Quotes About Bodhidharma

Not suffering another existence is reaching the Way.

Poem by Stonehouse I was a Zen monk who didn't know Zen so I chose the woods for the years I had left a robe made of patches over my body a belt of bamboo around my waist mountains and streams explain Bodhidharma's meaning flower smiles and birdsongs reveal the hidden key sometimes I sit on a flat-topped rock after midnight cloudless nights when the moon fills the sky Translated by Red Pine

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.

People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.

But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes.

People who don't see their nature and imagine they can practice thoughtlessness all the time are lairs and fools.

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.

According to the Sutras, evil deeds result in hardships and good deeds result in blessings.

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion." ? Bodhidharma

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure. By this truth, all appearances are empty.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both. Those who don't understand, don't understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding.

If your mind isn't within the three realms, it's beyond them. The three realms correspond to the three poisons: greed corresponds to the realm of desire, anger to the realm of form, and delusion to the formless realm. And because karma created by the poisons can be gentle or heavy, these three realms are further divided into six places known as the six states of existence.

The negative attitude toward the description of ultimate reality by words is common to all Buddhist doctrine. The dictum used by Bodhidharma is only a drastic way of bringing people to this original attitude which underlines the importance of direct spiritual experience and discredits intellectual speculation.

If Bodhidharma is the ideal man, it is because his image is that of a hero who has broken the chains of illusion that enclose man in the world of emotions. The hammer that is used to break these chains is the practice of Zen.

The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure.

finally I went over to an old cook in the doorway of the kitchen and asked him "Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?" (Bodhidharma was the Indian who brought Buddhism eastward to China.) "I don't care," said the old cook, with lidded eyes, and I told Japhy and he said, "Perfect answer, absolutely perfect. Now you know what I mean by Zen.

the Lankavatara Sutra transmitted by Bodhidharma, declared: "There is not a trace of the absolute outside of reality.

Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. He was well known for being fierce and uncompromising. There is a story about how he kept nodding off during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids. When he threw them on the ground, they turned into a tea plant, and then he realized he could simply drink the tea to stay awake!