Hui Neng
My choice for the ninth [book] is Hui Neng, the Chinese successor to Bodhidharma. The Teachings of Hui Neng are as yet unknown, and untranslated outside Japan (*). Hui Neng is one of the pinnacles, the very crescendo a man can rise to. Hui Neng does not say much; he only gives hints, just a few hints. But they are enough. Like footprints, if you can follow you will reach. What he says is essentially not different from Buddha or Jesus, but the way he says it is his own, authentically original. He says it in his own way, and that proves he is not a parrot, not a pope or a priest. Hui Neng can be summarized very easily, but can only be realized by those who can risk all. He can be summarized very easily because all that he says is: Do not think; be. But to realize it one will need many lives, unless one is utterly intelligent; then, this very moment, here-now, it can become a reality in you. It is already a reality in me, why can′t it become a reality in you? Except you, nobody is preventing it.
(Osho - Books I Have Loved)
The truth cannot be had at any price. It cannot be obtained from
others in exchange for something. 
It is the fruit of
self-development. Emperor Bimbasara once went to Mahavira and said,
"I want to attain truth. I am willing to give anything I possess but
I must have the truth that rids man of all sorrow." Mahavira saw that
the ruler wanted to conquer truth in the same way he had conquered
the world; that he even wanted to buy the truth. So understanding
that it was ego that spoke, Mahavira said to Bimbasara, "Excellency,
first go to Punya Shravak, a citizen of your empire, and get from
him the fruit of his meditation. That will make your journey to
emancipation and truth easier." Bimbasara went to Punya Shravak and
said, "I have come to ask something. I want to buy the fruit of your
meditation. I will pay whatever price you require." On hearing the
emperor′s request, Punya Shravak replied, "My Lord, meditation means
serenity. It means keeping the mind free from temptation and hatred
and remaining steady in one′s self. How can this be given by one
person to another? You want to buy it, but this is impossible. You
will have to acquire it yourself." There is no other way. The truth
cannot be purchased. It can neither be obtained as a gift nor by
begging. And it cannot be conquered by attack. Attacking truth is
not the way to attain it. Violence is an expression of ego and where
the ego is, truth cannot exist. To attain truth you have to reduce
yourself to zero. Truth comes through the door of the void, of
emptiness. It doesn′t come through the attack of the ego but through
sensitivity and the receptivity of emptiness. Don′t attack truth
- prepare an opening in yourself for it to come in.
Hui-neng said
that there was a way to attain truth: cultivation through
no-cultivation. No-cultivation is laid down as a condition in order
to avoid the use of force in cultivation. This is inaction, this
no-cultivation. It is not attaining but emptying - but it is the way
to attain truth. The extent to which you empty yourself is the
extent to which you attain. Where does rainwater go? It doesn′t stay
on the hills, but runs into the empty ditches. The nature of truth is
similar to the nature of water. If you want to attain truth empty
yourself completely. As soon as you are empty, the truth will fill
that empty place with itself. Truth is within you. It is within me.
You don′t have to go anywhere else to look for it. You just have to
dig it out of yourselves as you dig wells for water. You have to dig
the well of the soul. And meditation is the spade for digging that
well. With the spade of meditation we must dig out the earth of the
outside world that covers our nature - and then the one we are
seeking is near. He is hidden in the seeker himself.
Notes:
The Teachings of Hui Neng have been preserved in what is called The Platform Sutra. This sutra has changed in the course of four centuries and exists in different versions, which have meanwhile been translated.