People who study the Path genuinely do not grasp buddhas or bodhisattvas or arhats; they do not grasp attainments of special excellence within the tr… - Linji Yixuan

Someone asked: “What does it mean to go from mind-moment to mind-moment without deviating?”
Linji said: “If you try to ask, you have already deviated, and reality-nature and form have been separated. Make no mistake about it, people. All phenomena worldly and world-transcending are without a real fixed identity of their own, they have no inherent nature. There are just empty names, and names are empty too. If you go on this way accepting these empty names as real things, you are making a great mistake. Even if they are there, they are all objects and scenes dependent on transformation [for their temporary being].”

Good people, the real Buddha is formless; the real Dharma has no marks. The way you are acting is to erect models and patterns based upon the illusory transformations [which were provisionally put forward in the Buddhist teachings]. Even if you get something from this, you are all wild fox spirits. This is not real Buddhism at all, but the view of outsiders.

Everywhere there are those who say that there is a Path that can be cultivated and a truth that can be realized. You tell me, what path, what truth? What is lacking in your present functioning? Where will you cultivate and repair it? The younger generation of would-be Zen people do not understand this, so they believe in these wild fox spirits. When they explain things, they tie people down. They say that enlightenment can be attained only when truth and conduct are in accord and you guard yourself from misdeeds of thought, speech, and action. This kind of talk is like springtime drizzle.