Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma, Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Japanese artist Yoshitoshi (1887).

Bodhidharma (菩提達磨) (5-6th centuries CE) was a semilegndary Buddhist monk and traditional founder of Chán Buddhism in China.

Quotes

The Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices《二入四行論》

• Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice.
  • Red Pine. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. 1989. p. 3
• Neither gods nor men can forsee when an evil deed will bear its fruit.
  • Red Pine. p. 5

The Bloodstream Sermon《血脈論》

• Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It's not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can't grab it. Beyond this mind you'll never see a buddha. The buddha is a product of your mind. Why look for a buddha beyond this mind?
  • Red Pine. p. 10-11
• To find a buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a buddha. If you don't see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking buddha's results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good memory; keeping precepts results in a good rebirth, and making offerings results in future blessings–but no buddha.
  • Red Pine. p. 12-13
• Unless they see their nature, how can people call themselves buddhas? They're liars who deceive others into entering the realm of devils. Unless they see their nature, their preaching of the Twelve-fold Canon is nothing but the preaching of devils. Their allegiance is to Mara, not to the Buddha. Unable to distinguish white from black, how can they escape birth and death?
  • Red Pine. p. 15

Treatise on Realizing the Nature 《悟性論》

• The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.
  • Red Pine p. 47

Refuting Signs Treatise 《破相論》

• Seeing through the mundane and witnessing the sublime is less than an eye-blink away. Realization is now. Why worry about gray hair?
  • Red Pine. p. 113

Quotes about Bodhidharma

• The first Patriarch in China came from the west to the eastern lands at the instruction of the Venerable Prajñātara. For the three years of frosts and springs during that ocean voyage, how could the wind and snow have been the only miseries? Through how many formations of cloud and sea-mist might the steep waves have surged? He was going to an unknown country: ordinary beings who value their body and life could never conceive [of such a journey]. This must have been maintenance of the practice realized solely from the great benevolent will to transmit the Dharma and save deluded emotional beings. It was so because the transmission of Dharma is [Bodhidharma] himself; it was so because the transmission of Dharma is the entire Universe; it was so because the whole Universe in ten directions is the real state of truth; it was so because the whole Universe in ten directions is [Bodhidharma] himself; and it was so because the whole Universe in ten directions is the whole Universe in ten directions.
  • Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross. Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, Book 2. 1996. p. 173