The transcendent is beyond the road of thought and the road of words. Such roads eventually run out of road. This is where the road of Zen or the same, the road of intuition begins, but it's not an ordinary dirt road. In fact, it is not a road of at all in the usual sense. It begins when all of the roads have come to their end.
Upon reading these words, the average Zen student will still take the road of thought and the road of words. But the end of these roads leads to a dead end with no more signs or directions. Wandering around aimlessly is no way either. On such a trek one can say they are exploring. But what does that mean? The Zen student is really lost with no sense of fulfillment. He or she is running out of ideas: There are no real options left.
This is what comes from the practice of ordinary person Zen 凡夫禪 (bompu Zen). These are people who have very little spiritual depth; who lack intuition (dhyāna). Such people have no idea what it means to arrive at direct knowledge without reasoning or inferring, which in the case of Zen is direct knowledge of Buddha-nature.
Still, it must be said that there are different types of Zen because there are different kinds of people with differing abilities. In fact, this is a typical beginner’s mistake: to think that Zen is Zen and that when you visit a temple you're talking to enlightened people. Nevertheless, it could be a situation in which you are a fool amongst educated fools. One should never underestimate one's stupidity or overestimate one's abilities.
When the student of Zen knows he or she has run out of road, or comes to a dead end, that is the time when Zen really begins (because they are engaging with themselves intrapersonally). In their heart of hearts they still love Zen Buddhism but they realize that they are getting no place in this particular tradition.
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