As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free.
BODHIDHARMAAs long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free.
BODHIDHARMAAll Buddhas preach emptiness. Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness, he betrays all Buddhas.
BODHIDHARMAAn Awakened person is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.
BODHIDHARMATo 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.
BODHIDHARMAStill 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.
BODHIDHARMAWorship means reverence and humility. It means revering your real self and humbling delusions. If you can wipe out evil desires and harbor good thoughts, even if nothing shows, it’s worship. Such form is its real form.
BODHIDHARMATo seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.
BODHIDHARMARegardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.
BODHIDHARMALeaving behind the false, return to the true: make no discriminations between self and others. In contemplation, one’s mind should be stable and unmoving, like a wall.
BODHIDHARMATo give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.
BODHIDHARMAAll the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions.
BODHIDHARMAWithout the mind there is no Buddha. Without the Buddha there’s no mind.
BODHIDHARMATo see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing, and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.
BODHIDHARMAExternally 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.
BODHIDHARMAReality has no inside, outside, or middle part.
BODHIDHARMAOnce you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll be free, even of birth and death. You’ll transform everything.
BODHIDHARMA