"

The scholar, Ryo of Seizan, once had a meeting with Baso,
who asked him,
'What sutra are you lecturing on?'

"The poor scholar was not aware that he has entered into the den of a lion. Entering into it is easy, but getting out of it is impossible. Getting into the hands of Baso, you have already committed suicide. Baso was such a swordlike, sharp master. He killed people this way and that, and brought hundreds of people to enlightenment. This poor scholar does not know that meeting Baso once is meeting your death.

"That's how the ancients have defined the function of a master. It is not to teach you, but to kill you: it is not to impart knowledge to you, but simply to take away all knowledge from you. Even the very sense of 'I' has to disappear.

"The scholar was not aware that meeting Baso once is enough, twice will be too much. He asked him, 'What sutra are you lecturing on?'

'The mind sutra'

"Baso replied,

'By what do you lecture?'
Ryo answered, 'With mind.'
Baso said, 'The mind is like an actor, the meaning like a jester,
the six senses like an acquaintance;
how can the mind lecture on a sutra?'

"Mind cannot speak, not even with a single finger can it indicate the ultimate. All that mind is doing is a controlled, relevant gibberish – on the surface looking very silent, inside a madhouse. This madhouse cannot say a single word about the truth; it knows nothing, although it plays the game as if it knows.

Ryo retorted, 'If mind cannot lecture, can't no-mind?'

"Just a logical, intellectual question, not authentic, not coming from his own experience but simply Because Baso says mind cannot speak on the truth, logically it can be asked, 'Then do you think no-mind can speak?'

Baso replied, 'Yes, no-mind can lecture all right.'
Ryo dusted his sleeves and began to take his departure.
Baso called to him and said, 'Professor!'
Ryo turned his head.
Baso said, 'From birth to death, this is how it is.'

"The no-mind Mind continuously changes: a child's mind is one thing, a young man's mind is another thing, a mature middle-aged mind is another thing, the mind of an old man is another thing."