Life and death are important. Don’t suffer them in vain.
BODHIDHARMADon’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.
More Bodhidharma Quotes
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If 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?
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Someone who seeks the Way doesn’t look beyond himself.
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According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.
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Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit.
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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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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.
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To have a body is to suffer.
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If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.
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But 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.
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Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.
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Mortals liberate Buddhas and Buddhas liberate mortals.
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Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn’t exist.
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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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Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
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When you don’t understand, you depend on reality. When you do understand, reality depends on you.
BODHIDHARMA