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.
BODHIDHARMANot suffering another existence is reaching the Way.
More Bodhidharma Quotes
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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.
BODHIDHARMA -
Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form.
BODHIDHARMA -
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.
BODHIDHARMA -
People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something, always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons.
BODHIDHARMA -
In order to see a fish you must watch the water
BODHIDHARMA -
Someone who seeks the Way doesn’t look beyond himself.
BODHIDHARMA -
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 -
All know the way, but few actually walk it.
BODHIDHARMA -
When mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they’re full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don’t consider the past. And they don’t worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.
BODHIDHARMA -
Not creating delusions is enlightenment.
BODHIDHARMA -
Buddhas don’t practice nonsense.
BODHIDHARMA -
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 -
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.
BODHIDHARMA -
One clings to life although there is nothing to be called life; another clings to death although there is nothing to be called death. In reality, there is nothing to be born; consequently, there is nothing to perish.
BODHIDHARMA -
As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free.
BODHIDHARMA