If one is awake, then he should never get so close to the rear end of a mule that he is able to be kicked. So making anything is a big mistake. All ideas of attainment must melt away. The eighth picture is just an empty circle, the circle that has been the frame for the first seven pictures. But there is also no idea of negating the existence of the man or the ox.
All opposites dissolve into the ground of being.
In our school we call this the attainment of first enlightenment. But as long as we have any conceptualizations about what enlightenment might be like, or notions about ourselves as unusual men or women, its attainment remains a thousand miles away. This is the mind that Te Shan found when he traveled to south China to check out the Ch'an teachers. If you can answer one question for me I'll give you free all of the rice cakes that you want, but if you cannot answer me then you are a fraud and must go away. Ask me anything that you like.