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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.

Bodhidharma

To find a Buddha all you have to do is see your nature.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Find Look Nature See
Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help.
BODHIDHARMA

Enlight Million One Only Person Teacher
The mind is the root from which all things grow. If you can understand the mind, everything else is included.
BODHIDHARMA

Everything Grow Include Mind Root Thing Understand
But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.
BODHIDHARMA

Condition Depend Eanes Failure Mind Neither Success Waxes
As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.
BODHIDHARMA

Condition Morais Ourselves Rule
People who don’t see their own nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are liars and fools.
BODHIDHARMA

Fool Liar Nature People Practice See Thoughtfulness Time
Reality has no inside, outside, or middle part.
BODHIDHARMA

Inside Middle Outside Part Reality
And as long as you’re subject to birth and death, you’ll never attain enlightenment.
BODHIDHARMA

Attain Birth Death Enlightenment Long never Subject
Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit.
BODHIDHARMA

Bear Deed Evil Forse Fruit God Neither
Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form.
BODHIDHARMA

Affliction Buddha Dust Form Nature One Shape True
Leaving 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.
BODHIDHARMA

Behind Discrimination False Leave Make Other Return Self True
When your mind doesn’t stir inside, the world doesn’t arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding.
BODHIDHARMA

Arie Inside Mind Outside Stir World
All 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.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Cling Concrete Crush Emptiness Idea Preach Student
Don’t hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you’ll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you’ll experience the assurance of no rebirth.
BODHIDHARMA

Death Decisions Every Free Hate Keep Life
The mind’s capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind.
BODHIDHARMA

Capacity Inexhasisible Limitless Manifestation Mind
But deluded people don’t realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Develop Keep Mind Own People Realize Search

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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