Directly awakening to the Way is true awakening.

Steve Jobs said that you should trust your intuition, which transcends to a question, the master would immediately strike him with a board and tell him: "If you can get it, get it—what is there to deliberate about?" Chan masters all guided students to awaken to the Way through intuition, without falling into thinking: when the question was posed, if they awakened, they awakened; if not, they did not—falling into the mind consciousness's deliberation was not permitted. If a Chan master is guiding you to enlightenment and you ponder over and over again, then right when you begin pondering, you should be struck with a blow of the staff and sent home—who allowed you to ponder over and over? Yet nowadays some people, in order to attain enlightenment, ponder for several hours or even several days; such a result is even less credible. The answer might be pondered correctly, but no matter how correct it is, it does not count, precisely because it was worked out by the mind consciousness—it was not directly seen, not personally seen by the manas.

If you interrogate someone about whether they know a certain matter, and that person hemming and hawing thinks it over and over without answering directly, then that person's words are not credible—the thinking within contains elements of concealment and adulteration. For example, suppose you deliberate, analyze, infer, imagine, and ponder the appearance of Beijing, and finally conclude what Beijing is like and how it is—congratulations, you pondered correctly; Beijing is roughly like that. But because you have never been to Beijing, you are not someone who has personally seen Beijing. Only someone who has been to Beijing and entered the city is someone who has personally seen Beijing; such a person's description of Beijing's appearance will be true and genuine, detailed and meticulous, utterly certain, beyond doubt. This is analogous to the elimination of the three fetters in the elimination of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), cutting off doubt, with no lingering uncertainty. Whereas someone who has never been to Beijing, no matter how they describe Beijing's appearance, will inwardly feel insecure and unsure, not daring to be one hundred percent certain. This is analogous to the mind consciousness's intellectual understanding/interpretive awakening, which cannot eliminate the three fetters and cannot cut off doubt and give rise to faith.

Only when you have quietly done all the work behind the scenes and are short by just that tiny bit can a Chan master guide you to enlightenment and realization of the Way—the water flows and the channel forms, entirely natural, without the slightest contrivance, without the slightest adulteration. Or, if only the right conditions and season are lacking, the Chan master will observe you and pay attention to your state, watching whether the season has arrived; once the season arrives, he will give you the opportunity, allowing you to awaken and enter. But if, upon observation, he finds that you are still far off, the Chan master will absolutely not step in to guide you. Yet with enlightenment nowadays, even when a student is still a hundred thousand miles away, they are forcibly dragged along with an iron hook—the result is like pulling up a giant radish, yanking it to death alive, and the future karmic retribution is extremely terrifying.