Chan has no realm, yet in every realm there is Chan.

A monk asked Zhaozhou: How does one practice Chan and attain enlightenment? The hundred-year-old Zhaozhou, as if he had an urgent matter, said: Sorry, I cannot tell you right now, because I urgently need to relieve myself. So Zhaozhou walked out, then suddenly stopped and said to the monk: This old monk is advanced in years and is called the Ancient Buddha, yet such a small matter as relieving myself still requires me to go personally—no one can go in my place. Upon hearing this, the monk was greatly enlightened.

When the monk asked Zhaozhou about practicing Chan and attaining enlightenment, old Zhaozhou, upon hearing the question, personally manifested Chan, telling that monk where to enter into awakening and where the eighth consciousness is. As soon as the monk's question fell, Zhaozhou began to display the marks of Chan everywhere, revealing at every point where Chan is and how it functions. Then we should know: in all the great and small affairs of worldly dharmas, who is it that does them, who does and who does not do them, and how they are done. We should also come to realize that the myriad dharmas are indeed false and unreal, like a dream or an illusion. The wise, upon hearing one thing, awaken to a thousand—why insist that Chan is a state? What state does Chan have? Chan is not a dharma of states, yet in all kinds of states there truly is Chan, and it is inseparable from Chan that states as dharmas exist.

Nansen, even more, constantly displayed the eighth consciousness; otherwise, he would have had no way to kill the cat. And even after Zhaozhou heard of Nansen killing the cat, he took off his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out—this too was a display. When Nansen saw this, he greatly praised it, saying: If you had been present, you would have killed the cat in my place as the manifestation, and I would not have needed to kill the cat.