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Home › Library › Philology › The one with nothing left to seek is the noble one — Linji's line, in which 無事 is the state where seeking has stopped, not idleness and not only safety

無事是貴人 buji kore kinin The one with nothing left to seek is the noble one — Linji's line, in which 無事 is the state where seeking has stopped, not idleness and not only safety

無事是貴人 (buji kore kinin), the one with nothing left to seek is the noble one: a line from the sermons of the Chinese Zen master Linji, followed from the Song records and the first Japanese prints through the commentaries, the common saying and the tea room to its English.

Abstract

無事是貴人, buji kore kinin, is a line from a sermon of the Chinese Zen master Linji Yixuan 臨済義玄 (died 866), 無事是貴人，但莫造作，秖是平常, the one with nothing left to seek is the noble one; just don't contrive, only be ordinary, in which 無事 is the state where seeking has stopped. Japan printed the Record of Linji by 1437 and commented on the line from 1632, and from the Edo period the line lived two lives: in the Zen houses, where commentators from 1691 and Hakuin 白隠 after them insisted that it does not mean doing nothing, and as a common saying for a safe and untroubled life, used in Kyokutei Bakin 曲亭馬琴's story and thrown at idle ease in a Senate paper of 1887 and in Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石's I Am a Cat. It hung in the tea room as a one-line scroll, among the lines most often met there. The reading ぶじこれきにん, with 貴人 read kinin, is on a woodblock of 1790 and heads the Zen dictionary of 1915; ぶじこれきじん is common in print too.

Overview

The sense. The five characters have no entry of their own in the Japanese dictionaries at kotobank or in JMdict [1][2][3]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives 無事 five senses, of which the third is the line's: 作為をもって行なわず自然のままであること。また、そのような境地やさま, acting without contrivance, as one naturally is; also, such a state, with its first example from the 太平記 [1]. The senses a reader meets first are the others: 平穏, peace, a life without trouble; near it the fourth, 過失や事故がないこと, without mishap or accident; and, fifth, するべき事がないこと。暇なさま, having nothing that must be done; being at leisure [1]. 貴人 is a person of high birth or rank, read きにん or きじん; the 日本国語大辞典 heads き‐にん first [2]. JMdict glosses 貴人 aristocrat, nobleman, dignitary with both readings, and 無事 first safety, security, peace [3]. So the dictionary sense nearest the line's 無事 is the third, though the dictionary illustrates it from the 太平記 and the 老子, not from Linji, and a reader who takes the first, the fourth or the fifth reads a different sentence: the safe one is the noble one, or the one with nothing to do is the noble one. The history below is largely the story of those three readings.

The words. 無事, buji, literally no affairs: in the sermons, the condition of a person who has stopped running after things, Buddhahood included. 是, kore, is the copula, is. 貴人, kinin, a person of rank, the noble one. The line in its sermon runs on: 但莫造作，秖是平常, just don't contrive (造作, to make something by deliberate effort, the 日本国語大辞典's Buddhist sense of the word), only be ordinary [4][1].

The text in English. The English renderings move between the two senses of 無事: nothing to do (Ruth Fuller Sasaki 1975, Burton Watson 1993), no concern and no ado (John C. H. Wu 1967), no cares (Victor Sōgen Hori 2003), doing nothing (Norman Waddell 1999) and, in a tea almanac, Doing nothing is respectable at tea (The historical record, 1967–2005).

The historical record

The ninth century. Linji's sermon. The line stands in a sermon of the Record of Linji 臨濟錄, as the Taishō canon prints it [4]:

