Q0304

“Wherever you are, make yourself master” — Linji Yixuan

Verified English quotation. Primary source: Record of Linji. Theme: being.

English

Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you stand is real.
Thinker Linji Yixuan
School Zen Buddhism
Source Record of Linji
Theme Being
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to Record of Linji and files it under Zen Buddhism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Linji Yixuan

Linji Yixuan appears in this archive through verified English quotations associated with the Zen Buddhism tradition. Biographical certainty varies by figure and text; where the “author” is a scripture or school anthology, read the name as a traditional attribution rather than a modern individual biography.

Interpretation

Linji is addressing students who kept locating authority elsewhere — in a teacher, a text, a future attainment. His instruction is that wherever you actually are is the only place from which anything can be done, so deferring until conditions improve means never acting. "Master" here means not deferring to circumstances. The second clause denies that there is a more authentic location you have to reach first.

Why it matters

It cuts against the habit of waiting to be ready. The only position from which you can act is the one you are in.

Concepts in this quote

Being
Being appears in this archive as a live philosophical concern—not a slogan. These verified English passages show how thinkers treat being as a problem of judgment, practice, or explanation.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Linji Yixuan. (n.d.). Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you stand is real. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0304

MLA: Linji Yixuan. “Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0304.

Chicago: Linji Yixuan. “Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0304.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you…”?

The passage is attributed to Linji Yixuan, Record of Linji. The archive attributes this English wording to Record of Linji and files it under Zen Buddhism. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Linji Yixuan mean by being?

Across 4 recurring voices here (notably Paul Tillich and Avicenna), being is framed through Africana Philosophy and Religious Existentialism. Some passages define being; others warn how it fails; still others relocate it inside habit, community, or language. This passage enters that discussion through being.

Same thinker

More from Linji Yixuan

  1. If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch; if you meet an arhat, kill the arhat.
  2. There is a true person of no rank who is always coming and going through the gates of your face.
  3. There is no place in Buddhism for special effort. Just be ordinary: put on your clothes, eat your food, and lie down when you are tired.

All quotations by Linji Yixuan

Same theme

More on being

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the being theme