Chan has no realms, yet every realm contains Chan.

A monk asked Zhaozhou: How does one practice Chan and attain enlightenment? The hundred-year-old Zhaozhou, as if pressed for time, said: "Sorry, I cannot tell you right now, because I need to relieve myself." So Zhaozhou walked out, then suddenly stopped and said to the monk: "This old monk is advanced in years and is called an ancient Buddha, yet such a small matter as relieving myself still requires me to go in person; there is no way to find someone to do it in my place." Upon hearing this, the monk was greatly awakened.

When the monk asked Zhaozhou about practicing Chan and attaining enlightenment, old Zhaozhou, upon hearing the question, personally manifested Chan, showing that monk where to enter awakening and where the eighth consciousness is. As soon as the monk's question fell, Zhaozhou began to shake out the appearance of Chan, everywhere revealing where Chan is and how it functions. Then we should know: in all matters great and small of worldly dharmas, who is it that does them, who does and who does not do them, and how are they done? One should also realize that all dharmas are indeed false and unreal, like a dream or an illusion. A wise person, hearing one thing, awakens to a thousand—why insist that Chan is a state? What state does Chan have? Chan is not a dharma of states, yet in all kinds of states there truly is Chan, and it is inseparable from Chan that states as dharmas exist.

Nanquan, even more so, constantly shook out the eighth consciousness; otherwise, he would have had no way to kill the cat. And when Zhaozhou, after hearing of Nanquan's killing of the cat, took off his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out—that too was shaking it out. When Nanquan saw this, he greatly praised it, saying: "If you had been present, you could have taken my place in killing the cat to demonstrate it, and I would not have needed to kill the cat."