The Surangama Sutra: The Four Clear and Unalterable Instructions on Purity (Conclusion) & Establishing a Place for Awakening, Part 6 of 8, Dec. 24, 2018

All this is because you don’t find a living Master. You study with His disciples or some lay later-generation disciples, if they still have the instructions in their heart to tell you. Then, because the living Master, meaning the Buddha’s not there anymore, you have to do thus such and such and such and such. Then you can also become enlightened and the Buddha will appear to you and bless you to be enlightened; that is that. So the living Master is the easier way for you, if you can find one. There’s some more. So many Buddha images and Bodhisattvas and heavenly beings already; some more coming, in case you want to try.