師示眾云：「道流！切要求取真正見解，向天下橫行，免被這一般精魅惑亂。無事是貴人，但莫造作，秖是平常。爾擬向外傍家求過覓脚手，錯了也。秖擬求佛，佛是名句。」

The master addressed the assembly: "Followers of the Way, it is urgent that you seek true insight, walk freely under heaven, and not be led astray by this crowd of goblins. The one with nothing left to seek is the noble one. Just don't contrive; only be ordinary. You look outside, down side roads, seeking help: that is a mistake. You try to seek the Buddha, but Buddha is only a name." The Record was printed in 1120, in the 宣和 era of the Song, as the Japanese encyclopedia Nipponica dates its printing [5]. In the same sermons 無事 comes again and again: 求心歇處即無事, where the seeking mind comes to rest, that is 無事; 佛與祖師是無事人, the Buddhas and the patriarchs are people of 無事; 佛法無用功處，秖是平常無事——屙屎、送尿、著衣、喫飯、困來即臥, in the Buddha's teaching there is no place to apply effort; only be ordinary and without affairs: relieve yourself, put on your clothes, eat your rice, and lie down when you are tired [4]. 貴人 occurs in the Record only in this line [4]. The line is carried by the Song collections of Chan records: the 天聖廣燈錄, whose imperial preface is dated 1036, reads 無事是貴人，更莫造作, with 更, further, where the Record has 但, just [6]; the 聯燈會要, whose compiler's preface is dated 1183, reads as the Record does [7]; and the 古尊宿語錄, reprinted in 1267, carries it in its Linji section [8]. A Ming commentary, the 楞伽經宗通, quotes it as 但要造作, just contrive, a slip that turns the sense upside down [9].

What is not a source: the 寶藏論's line. A treatise attributed to Sengzhao 僧肇, the 寶藏論, has 唯道無事，古今常貴, the Way alone is without affairs; past and present, it is always honored [10]. The pairing of 無事 with 貴 is there; the words 無事是貴人 are not. Ruth Fuller Sasaki and Thomas Yūhō Kirchner write that Linji's sentence is traditionally believed to have been taken from the 寶藏論, which they judge in all probability … a spurious text composed at or before the beginning of the Tang, and that it would seem more than likely that Linji was acquainted with it [11]. The derivation is a tradition they report and judge likely, and they name no source for it. In Japanese print the two lines stand side by side in a Zen journal of 1926, by the Diet Library's search snippet, and in Nakajima Kumakichi 中島久万吉's lectures on the Blue Cliff Record of 1944, which quotes the 寶藏論 and then Linji's line, 無事是れ貴人, without saying one comes from the other [12][13].

1437 and 1632. Printed and commented on in Japan. A Japanese printing of the Record of Linji carries a colophon dated the fifteenth day of the eighth month of 永享9 (1437), at the 東經所 of the 法性寺 in Kyoto, and gives the sermon as the canon does, with 秖 and 儞 as its forms [14]. In the copy read, a later hand has added reading marks in ink: a mark under 是, to be read kore, and the kana キ beside 貴; there is no kana on 人, so the hand does not say whether 貴人 was kinin or kijin [14]. A Japanese commentary in kana, printed in 1632, glosses the line 凡情ヲ尽タガ無事是貴人也, the one who has used up ordinary feeling is the noble one, printing 凡 without its dot, as the same print does in the next sermon's 入凡入聖 [15].

1691. A commentary against the withdrawn reading. The 臨済録撮要鈔 of Tetsugai Dōkū 鉄崖道空, printed in 1691 by the library's record, comments on the line [16]:

無心於事無事於心底。非唯謝絶諸縁謂之無事。擾擾怱怱之中、一切時一切處、如木人見花鳥。此眞無事人也。

No mind in affairs, no affairs in the mind. 無事 does not mean only cutting off every tie. In the midst of bustle and haste, at all times and in all places, like a wooden man looking at flowers and birds: this is the true person of 無事. The warning against reading the line as retreat is in print in Japan here, when Hakuin (1685–1768) was a child [16][17].

The eighteenth century. Hakuin against the idle reading. The Rinzai master Hakuin used the line against priests he judged to be mouthing it without the insight behind it. In his Japanese sermons, as the printed collections of 1898 and after give them, he mocks the ordinary man who says the line and goes on eating his three bowls of rice; in his commentary on the sayings of Daitō 大燈 he calls the line, held as a resting place, the lowest and most vulgar kind of Zen; in his lectures on the Blue Cliff Record he calls it a great blunder to make an understanding out of 無事 and recite the line [18]. These collections are not served outside Japan; what is given here is reworded from the Diet Library's search snippets, not read at the page. Norman Waddell's note in Wild Ivy reads the same use: Hakuin uses it pejoratively here to criticize the priests for merely mouthing Lin-chi's words without having attained the truth contained in them [19].

The Meiji Zen teachers. The teachers kept saying the same thing. Takeda Mokurai 竹田黙雷 in 1907: 臨濟和尙は無事是貴人と云つたが、此無事はなにもせぬ無事では無い, Linji said 無事是貴人, but this 無事 is not the 無事 of doing nothing; it is 多忙中の無事, the 無事 in the midst of being busy, and 有事上に無事の人でなければ何事も遂行せぬ, unless you are a person of 無事 in the midst of affairs, you will accomplish nothing [20]. The 禅宗辞典 of 1915 heads the line, read ブジ コレ キニン, and explains 無事 as 絕學無爲, the state of one who has seen through to the ground of their own mind, left behind every pair of opposites, and stands free between heaven and earth: かゝる人こそ眞に大尊貴生の人なり, such a person is truly one of great nobility [21].

