I have only used the phrase "wits' end" a few times (3?) but the more I give it thought, it describes for me where those who have awakened to ultimate reality have had to go. We can think of it as being at the limit of one's intellectual or mental abilities—even the limits of one's sanity. In this respect, we have reached a cul-de-sac from where any thought or hope of progress is impossible. Being at our wits' end cannot be faked if we have ended up as a Buddhist hermit; which is why I stress a retreat of several months or more, far from the madding crowd where you are on your own—really on your own.
In this process, our hope has to be met with an impenetrable wall of you shall not pass. Although we have a good idea that we have to see pure Mind or unborn Mind, our plan of attack has to be shut down. Only pure Mind will allow entry through the gateless gate. To appreciate this problem in another way, imagine that all your life you've been stuck in horizontal consciousness. Now you've decided to enter vertical consciousness, but nowhere can you find it! But don't be dumb! How can the horizontal be of help to you? It can't! It's the same with pure Mind—impure, agitated, concept laden mind can be of no help. First, you have to stop your path, that is, going horizontal. This is the wits' end. Now it is really possible to see pure Mind.
Imagine now, you were sitting in front of a great Zen master. At some point in the koan exercise he would stop your horizontal ideas of the vertical with a shout or a well timed slap across your face. The horizontal road would suddenly stop. There, right now, the vertical. (But you're not that lucky to find one like this to slap your chops at the right moment!) Most can only dream of finding such a person to put them at their wits' end, who then gives them the perfect shove into pure Mind.
Zen offers us no easy way: a way on our own terms. Even if we should meet someone who has realized pure Mind, he or she is going to put us through holy hell to bring us to our wits' end. It would be better for us to be a hermit. It would be a longer path but maybe more respected by us should we awaken. The point I wish to emphasize is we can do it on our own as long as we have a good idea of what we are seeking which is pure Mind (and pure it is). It is only a matter of time until we hit rock bottom, that is, our wits' end where we are able to see pure Mind on its own terms—not ours.
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