Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.
BODHIDHARMAIf you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?
More Bodhidharma Quotes
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To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature.
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This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached by any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth, or a death, reject them all.
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Still others commit all sorts of evil deeds, claiming karma doesn’t exist. They erroneously maintain that since everything is empty, committing evil isn’t wrong. Such persons fall into a hell of endless darkness with no hope of release. Those who are wise hold no such conception.
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The Way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting.
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The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.
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Externally keep yourself away from all relationships, and internally have no pantings in your heart; when your mind is like unto a straight-standing wall, you may enter into the Path.
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To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion.
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When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they’re full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don’t consider the past. And they don’t worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.
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If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it’s the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past.
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Buddhas don’t practice nonsense.
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Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.
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To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, “To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path.
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People who don’t see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.
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Once you see your nature, sex is basically immaterial.
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As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free.
BODHIDHARMA