"But this is not your vision, this is not your seeing, this is your thinking. And thinking is dualistic; the outer and the inner are categories of thinking. For understanding, there is nothing outer and nothing is inner. Existence simply is.

"Or, you can say the inner and the outer are nothing but two sides of the same coin, inseparable. The question of friction does not arise, even separation is impossible. But mind lives on friction; its whole existence is that of continuous struggle, struggle against itself.

"The man of understanding knows no outer, no inner. He knows only a transcendental awareness in which all outer, all inner is dissolved – and resolved.

"A Japanese king went to see Lin Chi, a famous master of his time. Just as he entered the forest in which Lin Chi lived with his disciples he saw a woodcutter. Naturally he asked him, 'Where can I find the master?'

"For a moment the woodcutter stopped and told him, 'It is here,' and again he started cutting.

"The man thought, 'He looks crazy…I don't see anybody here, and this man cannot be Lin Chi. A world-famous master is not going to cut wood in the hot sun.'

"Thinking that it was useless to ask him more, the king started moving farther on his way. The woodcutter laughed and he said, 'It seems you can only meet him on the inner, not on the outer.'

"The king was a little afraid. That man had an axe in his hand…and was talking such nonsense. He said, 'I will find my way. Please don't get excited about it; you just do your work.'

"When he reached Lin Chi's house he was surprised. The man who was sitting there in the master's robe was exactly like the woodcutter. He said, 'I am puzzled; do you have a twin brother?'

"He said, 'Yes, the outer is my twin brother. I am the inner. He cuts wood, I show the way towards the ultimate truth – but in fact we are both one.'

"There is no friction in Lin Chi. But in the king's mind there is trouble, because he divides according to the categories we have been conditioned for."