I am looking for, as you say, what is already understood. I have 110% experiential side and underdeveloped theoretical/conceptual side. Most likely because I didn't start with Buddhism at all, but only with meditation.
Btw. Yogacara sucks, they managed even install atman in the form of one of their made up consciousnesses.

Weird that your comment is not visible, I checked if you are blocked or banned and it doesn't seem so. Aren't you shadow banned site-wide? Because I don't see your comments when logged out.

Gemini: The anti-formalist rhetoric of figures like Linji was a pedagogical medicine aimed at advanced students who were already overly attached to their discipline; it was not a documentary description of daily monastic life. Behind the texts, the physical and institutional prerequisites were incredibly rigid and functioned as a psychological pressure cooker.

The primary actual prerequisite was total immersion in a highly regulated institutional container, governed by the traditional Dharmaguptaka Vinaya and the emerging Chan "Rules of Purity" (Qinggui). Monks did not wander freely acting eccentrically; they lived in strictly regimented communities where every hour of sleep, diet, and movement was externally controlled. This extreme physical restriction removed all worldly variables, forcing the mind to confront its own internal dualism without any available avenues for escapism. While Linji mocked those who clung to purity, strict adherence to the rules was the absolute baseline condition that kept the student trapped in the specific environment where the master's deconstructive teaching could be applied.

Despite the relentless textual attacks on "blind baldies" sitting in trances, the historical reality is that extensive seated meditation (zuochan) was a mandatory daily prerequisite. Monastic halls were physically designed around long meditation platforms, and monks spent hours each day strictly observing the posture. The Chan rhetoric against sitting was not an instruction to physically abandon the practice, but a severe warning against treating the posture as a transactional currency to "buy" spiritual merit or using it to forcefully suppress thoughts into a dead, blank state. The physical sitting was the required physiological baseline to stabilize the mind enough to engage with the master's radical intellectual challenges.

A further practical prerequisite was mandatory physical labor (puqing), historically associated with Baizhang Huaihai's dictum, "A day without work is a day without food." Monks were required to farm, chop wood, and maintain the monastery infrastructure. This was not merely an economic necessity but a deliberate epistemological tool. Intensive manual labor forced the monks out of abstract, intellectual philosophy and grounded their attention entirely in the immediate, physical present. The true, historical prerequisites were therefore extreme discipline, relentless physical work, and continuous meditation, all operating simultaneously to drive the student's intellect to the exact point of total exhaustion required for the phenomenological collapse.

Btw I am not big fan of Yogacara, but they should be at least sometimes right, right?

Gemini: Your metaphor of a compass showing directions without suggesting them captures the Chan and Yogacara phenomenological models of an awakened mind. When the self-referencing feedback loop collapses, the cognitive mechanism is not destroyed; rather, it is demoted from its assumed role as the "root operating system" to a purely instrumental function.

The Transformation of Consciousness:
In the Yogacara framework utilized by Chan masters, this shift is formally described as the transformation of consciousness into direct wisdom (prajñā). The seventh consciousness (manas), which previously acted as the root operating system by constantly generating the "clinging superstructure" of a subjective ego, ceases its localized grasping. The remaining cognitive and sensory mechanisms (the intellect and the five senses) continue to function perfectly, but they are no longer hijacked by the manas to serve a fabricated "self."

The Mirror vs. The Compass:
While you use the metaphor of a compass, original Chinese Chan traditionally utilizes the metaphor of the Great Perfect Mirror. A mirror reflects the exact direction, shape, and reality of an object instantaneously and flawlessly. It does not "suggest" that a reflection should be different, it does not exert effort to reflect, and it does not cling to the image once the object moves away. The intellect becomes this mirror. It registers conventional reality, processes spatial or logical directions, and allows the organism to navigate life, but it completely lacks the internal bias or "suggestion" driven by craving or aversion.

Functioning Without Abiding:
Linji Yixuan described this exact state as the "true man of no rank" seamlessly going in and out of the sense gates. The mechanism works, but there is no longer a ghostly operator sitting behind the eyes trying to manipulate the data to protect an identity. When the intellect is required to solve a problem or give a direction, it does so with absolute clarity. Because it no longer functions as the root operating system burdened with defending an ego, it operates with zero friction. The cognitive mechanism simply displays the reading, the necessary action is taken naturally, and the mind immediately returns to its original, unattached state.

