Bodhidharma (Tamil: போதிதர்மன்) was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th/6th century and is traditionally credited as the leading patriarch and transmitter of Zen (Chinese: Chán, Sanskrit: Dhyāna) to China. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolinquan. However, martial arts historians have shown this legend stems from a 17th century qigong manual known as the Yijin Jing.
After becoming a Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma traveled to China. The accounts differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liú Sòng Dynasty (420–479) and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liáng Dynasty (502–557). Bodhidharma was primarily active in the lands of the Northern Wèi Dynasty (386–534).
Modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century.
Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is described as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chinese texts.
The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952) identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Buddha himself. D.T. Suzuki contends that Chán's growth in popularity during the 7th and 8th centuries attracted criticism that it had "no authorized records of its direct transmission from the founder of Buddhism" and that Chán historians made Bodhidharma the 28th patriarch of Buddhism in response to such attacks
Bodhidharma Quotes
- When you observe your delusions, you will know that they are baseless and not dependable. In this way you can cut confusion and doubt. This is what i call wisdom.
- Go beyond language. Go Beyong Thought.
- Discrimination with no-mind is right. Discrimination with mind is Wrong. When one transcends right and wrong, he is truly right.|
- This one life has no form and is empty by nature. If you become attached to any form, you should reject it. If you see an ego, a soul, a birth or a death, reject them all.
- Mind is like the wood or stone from which a person carves an image. If he carves a dragon or a tiger, and seeing it fears it, he is like a stupid person creating a picture of hell and then afraid to face it. If he does not fear it, then his unnecessary thoughts will vanish. Part of the mind produces sight, sound, taste, odor and sensibility, and from them raises greed, anger and ignorance with al] their accompanying likes and dislikes.
- 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.
- All buddhas preach emptiness. Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness, he betrays all buddhas. 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.
- If you don't find a teacher soon, you'll live this life in vain. it's true, you have the buddha-nature. but without the help of a teacher you'll never know it. only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher's help.
- To find a buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a buddha. If you don't see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings and keeping precepts are all useless.
- To find a buddha, all you have to do is see your nature. your nature is the buddha. and the buddha is the person who's free, free of plans, free of cares. if you don't see your nature and run around all day looking somewhere else, you'll never find a buddha. the truth is, there's nothing to find. but to reach such an understanding you need a teacher. and you need to struggle to make yourself understand.
- A sagacious student does not depend on his teacher’s words, but uses his own experience to find the truth. A dull student depends on coming to a gradual understanding through his teacher’s word: a teacher has two kinds of students; one hears the teacher’s words without clinging to the material nor to the immaterial, without attaching to form or to nonform, Without thinking of animate objects or of inanimate objects... This is the Sagacious student; the other, who is avid for understanding, accumulates meanings, and mixes good and bad, is the dull student.
- To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature. unless you see your nature, all this talk about cause and effect is nonsense. buddhas don't practice nonsense. a buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect. to say he attains anything at all is to slander a buddha. what could he possibly attain? Even focusing on a mind, a power, an understanding or a view is impossible for a buddha. a buddha isn't one-sided. the nature of his No-Mind is basically empty, neither pure nor impure. he's free of practice and realization. he's free of cause and effect. A buddha doesn't observe precepts. a buddha doesn't do good or evil. a buddha isn't energetic or lazy. a buddha is someone who does nothing, someone who can't even focus his mind on a buddha.
