Contemporary Zen scholars tend to see the Record of Linji less as a frozen snapshot of a ninth-century monk and more as a living, layered tapestry—one that’s been stitched together over centuries for various audiences. Early work treated Linji’s sharp shouts and furious slaps as pure “sudden enlightenment” drama, but recent studies have peeled back those assumptions.

Historians like John McRae and Morten Schlütter have shown how later Linji followers reworked his sayings to carve out Rinzai Zen’s identity amid rival Chan schools. That means many of the cliffside sermons were likely polished—or even invented—by thirteenth-century editors keen on bolstering their own lineages. In that sense, the Record reads today as much like a sectarian manifesto as a direct report on Linji’s teaching.

On the flip side, voices from the post-structural camp, inspired by contemporary critical theory, focus on how the Record’s rhetoric functions. Those wild theatrics—the unexpected punches, the “kill the Buddha” quips—aren’t just shock value. They’re performative breaks in the everyday, designed to jolt a distracted mind into authenticity. Some scholars draw parallels to modern performance art or Dada tactics, suggesting Linji’s style was all about deconstructing fixed ideas on the spot.

Digital humanities projects over the last couple of years have zoomed in on redaction patterns across surviving manuscripts, revealing editorial fingerprints that hint at changing political agendas. Meanwhile, practitioners in the West often latch onto Linji’s no-holds-barred approach when teaching mindfulness in corporate or therapeutic settings—sometimes quite far removed from its original monastic context.

This mosaic of interpretations underscores a bigger truth: the Record of Linji never stays in one lane. Its collisions of raw, immediate teaching and later editorial flourish keep sparking fresh debates—proof that, even after a millennium, Linji’s thunderous shout still cuts through the noise.