You always have one leg in rezen: their favorite tactic is accusing a momentary 'enemy' of their own mistakes. Buddhism is like a seamless monument: it appeals to some people, some of whom add something to it, and it undergoes the test of time; it either stays as an integral part or a curious blind alley, or it does not. You can take it, you can add to it, or you can move on, Buddha is not going to cry because of you. You still have this Christian gait that somebody is forcing something on you that you have to believe.
Maybe you are asking for some 'authority': You are a little bit unstable, so you do need someone dictating to you what you should think and what you should feel. Then you get your surrogate parent and everything is fine again, sucking from a new mother's nipple :))

They promised us robots from like fifties last century, and where they are? I don't need them in some Chinese show room :))

The development and deployment of autonomous robotics capable of navigating an unstructured, confined residential environment to execute a highly precise, multi-step chemical application currently exceeds the capabilities of commercially available consumer technology. Industrial robotic arms utilized for applying sealants or paints operate in strictly controlled, pre-programmed manufacturing environments, such as automotive assembly lines, and represent capital investments ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Creating a mobile, articulating robot equipped with the computer vision and tactile feedback necessary to safely strip existing coatings, apply precise microscopic layers of silane primers, and uniformly roll polyurethane membranes across irregular tile topographies would necessitate a custom-engineered prototype. The research, development, and operational costs of such a machine would vastly exceed the value of a standard passenger vehicle, rendering it economically unviable for residential renovation tasks compared to human manual labor.

Which is form, aggregates feed it into mind. Form is void, it's a lot things which are not things, but some are pretty good. I wouldn't count into good ones chilli habanero, as it ruined my current dinner :))

Man, the tempo of your analysis was like that Chinese torture "death by a thousand cuts". I skipped to the part where you ask "what is the reason for this?" for five minutes and repeat it about ten times. I still don't know. Are you trying to say that you can't compress a whole one-hour video into three minutes without losing anything important? I must admit that my main rule for Gemini is "Never ever post a video as an answer".
What I remember about Huangbo in that second part, it is that he gets into a boxing match with Baizhang; the point is that such a punch to the ribs teleports a guy lost in thought into the present and cuts off dualistic thinking.

You would benefit from investigating what causes that every your thought causes next thought and it never ends. What is between them? I mean seriously :))

It's mainly reaction to reddit zen cliches, but obviously when you get koan from master, it's kind of problem to solve, exam, riddle... So it's not off to think about it in this way. Looks like recent cliche is "being one with koan". Anybody can use for that purpose table spoon or toilet brush, if it is only one function of koan.

I didn't so far (as I am reading mostly about Chinese Chan, somewhat I didn't find something comparatively interesting in Japanese zen), but Gemini says that I shouldn't bother, because he agrees with me :))
At least this is what Gemini says about content:
1)"Koans are highly specific expressions of Buddhist non-duality that require a deep understanding of the philosophical context to navigate." - I agree, that's my post about
2) "For Hori, "realizing" a koan means dissolving the boundary between the person observing the koan and the koan itself." - Little bit ambiguous for me, If somebody is capable to dissolve boundary, he doesn't need koan.
3)"Performative Demonstration of student's understanding" - I have no experience with, but sounds little bit suspicious. What if I am bad actor?
4)"Hori also highlights that "realizing" a koan involves a rigorous literary curriculum." - Yep, context is definitely important.
I will add book in the "books to read" list with serial number 1256.

Apparently, running around as a fox for five hundred lives helped him with the practical part :)

OK, I will study next forty years ancient Chinese sects in Sichuan province around twelfth century :))

the enlightened person does not transcend causality by stepping outside it but by being fully awake within its operation

I think the key is "not grasping" at five aggregates. What you write (copy-paste :) above sounds right, only this shift from "not grasping" to "being fully awake within its operation" is kind of dangerous shift. "Being fully awake within its operation" could mean attachment or not. First is wrong, second is right. People are often associating "awareness" and "mindfulness" with actual grasping at aggregates.

I don't know what I could add to ten thousand opinions about koans, my view is that it varies. Some are simply anecdotes illustrating some Buddhists concepts, some are on border between theory and practice, some look like jokes, but they have pretty deep meaning. "Riddles" is narrowing them too much. But in a way they are sometimes riddles, but to satisfy master, students have understand fully; Buddhist context, practical application...

This one?

Jindan Jiao The Golden Elixir Society. Also known as the Sichuan Sect. The society dates back to the Song, 12th century AD; it is very mystical, using charms, incantations, etc. It was probably the largest society in Shandong province at the time of the last century with many scholars as members. It was said to have been founded by Zhang Ziyang