to bring me any closer to any deity or power or energy or Way that may be out there waiting for me. This doesn’t distress or disturb me in the slightest, most of the time. But sometimes I wonder — should I feel bad? Should I be worried? I strongly connected to a character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress — he is named Ignorance, and at the end of Part One he is thrown into pit that leads directly to Hell. Is that my fate? I believe myself to have a strong moral framework, but is this all for naught without faith? Is my syncretism merely a product of self-important conceit?

These questions don’t really get me anywhere. I mean, how am I supposed to know, one way or the other? Different people tell me different things; who am I supposed to trust? On one hand, I trust them all; on the other hand, in trusting them all I betray a distrust in each and every one of them.

I exit my study, and upon entering my living room encounter a beautiful sight. My cat on the table beside the window, asleep on a sunbeam. My wife on the couch, asleep beneath a tangle of blankets. Outside the window, the faint chirping of birds, the calm rustle of the wind.

"A certain recluse monk once remarked, ‘I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky.’ I can quite see why he would feel this."