The Record of Linji stands as a kind of spiritual template for what later came to be known as Rinzai Zen, because it gathers and crystallizes Linji’s characteristic way of pointing to awakening. At its doctrinal heart are themes that became emblematic of the school: the “true person of no rank” as an expression of inherent Buddha-nature, the insistence on sudden enlightenment rather than gradual cultivation, and the rejection of reliance on scriptures or “holy understanding” in favor of direct realization. These teachings offered a clear identity and a classical standard to which later Rinzai masters could continually return, both in China and in Japan. In this way, the text functions not merely as a record of sayings, but as a touchstone for how Rinzai understands the nature of mind and awakening.

Equally important is the way the Record preserves Linji’s distinctive teaching style, which later came to define Rinzai training methods. The shouts, blows, abrupt reversals, and fiercely confrontational exchanges are not incidental; they model a pedagogy that seeks to cut through conceptual thinking in an instant. The “four shouts” and other physical and verbal shocks became emblematic of Rinzai’s emphasis on embodied, non-intellectual awakening. Formal sermons, informal talks, and encounter dialogues in the text together provide a repertoire of rhetorical and practical strategies that later teachers adopted and refined, especially in face-to-face encounters between master and student.

The Record also helped shape the koan culture that became central to Rinzai practice. Although it is not a koan anthology in the later technical sense, its dialogues and encounters supplied many of the “public cases” that were later collected and commented upon in classic koan texts. Linji’s paradoxical replies and cutting questions offered paradigms for the kind of direct, often disorienting inquiry that characterizes Rinzai training. In this way, the Record served as both source material and stylistic model for the koan tradition, including the focus on critical phrases that probe the fundamental nature of reality.

On an institutional and historical level, the compilation and circulation of the Record in China helped consolidate the Linji lineage as a distinct Chan school, providing both doctrinal content and a narrative of transmission. When this lineage was transmitted to Japan, the text functioned as a doctrinal and methodological foundation, as well as a form of proof that the living tradition traced back to a recognized patriarch. The figure of Linji that emerges from the Record—a fiercely independent, iconoclastic master who urges students to abandon reliance on Buddhas, patriarchs, and external authorities—became an enduring ideal for Rinzai teachers. Through this combination of doctrine, method, rhetoric, and lineage consciousness, the Record of Linji quietly but decisively shaped what Rinzai Zen came to be.