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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?

Bodhidharma

Our nature is the mind. And the mind is our nature.
BODHIDHARMA

Mind Nature Our Own
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.
BODHIDHARMA

Awareness Embark First Focus Path
But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.
BODHIDHARMA

Condition Depend Eanes Failure Mind Neither Success Waxes
Trying to find a buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space.
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Enlightenment Find Grasp Space Try
Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.
BODHIDHARMA

Anything Lying Once People Sitting Think
To 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.
BODHIDHARMA

Dharma Nothing Perceive See Understand Wa
As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you’ll never see that your own mind is the Buddha
BODHIDHARMA

Buddha Long Mind never Somewhere
Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.
BODHIDHARMA

Engage Ignorance Wisdom
The essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.
BODHIDHARMA

Appearance Detach Essence Freedom Goal Practice Way
Everything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.
BODHIDHARMA

Come Everything Good Impossible Mind Something
Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice.
BODHIDHARMA

Basically Lead Many Path Practice Reason Road
Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.
BODHIDHARMA

Delusion Humility Mean Real Reverence Revering Self Worship
And as long as you’re subject to birth and death, you’ll never attain enlightenment.
BODHIDHARMA

Attain Birth Death Enlightenment Long never Subject
The Buddha is your real body, your original mind.
BODHIDHARMA

Body Budhha Mind Original Rel
To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.
BODHIDHARMA

Accept Awareness Buddha End Karma Mortal Nurture
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

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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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bodhidharma Quotes