Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.
BODHIDHARMABut when you first embark on the Path, your awareness won’t be focused. You’re likely to see all sorts of strange, dreamlike scenes. But you shouldn’t doubt that all such scenes come from your own mind and nowhere else.
More Bodhidharma Quotes
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The Way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting. The Way has no form or sound. It’s subtle and hard to perceive. It’s like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is, but you can’t tell others.
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The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind.
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Not thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the buddha…. Using the mind to reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation.
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Everything sacred, nothing sacred.
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Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.
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To have a body is to suffer.
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But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.
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But this mind isn’t somewhere outside the material body of the four elements. Without this mind we can’t move. The body has no awareness. Like a plant or a stone, the body has no nature. So how does it move? It’s the mind that moves.
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Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.
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All know the way, but few actually walk it.
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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.
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Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.
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Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.
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But deluded people don’t realize that their own mind is the Buddha. They keep searching outside.
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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.
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Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.
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When we’re deluded there’s a world to escape. When we’re aware, there’s nothing to escape.
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The essence of the Way is detachment.
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If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.
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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.
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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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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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People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something – always, in a word, seeking.
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Once you see your nature, sex is basically immaterial.
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An Awakened person is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.
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As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.
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