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When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

Bodhidharma

Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.
BODHIDHARMA

Arise Awareness Body Buddha Either Mena Mind Prevent
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.
BODHIDHARMA

Ay Basic Perfect Require
Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.
BODHIDHARMA

Come Everything Good Impossible Mind Something
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.
BODHIDHARMA

Body Element Four Mind Move Outside Somewhere
Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Enlightenment Find Grasp Space Try
Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.
BODHIDHARMA

Engage Ignorance Wisdom
Whoever realizes that the six senses aren’t real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of Buddhas.
BODHIDHARMA

Aggregate Anywhere Body Fiction Five Locate Realize Sense Such Thing
The essence of the Way is detachment.
BODHIDHARMA

Death Essence Way
Unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause & effect is nonsense. Buddhas don’t practice nonsense.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Cause Effect Nature Nonsense Practice Talk Unless See
As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves.
BODHIDHARMA

Condition Morais Ourselves Rule
Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.
BODHIDHARMA

Awareness Buddhahood Delusion Mean
The awareness of mortals falls short. As long as they’re attached to appearances, they’re unaware that their minds are empty. And by mistakenly clinging to the appearance of things they lose the Way.
BODHIDHARMA

Appearance Attach Awareness Empty Fall Mind Mortal Short Unaware
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
But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.
BODHIDHARMA

Condition Depend Eanes Failure Mind Neither Success Waxes
The true Way is sublime. It can’t be expressed in language. Of what use are scriptures? But someone who sees his own nature finds the Way, even if he can’t read a word.
BODHIDHARMA

Express Language Scripture Sublime True Use Way
The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Feel Meditation Mind Patience Power

When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

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When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.

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