The teaching is spoken because there are people. The medicine is prescribed because there is sickness. The dharma which the Tathagata speaks cannot be grasped. It is like sweeping the floor when it is dusty. Who speaks? Who sweeps? The dharma spoken is dharma-dust, which the Tathagata sweeps away. It cannot be grasped. It is not dharma and not no dharma. What dharma is there? There are none. There isn’t anything at all.

Therefore, that which distinguishes the worthy sages is unconditioned dharma. Unconditioned dharma is non-active and devoid of marks, characterized by its lack of marks. Basically the Buddhadharma does not need to be studied. No one is apart from it; everyone is capable of knowing it. When attachment is relinquished the Buddhadharma appears. If attachments are not relinquished the more one grasps the less one has. Before everything has been put down, nothing can be picked up. It is necessary to put attachments down with the left hand and with the right hand pick up real mark prajña. But to say one can pick up prajña is just a figure of speech. That is not to say there is actually something that can be grasped with the hands. If one could grasp all of empty space in one fist, then one could grasp hold of real mark prajña. If unable to grasp all of empty space with one swipe of the hand, one should make no futile attempt to clutch at real mark prajña. Real mark prajña exhausts empty space and pervades the dharma realm. All things are basically within real mark prajña. How could a firmer grip than that be had? It is simply because of attachments that the basic substance of the dharma body has not been attained, and one’s original face not recognized. …

Those who can truly put everything down and investigate the meaning of that, can attain genuine, originally existent real mark prajña. To say it is attained is just a figure of speech. There is absolutely nothing attained because nothing was ever lost.