1790 and after. Outside the Zen houses. Outside the Zen houses the line went its own way. A haikai treatise, 俳諧第一義集, whose preface is dated 1783 and which was printed in 1790, uses it against showy diction: …野狐精を信ずるに似たり。無事是貴人也, …is like believing in a fox spirit. 無事是貴人, with the woodblock's reading ブジコレキニンナリ beside the characters, one kana group to each: ブ by 無, ジ by 事, コレ by 是, キ by 貴, ニン by 人, ナリ by 也 [22]. As a saying for a safe and quiet life: Bakin's story 夢想兵衛胡蝶物語, one of the books he wrote between 1809 and 1813 by the 日本大百科全書's account, read here in a printing of 1911, makes it a household maxim: when kin are at peace, no servant is disloyal, and friends tell you your faults, 人間の富貴極まれり。是故に無事は是貴人といへり, human wealth and rank are at their height; that is why it is said 無事 is the noble one [23]. The essayist Kanzawa Tokō 神沢杜口 (1710–1795), in his 翁草, completed in 1791 by the dictionary's account, calls it an old saying, beside an old friend's scroll that read today, nothing amiss; the 1906 edition is not served outside Japan, and the passage is reworded here from the search snippets [24].

The Meiji years. The saying used against idleness. In 1887 a written opinion on the regulations of the Senate 元老院, printed with the record of its second reading on 4 November, says that as the world fills with debate, nobody will be able to enjoy peace, unless one is to 獨リ陋巷ニ安座シ無事是レ貴人ト澄シテ居ル, sit at ease alone in a back alley, putting on a composed air, saying 無事是レ貴人 [25]. The city history of 富山 of 1909, in its chapter on the time of the domain lord Maeda Toshiyasu 前田利保, quotes a document warning that when the administration 無事是貴人ナドノ俗語ヲ信ジ、空然トシテ年月ヲ過ス, trusts common sayings such as 無事是貴人 and lets the years go by in vacancy, the land runs to waste [26]. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, in a notebook of 1884, complaining of an idleness harder to bear than examinations, asked what fool had said it; in Sōseki's I Am a Cat (1906) it is what is chanted by those who keep their hands in their sleeves, will not lift themselves off their cushions, and count that a gentleman's honor [27]. Both are known here from the search snippets. The Ōmi merchant Matsui Yūken 松居遊見 gave out brushed maxims that included it, beside a maxim on diligence, by a book about him of 1922 and a book on Ōmi merchants of 1911 [28].

Brushed and hung. The line is a calligrapher's line. The Shingon monk Jiun 慈雲 (1718–1805) brushed it; a hanging scroll of his on silk, with his seals, is entered in the catalogue Masters of Japanese Calligraphy of 1984 as Quotation from Lin-chi, rendered The inactive (one) is esteemed (among) men, the catalogue's brackets printed here as parentheses, with the note that he wrote it many times [29][30]. The Diet Library's search snippets of tea journals show it in the alcove at a tea gathering of 1909 in the hand of Kakukakusai 覚々斎, and at about thirty gatherings reported by the 茶道月報 between 1928 and 1938, in the hands of tea masters (Joshinsai 如心斎, Rokurokusai 碌々斎, Seisai 惺斎, Tantansai 淡々斎 and others) and Zen priests; scrolls by Sōtan 宗旦 and Takuan 沢庵 are reported by the collectors' and dealers' records of 1917 to 1935, and are given here only as reported [31]. Tea writers of the 1970s call it one of the lines most often met on a Zen one-line scroll, as the same snippets give them [31].

The reading, kinin and kijin. Both readings of 貴人 are dictionary Japanese: the 日本国語大辞典 gives its first example, a heading in the 万葉集, under き‐にん, with Fukuzawa Yukichi's ruby キニン of 1899 beside it, and under き‐じん a ruby キジン of 1894 [2]. The earliest printed reading of the line known here is the 1790 woodblock's ブジコレキニンナリ [22]; the 禅宗辞典 of 1915 heads it ブジ コレ キニン [21]; a 1911 printing of Bakin rubies it ぶじこれきじん [23]. In the Diet Library's full text the kana ぶじこれきにん occurs in 57 books and issues and ぶじこれきじん in 25, both from the 1910s on; the tea schools' own books print kinin, among them a tea journal's answer of 1937 to a reader who asked how to read it, which gives kinin, by its snippet [32].

