"The master said, “It is because you cannot stop your mind which runs on seeking everywhere that a patriarch said, ‘Bah, superior men! Searching for your heads with your heads!’ When at these words you turn your own light in upon yourselves and never seek elsewhere, then you’ll know that your body and mind are not different from those of the patriarch-buddhas and on the instant have nothing to do—this is called ‘obtaining the dharma.’"

- Record of Linji, p 28, tr Sasaki

Take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where the light issues forth.

- Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091-1157: “Cultivating the Empty Field”

What is turning the light around and shining back? (ekō henshō) Illuminating outward things, one’s own light is turned back to shine on the inner self…The knowing mind is the light, errant thoughts are shadows; the light illumining things is called shining, and when the mind and thoughts do not range over things but are turned toward the original nature, this is called turning the light

around and shining back. It is also called panoramic illumination; illumining the whole of the immediate substance, it is where neither delusion nor enlightenment have ever appeared…The nonproduction of a single thought is what is known as the original essence of mind. It is not stopping thought, yet it is also not not stopping thought; it is just the nonproduction of a single thought.

- Lanxi Daolong, 1213-1279 (Treatise on Sitting Meditation)

When your mind experiences a vacant state, which lacks both thought and mental activity, look naturally into the one who notices this state, the one who is not thinking. When you do so, there is a thought-free knowing (rigpa) that is totally open, free from inside and outside, like a clear sky. This knowing is not a duality of that experienced and that experiencing, but you can resolve that it is your own nature and feel the conviction that “it is no other than this.”

- Jamgon Mipham, 1846-1912 (Lamp that Dispels Darkness)