An intelligent fool and the Dharma are quickly parted.
When that parting occurs a valid return to the Dharma is imperiled and always accompanied by deep indelible stains that are difficult to expunge and easy to cover by the intelligent cognitive mind.
It takes a great deal of introspection and courage that is not intellectual but based upon direct experiences to recover from that original error. Admitting that error is to reveal one's apparent foolish self before one's peers and that is extremely difficult. It is easier to cover the error with words and a false face of sensitivity and creativity, apparently living the Dharma, but really establishing a sad theatre of continual absurdity covered with a plethora of Dharma words and phrases.
These are people who have great potential that is wasted upon a throne of mindlessness and ego and the sad story is that they lead so many others into the same trap stealing their natural heritage, covering with sad rhetoric and theatrical sensitivity the True Dharma that is within everyone's grasp if they see that what they must do is simply let the thinking mind fall and simply extend their hand outwards towards their interior truths.
Since Chan (then unnamed as such) began, warnings have been made about the danger of using word ideas and mental concepts and yet the warnings seldom seem to have been effective. We speak of the Buddha Dharma Path, but there is no Buddha Dharma Path, for those are simply words. Similarly there are no Teachings, for the idea of there being teachings, since they are of word concepts, is ludicrous. And yet all masters since the early times have used them with adequate warning.
The Teachings at best are only a means to gain attention and second to permit an approach to that point where the word concepts are no longer of use. When all is sufficiently internalized and the so-called practices of Contemplation emerge without any attached conceptualization, we can speak of True Chan. Likewise, when the teachings are all understood at a deeper level than mere intellect and are no longer neccesary to bring forward to cognition and consciousness except to teach others, then we can speak of True Chan.
There is no Path of Chan and that must be clear even though that concept is brought forward, for the Path of Chan can be said to begin as a NO PATH when one passes beyond the concepts that create a path.
Similarly the Teachings become NO TEACHINGS when they too pass into an effective spontaneity that requires no further cognition with regard to what has been effectively learned and stored in memory.