Bassui, the great 14th century Zen monk, wrote several letters to ardent students who were unable to physically attend his sesshins. They are full of brilliant pointers and a sense of urgency about practice. Most telling of all was a common thread he left in closing: "I am afraid I have written too much...;" "I have written as you have asked me but reluctantly. Once you have read this letter, burn it....;" "I dislike writing you in such detail...;" "After you have read it, drop it in the fire." Why his reticence? Because Bassui knew that every word he put to paper would be a magnet for his student's intellect, that his very effort to kill conceptualization could become a seed of a bed of conceptual weeds that would instead invigorate ego and intellect to one last stand. This is the central paradox of the pathless path: the map itself proves the final obstruction and must be burned.
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