After 1949. The line is the title of a book of 1981 by the business leader Ishizaka Taizō 石坂泰三 and of a conversation published by Sen Sōshitsu 千宗室 in 2026, by CiNii's titles [33].

無事是貴人 in English

The English of the line follows the Zen reading, and the two meanings of 無事 show in it. John C. H. Wu, in The Golden Age of Zen (Taipei, 1967): The truly noble man is a man of no concern and no ado. Don't try to be clever and ingenious. Just be ordinary [34]. Ruth Fuller Sasaki, 1975: (He who has) nothing to do is the noble man, by the search snippets of two archives, the translator's brackets printed here as parentheses [35]; revised in 2009 by Thomas Yūhō Kirchner as (He who has) nothing to do is the noble one. Simply don't strive—just be ordinary [11]. Burton Watson, 1993: The man of value is the one who has nothing to do. Don't try to do something special, just act ordinary, and in his introduction such people are persons with "nothing to do," not idle, of course [36]. Victor Sōgen Hori's handbook of Zen phrases, 2003: Buji kore ki'nin. No cares! That's nobility [37]. Norman Waddell, 1999: "Doing nothing is the person of true nobility" (buji kore kinin) [19]. In the tea books it becomes Buji kore kijin. Doing nothing is respectable at tea, among the phrases for New Year scrolls in a tea almanac of 2005 [38]; a biography of the Urasenke master Hōunsai of 2001 glosses it (All Guests Are Main Guests), a gloss that belongs to another phrase, then explains it as a person free of obstruction [39].

Today: JMdict has no entry for the line; it glosses 貴人 aristocrat, nobleman, dignitary and 無事 first safety, security, peace [3]. A rendering must keep the sermon's sense of 無事, seeking that has stopped, and not let nothing to do stand alone.

A reading

I read the line as Linji's sermon reads it: 無事 is the condition of one who has stopped looking outside for what they already are, and 貴人 names that person against the seeker running after the Buddha. The sermon's next words, just don't contrive, only be ordinary, say what that looks like: getting dressed, eating, lying down when tired. It is not idleness, and the Japanese commentators from 1691 on were right to say so. I also hold that the common saying, a safe and untroubled life is the noble one, is not a mistake to be corrected but a second life the line has really had in Japanese for more than two centuries, in Bakin, in a Senate paper, in a city's history. A person hanging the line at the end of a working life stands where the two meet. Read in the Zen way, it does not say at last there is nothing to do; it says that the one who no longer needs to chase anything is the noble one, whatever they go on doing. That is my reading, offered beside the others.

Notes

The reading of 貴人 has been argued in print: Suzuki Shūji 鈴木修次 (1978) and a tea writer of the same year discuss whether kinin or another reading is right; both are known only from the Diet Library's search snippets and were not read (Sources not seen). The order sheet's ぶじこれきにん is the reading of the 1790 woodblock and the 1915 dictionary [22][21]. The counts of the kana forms are of books and issues in one instrument, the Diet Library's full text, and are not a measure of speech.

