Followers of the way...

Followers of the Way, what Dharma do I expound?  I expound the Dharma of the Heart-ground.  This pervades everything;  it is in the worldly and in the sacred, in the pure and impure, the fine and the coarse.  The most essential thing is that you refrain from making labels, such as fine or coarse, worldly or sacred, and (mistakenly) think that by naming them you now know them.  But the fine and the coarse, the worldly and the sacred cannot be known to man by name only.  Followers of the Way, realize this and make use of it, but do not slap labels on it, for these tend to be like pen-names, only creating mystery.

From "The Zen Teachings of Rinzai" translated by Irmgard Schloegl (Shambhala Publications, 1975, p. 25)

Master Rinzai passed away in 866 AD,  just thirty-one years after our own founder, Kobo Daishi Kukai passed away on Mount Koya Japan.  Though Master Rinzai was a hard and iconoclastic teacher from the Zen tradition, much of his teachings echos in Kukai's words as well.  Perhaps Master Rinzai was a young dharma student while Master Kukai was in China studying under Hui-kuo...