This old monk does not dwell in clarity.

Zhaozhou instructed: 至道无难，唯嫌捡择，才有语言，是捡择，是明白，老僧不在明白里。The first two lines are the instruction of the Third Patriarch of Chan, meaning that wanting to recognize the great Way is not difficult; what is feared is that you take the conscious mind—which can carry out mental activities such as thinking, choosing, analyzing, judging, reasoning, and recognizing—as the great Way. If so, you would be heading in exactly the opposite direction. Taking these mental activities as the Way goes against the Way. These mental activities do not accord with the Way, the original awakening (benjue). The self-nature of original awakening does not choose, does not decide, does not analyze, does not judge, and has no thinking. The eighth consciousness, the original awakening, has none of these mental activities; if such mental activities are present, they are certainly the doing of the mind consciousness, not the original awakening.

Zhaozhou gave a commentary on this, saying: As soon as language, words, or inner thinking arise, this is already choosing, this is already "understanding"; I, this old monk, am simply not within that understanding. Zhaozhou's meaning is that the original awakening, the eighth consciousness, has no language, cannot speak, does not think, analyze, or judge, does not choose anything, and does not understand or know any of the six sense-object realms. This capacity of understanding and knowing belongs to the mind consciousness, not to the real Zhaozhou, this very self.