Question: Chan Master, have you attained the mind of the sages?

Answer: I have no attainment.

Question: If you have no attainment, how do you have knowledge?

Answer: Right now I have neither attainment nor knowledge. Thus the sutra says: “He has no knowledge and no attainment. By having no attainment, he is a bodhisattva.”

Guifeng Zongmi (780 CE-841 CE), Guifeng Zongmi was a Tang dynasty Buddhist scholar and bhikkhu, installed as fifth patriarch of the Huayan school as well as a patriarch of the Heze school of Southern Chan Buddhism. He wrote a number of works on the contemporary situation of Tang Buddhism, which also discussed Taoism and Confucianism.