How wonderful that you've made the effort to study this marvelous text! Memorizing it is a good idea. Just living with texts such as this one is the best way to understanding.
As to the two lines you quote:
I basically agree with what you say about the first line. Awakening is not something to be "achieved." If we see it as something to go after, we are going off in the wrong direction. This way of understanding is nothing but our usual way of thinking: we do x to get y. We go to school to get educated to get a job, e.g. This is ok for usual things, but not for the Ultimate (and even for relative things, the awakened approach is to act wholeheartedly in all situations). We can't "achieve" awakening" because we are already awake. It's more a matter of giving up, letting go than of striving. Everything we need is right here, every moment. Of course, we shouldn't be lax either. Being awake requires some effort, but it must be right effort, the effort to be aware, mindful moment to moment. All the rest is the result of a confused mind that looks for satisfaction in "outside" things including spiritual things.
The second line, as I see it, continues that theme. "Guest" is often used to mean seekers, students. It also implies seeking for fulfillment outside of our own homes, i.e. ourselves. It seems to refer to teachers whose aim it is to entice students to study with them. It implies duality to me--as if there are separate beings called teachers and students. As if a teacher can bring a student to awakening. As you say and as Shitou says, just "shine the light within". Dogen tells us to "learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest."
The main thrust of the poem, as I read it, is to point us to learning that backward step. Ultimately, as Linji says, there's "nothing to do, nowhere to go." If we just settle the mind, well-being will arise of itself, "body and mind will drop away." It's so simple, but we constantly miss it, getting tangled in our own thinking, our own views. Dukkha, as Dharma Field teacher Bev Forsman put it, is living in the container of our thoughts.
Those are some thoughts that arise from your question. I think they are close to what you too are saying. Anyhow, let the words point you to that which is beyond words.
As to other works by Shitou, he also wrote a wonderful poem called The Merging of Difference and Unity. I've attached a copy. There's a book of Suzuki Roshi's commentaries on this poem called Branching Streams Flow in Darkness. I have a copy. I was thinking perhaps we could study that book and meet a few times to discuss it. What do you think?
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