The most difficult part of practicing complete, perfect enlightenment is finding a guiding teacher. Though beyond distinctions such as man or woman, the guiding teacher should be one who has completed the training and is beyond description. Such an ineffable person is not of the past or present, but may be a good counselor with the spirit of a wild fox. He may be a guide and a benefactor, and is never unclear about cause and effect. He may be you, me, him, or her.

Having met with a guiding teacher, we should abandon our secular involvements and, without wasting a moment's time, we should strive to pursue the truth. We should train with consciousness, we should train without consciousness, and we should train with semiconsciousness. We should learn to walk like a Buddha, as if our very heads were on fire. When we train in this manner, we can get past our distractions and delusions. The patriarchs of the past are not anything other than our selves, and the masters who gets free of body and mind are already ourselves.

Attaining the essence and receiving the dharma invariably arise from sincerity and belief. Sincerity never arises from without, and there is no way for sincerity to arise from within. Sincerity simply means attaching more weight to the dharma than to one’s own body. It is to get free from the secular world and to make the state of truth one's home. If we attach even slightly more weight to self-regard for the body than to the dharma, the dharma is not transmitted to us, and we do not attain the truth. Those resolute spirits who attach greater weight to the dharma are not unique and they do not depend upon the exhortation of others (adapted from Shobogenzo Raihai-tokuzui, 1240).