"He is clever and cunning. He can manage to befool people who are not enlightened because they don't have anything to compare his statements with. They don't have any of their own experience as a criterion to decide whether what he is saying is worth saying, or if he is just making much fuss about nothing.

"The first sutra:

Worldly passions are like a blazing fire; when will they ever end?

"Now this is from a man who, in his previous sutras, has said that everything is illusory – the world is illusory, the senses are illusory, the mind is illusory, even the Buddha is illusory!

"If everything is illusory, then from where come these worldly passions which are like a blazing fire? They are not illusory. He has forgotten, because it was not his own understanding. He simply quoted. But the reality is, he knows his passions are like a blazing fire; he has not gone beyond passions.

"Talking about even Buddha as an illusion is not only stupid, it is immensely harmful. People who will read it, if they see that even Buddha is illusory, enlightenment is illusory, will wonder then what is the point of unnecessarily running from one illusion to another illusion?

"One illusion cannot be better than another illusion. Illusions are simply illusions; there is no qualitative difference.

Right in the midst of the hubbub, you must not forget the business of the bamboo chair and reed cushion.

"He cannot say directly, 'Don't forget meditation.' The word meditation somehow hurts all intellectuals, because it is something beyond the grasp of the intellect. They want to be on the top, and suddenly they feel that there is something more beyond their grasp. So rather than simply using the word meditation, he says, 'Don't forget the business of the bamboo chair and reed cushion.'

"He may think he is being very clever, but it is just his unconscious showing itself – its antagonism for meditation. He is not a man of meditation at all.

Usually (to meditate) you set your mind on a still concentration point…

"That is absolutely wrong! That's why I say the man is not a man of meditation."