Further on, a man seeking to master the mysteries of Esotericism before he had been declared by the initiated Tch'-an-si (teachers) to be ready to receive them, is likened to
One who would, without a lantern and on a dark night, proceed to a place full of scorpions, determined to feel on the ground for a needle his neighbour has dropped.
Again:
He who would acquire the Sacred Knowledge should, before he goes any farther “trim his lamp of inner understanding,” and then “with the help of such good light” use his meritorious actions as a dust-cloth to remove every impurity from his mystic mirror,[764] so that he should be enabled to see in its lustre the faithful reflection of Self.... First, this; then Tong-pa-nya,[765] lastly; Samma Sambuddha.[766]
In Chinese Buddhism a corroboration of these statements is to be found in the aphorisms of Lin-tsi:
Within the body which admits sensations, acquires knowledge, thinks, and acts, there is the “true man without a position” Wu-wei-chen-jen. He makes himself clearly visible; not the thinnest separating film hides him. Why do you not recognise him?... If the mind does not come to conscious existence, there is deliverance everywhere.... What is Buddha? Ans. A mind clear and at rest. What is the Law? Ans. A mind clear and enlightened. What is Tau? Ans. In every place absence of impediments and pure enlightenment. These three are one.
The reverend author of Chinese Buddhism makes merry over the symbolism of Buddhist discipline. Yet the self-inflicted “slaps on the cheek” and “blows under the ribs” find their pendants in the mortifications of the body and self-flagellation—“the discipline of the scourge”—of the Christian monks, from the first centuries of Christianity down to our own day. But then the said author is a Protestant, who substitutes for mortification and discipline—good living and comfort. The sentence in the Lin-tsi,
The “true man, without a position,” Wu-wei-chen-jen, is wrapped in a prickly shell, like the chestnut. He cannot be approached. This is Buddha—the Buddha within you,
is laughed at. Truly
An infant cannot understand the seven enigmas!