Those who worship don’t know, and those who know don’t worship.
BODHIDHARMAIf 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?
More Bodhidharma Quotes
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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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If your mind is pure, all buddha-lands are pure.
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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.
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Regardless of what we do, our karma has no hold on us.
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The essence of the Way is detachment.
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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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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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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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The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They’re not the Way.
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You can’t know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.
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Unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause & effect is nonsense. Buddhas don’t practice nonsense.
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Worship means reverence and humility. It means revering your real self and humbling delusions. If you can wipe out evil desires and harbor good thoughts, even if nothing shows, it’s worship. Such form is its real form.
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I never lost or fail, not yet conquered. If I fall seven times, I get up eight
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According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.
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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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