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 「無事」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/無事-617919
  2. 「貴人」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/貴人-425771
  3. JMdict, 「貴人」 and 「無事」; no entry for 無事是貴人. https://jisho.org/search/無事是貴人
  4. 『鎮州臨濟慧照禪師語錄』, T47 no. 1985, CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/T47n1985_p0497c27
  5. 「臨済録」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), 柳田聖山, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/臨済録-150339
  6. 『天聖廣燈錄』 卷11, X78 no. 1553, CBETA; the imperial preface dated 景祐三年 (1036) in its front matter. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X78n1553_p0468c22
  7. 『聯燈會要』 卷9, X79 no. 1557, CBETA; the compiler's preface dated 淳熙十年 (1183). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X79n1557_p0083c24
  8. 『古尊宿語錄』 卷4, X68 no. 1315, CBETA; the reprint preface dated 咸淳丁卯 (1267). https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X68n1315_p0024c04
  9. 曾鳳儀, 『楞伽經宗通』 卷8, X17 no. 330, CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X17n0330_p0783c22
  10. 『寶藏論』, T45 no. 1857, CBETA. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/T45n1857_p0144c12
  11. Ruth Fuller Sasaki and Thomas Yūhō Kirchner, The Record of Linji (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2009), p. 11 (§ XI) and p. 178 (note to § XI).
  12. 『禪學研究』, November 1926, by the National Diet Library's search snippet; not served outside Japan. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/4414792
  13. 中島久万吉, 『碧巌録講話』, 1944, p. 92. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040798/1/52
  14. 『鎮州臨済慧照禅師語録』, 永享9 (1437), the 西尾市岩瀬文庫 copy, canvases 11 and 41. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100189604/11 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100189604/41
  15. 『鎮州臨濟慧照禪師語録鈔』, 寛永9 (1632), the 国文学研究資料館 copy, canvases 57 and 58. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200010624/57 · https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200010624/58
  16. 鉄崖道空, 『臨済録撮要鈔』, 元禄4 (1691) in the library's record, scan 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2579712/1/33
  17. 「白隠」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/白隠-113624
  18. 『白隠和尚全集』, 1898; 『白隠広録』, 1902; 『碧巌集秘鈔』, 1916; by the National Diet Library's search snippets; not served outside Japan. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823440 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823444 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/943581
  19. Norman Waddell, Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin (Boston: Shambhala, 1999), p. 124, note 7.
  20. 竹田黙雷, 『黙雷禅話』, 1907, p. 114. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823526/1/64
  21. 山田孝道, 『禅宗辞典』, 1915, p. 946. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/936741/1/609
  22. 鼻中庵三力, 『俳諧第一義集』, preface 天明3 (1783), printed 寛政2 (1790) in the library's record, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2568263/1/18
  23. 曲亭馬琴, 『夢想兵衛胡蝶物語』, the 1911 printing, p. 159. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/879654/1/81; and 「曲亭馬琴」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank, for the years of its writing. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9B%B2%E4%BA%AD%E9%A6%AC%E7%90%B4-16114
  24. 神沢杜口, 『翁草』, 校訂 1906, by the National Diet Library's search snippet; not served outside Japan; and 「翁草」 and 「神沢杜口」 at kotobank. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/772587 · https://kotobank.jp/word/翁草-39914 · https://kotobank.jp/word/神沢杜口-1068360
  25. 『元老院会議筆記』, 第二讀會, 4 November 1887, 號外第四二號, p. 127. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1367172/1/741
  26. 『富山市史』, 1909, p. 267. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/764671/1/150
  27. 正岡子規, 『筆まかせ』, and 夏目漱石, 『吾輩ハ猫デアル』 中編, 1906, by the National Diet Library's search snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546163 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888726
  28. 松居久左衛門 編, 『近江商人松居遊見翁』, 1922, and 平瀬光慶, 『近江商人』, 1911, by the National Diet Library's search snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/965079 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993955
  29. Yoshiaki Shimizu and John M. Rosenfield, Masters of Japanese Calligraphy, 8th–19th Century (New York: Asia Society Galleries and Japan House Gallery, 1984), no. 68, by the Internet Archive's search snippets. https://archive.org/details/mastersofjapanes0000shim
  30. 「慈雲」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/慈雲-71820
  31. 『風俗画報』, December 1909; 『茶道月報』, 1928–1938; 『古今茶湯集』, 1917; 『淡交』, March 1971; 芳賀幸四郎, 『禅語の茶掛一行物』, 1973; by the National Diet Library's search snippets. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1579901 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11208211 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12439535
  32. The National Diet Library's full-text search for ぶじこれきにん and ぶじこれきじん, every row read by snippet, 5 October 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=ぶじこれきにん · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=ぶじこれきじん
  33. CiNii Research, 「無事是貴人」. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/all?q=無事是貴人
  34. John C. H. Wu, The Golden Age of Zen (Taipei: National War College in cooperation with the Committee on the Compilation of the Chinese Library, 1967), p. 203 by the Internet Archive's page count. https://archive.org/details/x-the-golden-age-zen
  35. Ruth Fuller Sasaki, The Recorded Sayings of Ch'an Master Lin-chi Hui-chao of Chen Prefecture (Kyoto: Institute for Zen Studies, 1975), by the search snippets of the Internet Archive and Google Books. https://archive.org/details/recordedsayingso0000tran
  36. Burton Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi (Boston: Shambhala, 1993), pp. xxii, 28–29.
  37. Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Kōan Practice (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003), 5.334.
  38. Sen Sōshitsu XV, Chadō: The Way of Tea. A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac, translated by Sasaki Seiko (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2005), the New Year phrases.
  39. Herbert Plutschow, The Grand Tea Master: A Biography of Hounsai Soshitsu Sen XV (New York: Weatherhill, 2001), p. 69.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.