Daio said to Genchu:
Since ancient times, the enlightened ancestors appearing in the world relied just on their own fundamental experience to reveal something of what is before us: so we see them knocking chairs and raising whisks, hitting the ground and brandishing sticks, beating a drum or rolling balls…
Daio continued:
Even though this is so, eminent Genchu, you have traveled all over and spent a long time in monasteries. Don’t worry about such old calendar days as these I mentioned – just go by the living road you see on your own; going east, going west, like a hawk sailing through the skies. In the blink of an eye you cross over to the other side.
On another occasion Daio said to Kusho:
The cause and conditions of the one great concern of the enlightened ones is not apart from your daily affairs. There is no difference between here and there. It pervades past and present, shining through the heavens, mirroring the earth. That is why it is said that everything in the last myriad eons is right in the present.
We value the great spirit of a hero only in those concerned. Before any signs become distinct, before any illustration is evident, concentrate fiercely, looking, looking, coming or going, till your effort is completely ripe.
In the moment of a thought, you attain union. The mind of birth and death is destroyed and suddenly you clearly see your original appearance, the scene of your native land; each particular distinctly clear. You then see and hear just as the buddhas did, know and act as the enlightened ancestors did.

Maneesha, one who is interested in knowing who he is has two ways open to him. One is the way of knowledge: reading scriptures, studying old scholars, collecting as many concepts about one’s being as possible. That is the cheaper way. There would be nothing wrong if it were only that it is cheaper, but it is wrong, too.

The second way is not to bother about others. Howsoever valuable those scriptures may be, they cannot give you even a single glimpse of your fundamental nature. A thousand buddhas together cannot force you to become a buddha.

It is your essential right to know your fundamental nature or not to know it. You cannot be forced by teachers, by parents. Yes, they can force knowledge upon you, they can force ideologies upon you. They do force religion, without understanding that if you are full of ideologies you become almost crippled, prevented from knowing your own nature. You are so burdened with borrowed knowledge that you cannot travel to the higher mountains. You have to drop all your weight. As you go high even breathing becomes difficult; even to have your clothes on becomes difficult. You have to drop all weight, you have to become weightless.

What is true in mountaineering is also true in the inner world of consciousness. If you want to go in you will have to cut through, in a single blow, all the knowledge that has been given to you. Just burn it! It is better to be ignorant on the path – because at least ignorance is innocence – than to be knowledgeable.

Knowledgeability is the greatest hindrance to knowing, because you think as if you already know. But there is no “as if” in existence. Either you know it or you don’t know it. And there is no way of communicating it through words; all words will be misunderstood. Only the presence of a living master, a wordless silence, can perhaps become a glimpse, a triggering point in you. It is not being done by the master; it happens in your receptivity, in your openness. Something clicks. There is no other word to replace the word click.

Daio is saying to Genchu:

Since ancient times, the enlightened ancestors appearing in the world relied just on their own fundamental experience to reveal something of what is before us…